Timeline

1. Formation is a technology platform that support practice and mentorship in pretty many any information area, and we have been exploring other areas, like this one [https://formation.dev/ai-native-ea](https://formation.dev/ai-native-ea) 2. For SWEs - we're seeing more and more senior, strong background engineers coming to us because there is fierce competition for those senior jobs. We have thousands of pieces of content and are constantly adapting to the changing landscape.

There is zero excuse for this. The number of times Codesmith has fucked up and promised "audits" and other things and then continued to spew out user information is ridiculous. Will Sentence has to own this, take responsibility, fix it, prevent it from happening again. Until then, absolutely zero defence.

CODESMITH: Can you please shut down CSX? It's spewing out user data and content and hasn't been updated in years. Codesmith's "free learning platform" that they claim can get you an "entry level job" by completing is one of the worst pieces of software I've seen in ed-tech. For example, this URL gives the ENTIRE CONTENT IN ITS ENTIRETY away in a single click: [https://csx.codesmith.io/api/yaml/all](https://csx.codesmith.io/api/yaml/all) This isn't a secret or a hack, it's literally just fetched when you login to load all the content and is freely available to the internet, no authentication. Next, anyone can just grab all the user data for any user they want. For example, this is my user data: [https://csx.codesmith.io/users/95526](https://csx.codesmith.io/users/95526) and I give you permission to open it and look at it. DO NOT look at other users data because that can be a gray a…

</BOOTCAMPS> ❤️ OFFICIAL MEMORIAL POST: share this around and tell your old bootcamp stories in the comments. So we can close the bootcamp chapter on a positive note. I asked **CIRR 30 days ago** where the 2024-25 **missing reports** are. I did not get a response. This tells me CIRR is dead and its flagship Codesmith is dead. Other bootcamps we've lost are: Rithm, Turing, Codeup, Kenzie, Launch Academy, Momentum, Alchemy, Epicodus, Lighthouse Labs, 2U/Trilogy, Lambda School, and more. Unlike the embarrassing end that CIRR and Codesmith are experiencing - too ashamed to end on a positive note and instead end in layoffs and utter silence, I want things to end on a positive. If you graduated from a coding bootcamp in the past, and it changed your life, TELL US YOUR STORY. No selling or shilling, just tell us how coding impacted your life and in the right time and right place your bootcam…

there's a few related things in New York City because there's enough density but it is very hard to find any boot camp that has any in person anymore. it's not even about the like quality of the learning. it's that renting space for a large group of people in a density is extremely expensive and most boot camps are dead now and they don't even exist and the ones that are on life support don't have the money to pay for that lease. Codesmith was allegedly paying like $75,000 a month for their lease in New York City that they dropped and left the state entirely. so if you need like four students a month just to pay your lease. never mind all of your staff that's not going to work when you have like a handful of enrollments a year now. it does sound like taking a community college course might be a good thing for you like to look at. it'll cost significantly less. the material will be…

this link: [https://prachub.com/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_campaign=andy](https://prachub.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=andy) note the utm\_source = reddit and the utm\_campaign = andy. This was something that some account was doing with Codesmith, posting links all across Reddit pretending to be a "student" sharing a helpful link, and the link contained UTM params like this. I called them out and the person said they got the link from the Codesmith subreddit, so I searched the sub Reddit exhaustively and found no such link... confronted again... the person stopped posting and didn't reply. I'm royally pissed off at Lars Lofgren for spreading such bullshit about my moderation because he has no fucking idea how to moderate Reddit - or he does and just wants good guys like me gone so he can get away with his sketchy stuff himself?

Will is a gifted lecturer. He's terrible at running a business: [https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith) I bet you didn't know he allegedly sold 70% of Codesmith to investors in 2015. I recommended many people go to Codesmith and the story is false. Don't be scammed.

Codesmith doesn't have any non-Future Code activity that I see in the past few months... maybe a handful of students? Most of the people on their website aren't employed there anymore. I didn't talk about Codesmith for months and things got WORSE. People didn't realize how I recommended so many people go there. Codesmith leaders really focused on the wrong thing here and I blame Will Sentance. People have been shocked to see all the stuff he withheld during this time.

There is a lot of stuff going on, but yes, Lars Lofgren's garbage work that appears to be spoon fed to him by Codesmith is all exposed yes. Either he published the stuff they sent him without fact checking, or he's just a terrible "investigative journalist" And either way, his credibility is gone in my opinion because neither excuse is valid.

Well read this before you trust Lars Lofgren with anything... https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith I'm not a perfect human, but I'm fully transparent, honest, direct... wear my heart on my sleeve. Lars has a black-hat mind and trying to pull me down to his level.

