Live data from Hacker News

BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

techcrunch.com

151–160 of 333 posts

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the people I saw get successful were people were people doing like... extra stuff outside of the classes. They were taking what they learned and applying it. Others organized groups of people, and essentially formed a small support network of people in a similar position. I completely understand that not everyone has the time for that. I think two things happened over Lambda's life span that effected the qual…

> Most of the people I saw get successful were people were people doing like... extra stuff outside of the classes. They were taking what they learned and applying it. Is this a knock on Lambda School, though? You can go to MIT but if you never apply your learnings you won't be a good engineer.

Going through the motions of a CS degree is probably sufficient to land a decent job if you're getting good grades, not cheating, and you get an internship (or similar).

At least from what I've heard of bootcamps, you need to really go above and beyond to have similar chances with that route.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently advertised a role and had over 2000 applicants (yes, really). The vast majority of applicants went through bootcamps. Personally, I'm fine with that, heck, I'm Head of Engineering and I'm a university drop-out i.e. didn't even complete a course! One thing that irked me was bootcamps that have clearly told students to mark on their CV that they were somehow employed at the bootcamp. When I'm getting 50+ app…

> Well, my other advice to candidates is cover letters, cover letters cover letters. No seriously, cover letters! I just throw the cover letters in the bin...

Yep, a lot of companies would bin them for unconscious bias reasons too.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* They lied about how many students get jobs, which damaged their reputation and is the source of active lawsuits No we did not. We've been over this again and again, and I know you understand that this isn't true. The misconception comes form comparing two different measures: one that is (hired students making more than $50k/enrolled students), which we share with investors because that indicates how much we get pai…

> We've been over this again and again, and I know you understand that this isn't true, but don't care. The misconception comes form comparing two different measures: one that is (hired students making more than $50k/enrolled students), the other (hired students/graduated students) Your website, September 2019: https://web.archive.org/web/20190930144525/https://lambdasch... "86% of Lambda School graduates are hired w…

Oh boy, you keep taking all sorts of things out of context and comparing all sorts of things that don't make any sense to each other.

A couple months ago I said our outcomes currently are the best they've ever been. That is a different set of students than those included in that outcomes report, and it is from a smaller subset than an entire years' worth of average placement. If you try to take a very specific comment and take it out of context to prove it false, it just gets very tiresome. I don't know whether it's intentional or not, but you continually, over and over, take two numbers that are not the same thing whatsoever and compare them or multiply them or whatever else and it simply makes no sense.

> Would you mind sharing whether or not your outcomes report includes the upset students you pressured into signing NDAs?

Our outcomes report includes zero students who signed NDAs, and there were zero students who signed NDAs of any kind in 2021.

The number of students who have signed NDAs _ever_ is tiny, probably > When you unveiled the program, it was unpaid. It was right there in the FAQ: "This program is part of Lambda School for the Fellow and as such, is not paid."

This is fair - there were students who just wanted experience even if unpaid, and the initial intent was to build it into the school itself literally with no pay. I changed my mind on that one after conversations with a few students, and we changed the design as you pointed out, but no student ever did any unpaid work, so it's also not accurate to say that we had a bunch of students doing unpaid work.

> It was not a qualified educational loan. Section 523(a)(8) is all about how student loans are not dischargeable.

Ironically other regulatory bodies disagree with the DFPI on this one, and part of the issue of ISAs is everyone wants to regulate it differently but there's no agreement between the parties - we'll see how it shakes out. But again, there's no malintent here, simply our lawyers doing the best they can to fit into a regulatory regime where laws are unclear (and at times even directly conflict).

> After you tried to spin that settlement, the DFPI called out your blog post as deceptive.

The DFPI isn't commenting on that clause in this, they're commenting on a sentence in our blog post (which our legal team thought they had agreed to) that said (i'm paraphrasing) we fixed the ISA to make it as the DFPI had requested.

The DFPI wanted us to amend to say that they're not necessarily saying that _everything_ that is in the ISA is what they want, but that we did clear up the thing that they asked us to clear up.

I think the important point here is that you're trying to spin this as malice and evil committed by an evil company, when in fact this is actually clarifying fine print of legal documents between multiple regulatory bodies.

OK, I really am spending too much time here now. I remember distinctly when you told The Verge that our iOS curriculum didn't include things that would get a student through a phone screen, I offered a bounty to your favorite charity for you to point out any single thing that we were missing, and you backtracked and said, "Well some of your students' code on github wasn't very good."

I don't know why this has become such a personal grudge. You clearly think we're an evil company and are never going to cease attempting to connect whatever dots you can find to prove that, but just know that you're wrong, and we're nothing more than a whole bunch of people doing our absolute best to sustainably help folks improve their lives, and that we have _thousands_ of success stories of having done so.

