News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by FridayoLeary on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @09:56PM (#45522648)
Hello. It's nice to be able to interact directly with the subject of the article, so thanks for coming on. It's a shame you're being downvoted, because it would definitely be interesting to hear your perspective. This can't be a pleasant experience for you.

I have a couple of questions for you. Firstly the article really didn't hold back about you in a way that you don't usually see. But he makes very specific and verifiable claims. The owner blames the market for 40% of their decline and you for another 40%. You have made over 400 negative comments about the company over the last couple of years. You run the subreddit as a bad faith mod, and you run a rival company so you have an interest in the decline of codesmith. Those are some of the accusations laid against you by the article.

I would be interested in hearing what you have to say about them. Obviously i don't expect you to say anything that might create legal issues for yourself. But you have opinions that youre not shy of expressing. The article was perhaps not wholly neutral so maybe you can clarify your side of the story. Do you have a specific problem with codesmith? why do you care so much about them? Is it because they are competitiors? Do you take such an active role on reddit in order to promote your own interests, outside of creating and maintaining a better community?

To be clear i'm a completely random guy with no skin in the game, just looking for answers.

[edit to reply: There is no plausible scenario that my life will depend on the answer. Literally the only reason i'm on here is for casual chit chat. Frankly, this might be life changing for some people, but i'm really not too invested in the story so i don't mind opening some dialogue in good faith from my end.]

Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by ctippett on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @10:40PM (#45522940)
This is a wonderfully mature and constructive comment.

I appreciate this is off-topic, but I really wanted to highlight/praise what you'd written. It came across to me as very "HN" and the guidelines appear to corroborate this...

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by FridayoLeary on Thursday October 09, 2025 @08:41AM (#45526840)
Thanks for that. I've been through the guidelines a dozen times. Following them is really the best possible way to have genuinely interesting and constructive dialogue. My last account got banned so i've been trying to do better. It's amazing how much some good faith conversation can get you, i feel in the time i've been here it's helped me develop better patterns of thought and argument techniques, i would say the most important lesson i've learned is to debate in good faith as much as possible and being honest with yourself about what you know and don't know. Most of the users on this thread are just looking to shut michael down, and expressing their opinion that he's an awful person... It's really very tiresome and boring. I have enough confidence in people here that they can hear what he has to say and make their own judgement.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by bluishgreen on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @10:15PM (#45522780)
You should be able to identify badfaith because your life depends on it. Otherwise you will drown in a pit of bothsides. Bad way to go.

Next we should hear from the counter party is from a court filing. Not here. This is well past having a chill chat on hackernews.

Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by michaelnovati on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @10:55PM (#45523012)
Yeah I'll I'm going to say for now is that if all your competitors (that I spoke positively about) are shutting down and shrinking and laying people off... there's more to the story. A sad story about an industry dying that should be told.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by vachina on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @11:53PM (#45523313)
There’s a pattern to the way you communicate, where you always end things at a cliffhanger.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by truakon89 on Friday October 10, 2025 @03:09PM (#45542596)
He converses like male Karoline Levitt
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by cap11235 on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @11:19PM (#45523141)
Great, then give us more to the story.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by LilBytes on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @11:50PM (#45523293)
With sources.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by michaelnovati on Thursday October 09, 2025 @12:16AM (#45523431)
Start with this and let me know what you think of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/codingbootcamp/comments/18cpq98/ana...
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by baobun on Thursday October 09, 2025 @01:10AM (#45523755)
I'm sorry, what does anything there have to do with any of the claims people in this thread are asking you to back up?

I don't see anything there that adds anything to the story except solidifying the picture of you as an obsessive stalker. It certainly doesn't help your case.

In case I overlooked some key detail, please point it out.

Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by LilBytes on Thursday October 09, 2025 @02:18AM (#45524159)
We're getting sent around in circles, he has nothing.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by michaelnovati on Thursday October 09, 2025 @03:43AM (#45524728)
I commented on the moderation stuff only for now, https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=45524707&goto=item%3Fi...
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by Montymio on Thursday October 09, 2025 @01:17AM (#45523799)
So the article shows clearly that your graduates do the same exact thing. Grads from Harvard do it. But that doesn’t mean Harvard is telling them to do it. Job seekers are gonna be job seekers. But for you to basically stalk these grads and collect data on them…when they’re not even YOUR grads?? bonkers man. you have no place being a mod. It’s everything broken about the fucking internet right now.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by mikelovenotwar on Thursday October 09, 2025 @04:36AM (#45525067)
> It’s everything broken about the fucking internet right now.

This sums it up. The attitude and behaviours deemed by this man as acceptable are a highly problematic, and a contributor the cesspool that the internet has become.

Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by kjs3 on Thursday October 09, 2025 @12:24AM (#45523483)
Were you a moderator for them as well?
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by Montymio on Thursday October 09, 2025 @01:20AM (#45523818)
“it’s a sad story” is such an “aw shucks”, condescending sorta bullshit thing to say. I’ve read your posts where you claimed to be bullied as a kid (which i’m obviously sorry for if true), but to then channel that into becoming the bully yourself? That’s 1000% on you, Michael.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by Hadriel on Thursday October 09, 2025 @01:35AM (#45523913)
Michael for what it's worth I went to Codesmith back in 2016 lol and even then Will was a lil greasy with his marketing! LOL
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by baubino on Thursday October 09, 2025 @04:01AM (#45524845)
You keep saying that there’s more to the story but then won’t say what that ‘more’ is. If the article is truly not a truthful accounting of events, you have the opportunity here to set the record straight. That you are not doing that only reinforces everything the article is claiming.
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by michaelnovati on Thursday October 09, 2025 @03:47AM (#45524753)
I commented on the moderation stuff only to start, https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=45524707&goto=item%3Fi...
Re:A Competitor Crippled a $23.5M Bootcamp by Becoming a Red... by efreak on Thursday October 09, 2025 @10:04PM (#45534812)
This is a link to reply to a post that cannot be used by anyone who doesn't have an account. For anyone else browsing without being logged in (or using a client that can't parse the link), the post URL is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45524707