A Response to Lars Lofgren's Codesmith Piece Lars Lofgren is not a reliable source of reporting. He is an SEO marketer who claims to know all the black had tricks on Reddit and falsely assumes my actions are textbook examples of his own strategies. He's trying to turn a Reddit good guy into a villain to cover up his own sketchy SEO practices... conflict of interest? He displayed malicious intent by calling me out with incorrect facts and intentionally not requesting comment from me and blocking me online when the piece came out. Violating standard Journalism Ethics Guidelines.

I was doing research into Lambda but another person published and I stopped then. People are starting to send me stuff about Gauntlet and I'm asking questions. I never had any issue whatsoever looking into bootcamps because they had no conflict of interest, but Gauntlet overlaps more in 'upsklling' or helping existing engineers so I have to be more careful to maintain transparency. People are telling me about a lot of non-engineers doing Gauntlet so if it's really a bootcamp in disguise, it's fair game. If it's more competitive with my company then I have to run in by legal. Based on the whole Lars Lofgren bullshit though, like it might not be worth it... very torn between trying to help people but if all it gets me is negative attacks, I have to weight if it's worth it.

The 118m is a total maximum for all partners for all 5 years of the BPA, and historically BPAs pay only a fraction of that. What this looks like is that the IRS allocated $118M to a big bucket for hiring people and upskilling people over the next 5 years but with zero commitment to how that happens yet. The IRS has a large contract with Palantir to modernize stuff already that is separate for example and maybe that works better than expected.

So the partners that have been around for 10 years doing government contracting have expertise in this. The new people who have like 3 employees and chatgpt heo to do it have zero value to offer Which is my point in another thread. I think Codesmith and Gauntlet benefit more by making it seem like they are partnered with the IRS for legitimacy and they probably won't make a lot of money from this. The people who have taught five other government agencies about COBOL already have an edge, even if Codesmith or Gauntlet could do a better job... the cost of them developing the COBOL expertise to teach it at the bar they want might not even break even for them financially. Like I said, maybe Gauntlet has the cash to burn to build that position. Codesmith doesn't appear to given the public appearance of no or few non-Future Code students there recently.

It's not like the movie War Dogs haha! The IRS has had so many cuts and freezes I really don't think they are dishing out millions for garbage. I think they are creating a highly competitive process to get all the services they want for the cheapest possible price. Gauntlet claims to be doing well so they might have the money to underprice but being in a competitive business is not the way to make money. Mom&Pop corner restaurants often don't make it. Having a monopoly is how you make money. I feel like this is probably a trap. Codesmith's press release about "being selected" was fully of blatant manipulations of the truth and given then full pivot to "enterprise" and the fact that they made a Case Study document of all of their IRS work they claim to have done (which government sources still show as $0 paid out), it seems like the play here is to leverage the IRS branding to try…

This isn't a loan at all no. The way it works is the IRS has earmarked $118M of budget towards a huge bucket of AI initiatives. As they carve out specific projects with specific dollar amounts, the partners will be able to pitch themselves and one or more will take the project. It's possible the $118M won't be used up. In fact, historically, most BPAs do not use up anywhere near the allocated amount. It's there so that it's preserved on paper. But if priorities change or government shuts down or shrinks the IRS, etc... then its possible they pay out $0. So in reality individual companies might get $0. Codesmith said they had a huge vetting process and being selected was a sign of how good Codesmith is, but looking at the growing list of companies... it seems like everyone with their paperwork in order will get a chance and that the real competition is for delivering future results,…

BREAKING: IRS $118M BPA for Hiring and Training - 3 more companies including Gauntlet AI added to join FedStack and Lantec/Codesmith. More companies coming soon. SOURCE: [https://orangeslices.ai/treasury-dept-ocio-awards-118m-technical-workforce-development-and-training-bpa/](https://orangeslices.ai/treasury-dept-ocio-awards-118m-technical-workforce-development-and-training-bpa/) Some news broke earlier this year with a press release from Codesmith: "Codesmith Selected for $118M IRS Contract" and a number of people felt this meant that Codesmith received a check for $118M. That's not the case. The $118M is a ceiling for training and hiring for the IRS, and the IRS just added three more partners to the contract, with more expected to be added. Super interesting to see the pie being split up and fought over by competing companies and it seems they want as many contenders as possible.…

BREAKING: IRS $118M BPA for Hiring and Training - 3 more companies include Gauntlet AI added to Joining FedStack and Lantec/Codesmith. More companies coming soon. SOURCE: [https://orangeslices.ai/treasury-dept-ocio-awards-118m-technical-workforce-development-and-training-bpa/](https://orangeslices.ai/treasury-dept-ocio-awards-118m-technical-workforce-development-and-training-bpa/) Some news broke earlier this year with a press release from Codesmith: "Codesmith Selected for $118M IRS Contract" and a number of people felt this meant that Codesmith received a check for $118M. That's not the case. The $118M is a ceiling for training and hiring for the IRS, and the IRS just added three more partners to the contract, with more expected to be added. Super interesting to see the pie being split up and fought over by competing companies and it seems they want as many contenders as possible.…

u/Gullible_Mousse_4590 here is the debunking: https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith Either you didn't know about all of this stuff and you want to correct all of your misinformation or you did already know everything in here and all your posts calling me a liar are defamatory.