I think if you met the people who are working day in and day out at BloomTech you would see there's not a malicious bone in the body of anyone working there, and we're trying to do something really difficult and help millions of folks move into tech and change their lives in very ambiguous regulatory waters. We're not yet successful in reaching millions, but there are many thousands of success stories, and I think our rates of success and what we charge are incredibly fair in any scenario. If you went around trying your hardest to find good things to say about the work that we do you would find just as much (if not more) to point to.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will happily defend everything I’ve said in a courtroom if necessary.

I will bet $1,000 to the charity of your choice that you will settle your personal lawsuit— the one on this very matter— before your day in court.

You have no idea how much I'm _yearning_ for a day in court. The problem is it costs millions of dollars to get to that point.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#155
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter was continually on the cusp of breakeven and would have lost money the quarter ahead of Musk's takeover had they not sold MoPub. Even before Musk took over they had planned on a 25% headcount reduction. Their revenue per employee pales in comparison to other companies of its ilk, and I think we would disagree whether SAP and Oracle are well-run companies :)

> Twitter was continually on the cusp of breakeven This also fits the model where they have a large relatively fixed cost base to operate, but could reap profits if they reached a larger elusive size. Again -- my hypothesis is they are tooled for hyper growth and the business has not been able to deliver that. Giving up on high growth and cutting to profitability is part of the stock PE playbook and definitely makes…

> Interesting perspective, I meant it in the sense that they have operated for decades in competitive industries while making oceans of real profit for shareholders over that period. Most of us would be fortunate to run companies as poorly. :-)

Very true, but Twitter has lightning in a bottle captured the way few other companies do.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say I was cheering; I was simply acknowledging that, though difficult, Twitter certainly has too many employees for the amount of revenue they're bringing in, and I am skeptical of claims that Twitter will cease to function as they go from 8,000 employees to whatever the new number is (2,500 seems to be the latest)? There's certainly internal knowledge that is lost in a transition of that kind, but the amo…

It was the way the layoffs were conducted which was the objectionable part. Not even taking a week to assess means it was just haphazard.

That is fair.

Elon took an 8,000 person company and went full "move fast and break things" mode.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Is that how we now treat execs who bother to come directly address criticism aimed at their companies on HN? This is one the few places on the web that happens. You can still disagree with him if you want, but coming here to talk with us directly is respectable IMO. Focus on the arguments and not ad hominem.

If he's going to lie, yes.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#158
post #6

Has anyone had success hiring bootcamp grads? I’ve interviewed dozens and their resume will say something like “Fellow at [bootcamp]” or “Instructor at [bootcamp]”, and it turns out they made a simple programming 101 app and taught a 1hr intro to JavaScript class. None have ever passed an initial screening by me for mid level dev jobs, but I’m curious if anyone else has hired a bootcamp grad for a junior role and had…

Yeah, we found an amazing engineer through one of the bootcamp programs. It might have helped that she had a math degree and so she probably started with an analytical approach but either way, she did really well. This was in a rapidly growing enterprise software company with rigorous reviews.

There was definitely some bias against it in a few corners of our group but by and large, most didn't care. Ironically, the guy on the team that didn't like her because she came from a coding bootcamp (he had a CS degree) was by far my worst performer.

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that how we now treat execs who bother to come directly address criticism aimed at their companies on HN? This is one the few places on the web that happens. You can still disagree with him if you want, but coming here to talk with us directly is respectable IMO. Focus on the arguments and not ad hominem.

If he's going to lie, yes.

Feel free to point out where I lie

Re: BloomTech, previously Lambda School, cuts half of staff

#160

The CEO was cheering on when Musk laid off half the company. Not surprised.

I wouldn't say I was cheering; I was simply acknowledging that, though difficult, Twitter certainly has too many employees for the amount of revenue they're bringing in, and I am skeptical of claims that Twitter will cease to function as they go from 8,000 employees to whatever the new number is (2,500 seems to be the latest)? There's certainly internal knowledge that is lost in a transition of that kind, but the amo…

> Twitter certainly has too many employees for the amount of revenue they're bringing in

Twitter was profitable (pre-Musk acquisition, and ignoring a one-time lawsuit settlement that wasn't an ongoing expense); it objectively did not have too much headcount (or other recurring expenses) for its revenue, prior to the added expense burden of debt service costs it was saddled with by Musk as part of the acquisition.

Their recent failure to properly execute payroll in some European jurisdictions, and the fact that they apparently no longer have sufficient account managers to even stay in contact with major advertisers at a time when they are trying desperately to actively manage those relationships and maintain them despite the distrust the takeover has engendered seem to be signs that the cuts were to deep on the non-technical side for the operation that Twitter is trying to run; I don’t see any real analytical reason to reject that the same is true on technical side.

(And that’s before considering that the reductions also seem likely to have broken both contract and, in many jurisdictions, labor laws, and legal costs associated with that are starting to mount, with at least one case already lost.)

Post reply on HN