I proved this here and yes you are a proven Codesmith alt and shame on you for what you've said and done online, absolutely disgusting and no surprise Codesmith enrollment has tanked to zero with people like you sneaking around with those alts. [https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)

You clearly didn't read the rebuttal piece which has an entire section on this. If you have questions about that section let me know but I believe it fully debunks. Here's an additional example showing how completely the two services are, but read the actual post because I spent a lot of time writing 8000 dismantling all of Lars arguments so if you are going to read his post you have to read mine too. https://preview.redd.it/g55k0malxdzg1.png?width=1512&format=png&auto=webp&s=98643623e21c13d7ac24aab8ea6cb40b73b9a9c2

Looks like their individual programs are toast? The SEO tags now say: TITLE: Enterprise AI Engineering Training \&amp; Workforce Transformation | Codesmith DESCRIPTION: Build AI-ready engineering teams with Codesmith. Trusted by leading organizations and awarded a $118M US Treasury contract, we train engineers to design, build, and scale AI systems faster. Zero mention of their normal programs - 100% enterprise.

Yeah like if he even just asked me for comment I would have pointed out his OWN mistakes in his own evidence. Like he didn't realize a key screenshot trying to demonstrate how I poisoned LLMs has a quote of me defending the bootcamp (because it wasn't labelled). He mixed up the timeframe of two events 2 years apart and framed it as me being a 'stalker of leadership's kids'... people are calling me a 'p-word' in some of the social comments and it's absolutely unwarranted. Lars has blocked me on every avenue and I have no way to contact him. I submitted a request to pull my personal email address from his blog because people were signing me up for porn subscriptions and he seems to have done that but didn't not actually respond to me. I care less here about being right and more about the irreparable damage caused by him not fact checking anything. 8000 words of all the shit he missed,…

Lars: [https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/](https://larslofgren.com/codesmith-reddit-reputation-attack/) Me: [https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith) This is about a coding bootcamp that collapsed and blamed $9.2M of damages on ME alone on Reddit and I systematically debunked everything he wrote. He didn't ask for comment from me and I would have fact checked. Even his own evidence had mistakes he didn't realized I would have pointed out. So I'm just super confused because he can't be THAT MUCH of an idiot right? Like He seems to pride himself in taking down scams. So I'm trying to see if this is just some kind of SEO thing trying to spread without really knowing who he was dealing with here. I took down a whole bad-actor Reddit Marketer and all of…

I said I would respond when I can, and I did with 8000 words/evidence debunking Lars' claims. **A Response to Lars Lofgren's Codesmith Piece.** I'm not going to write too much here about this, I just want the public record to reflect both sides of this. I've had enough of being called a 'p-word' for 'stalking' leader's 'kids' when that was a completely false, wrong, and inaccurate representation of what happened. I'm still reserving my right to take legal action. I would appreciate that anyone who spread the original Lars post, or believed it, read my piece and evidence shared. It's only fair. Even those deep in the Codesmith community who felt like Lars' every word rang true - you need to see what your leaders were actually doing and saying and what they allegedly actually knew. It's very possible that the story Will Sentance has been telling you for years is bullshit. This piece co…

u/reddingdave you have been going after me very hard, so I would appreciate you read the debunking. Given how hard and relentlessly you went after across Reddit, its really disingenuous if you don't. My post doesn't paint me as being right, but it presents the situation as a messy two sides multi-year argument, rather than a one-sided harassment campaign.

When people call you a stalking p-word because of en entirely fabricate and fake narrative that I systematically debunked and proved that Lars told a made up timeline of events surrounding the claims I stalked 'leaders' kids' you sure as hell bet I'm going to defend myself. I'm operating fairly and in public and when the other side is lying to your face and caught with contradicting text messages and evidence on several occasions, it's not right and people need to know what happened. So they don't get fucked over by people like you and Lars in the future.

I finally am able to respond and I debunked the hit piece: [https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith) If you spent the time to read that original thing, please take the time to read the other side

What's the defense for an instructor telling their students in an official career class to lie on their resumes because Codesmith will back them up? [https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)

True to my word, I wanted to take the time to write an equally detailed reply. For all the shit I got, the least you can do is read the equally long response. [https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith](https://michaelnovati.substack.com/p/a-response-to-lars-lofgrens-codesmith)