Comment by kjs3

6 days ago

Follow the money.

I agree with other commenters - it's not always about money. Sometimes a customer just had a good experience with a product, and it catches.

Marketers love this sort of organic promotion. That doesn't make it less authentic.

I don't think I've ever seen this phrase used about a conspiracy that actually happened. It always just ends up that they misread something.

Especially in politics, casual observers assume everything is about money (especially shadowy "corporations") but politicians are almost always legitimately ideological, which is actually worse!

  • Would love to read some examples! The most offensive things I know about that spring to mind have all been about either money or saving face.

    • "The Iraq War was for oil" -> the Iraq War was because Dick Cheney felt like it. Noone made any money or got any oil and in general US defense companies make /less/ money during war than peacetime.

      "Housing is expensive because Blackstone/BlackRock bought all the houses and is keeping them empty to raise prices" -> very common online and couldn't be less true if it tried.

      "X politician gets donations from big tech companies" -> 99% comes from misreading donations on OpenSecrets from /employees of a company/ as if they were the company itself, but employees have different interests than their employer.

Agreed, try to figure out how I benefit in any way from Codesmith's decline. Not theoretical, but hard facts. I know of THREE people that considered going to Codesmith and went to Formation instead. One of them I tried very hard to convince to go to Codesmith and she instead got a job on her own and then came to Formation.

All of this for three customers? It doesn't add up and there are some missing pieces in the story.

  • Here’s why i think you do it— it’s because if Codesmith can do what it says it does, which it clearly can from everything I see, and which would make them a direct competitor to Formation, then you and Formation benefit by either, a) talking them out of Codesmith indirectly by bashing Codesmith relentlessly on reddit and creating a haze of doubt, or more likely maybe— b) you create self doubt for Codesmith grads so that they’ll then feel like they need Formation somehow. In other words, your near daily posts on reddit help turn Codesmith grads in a sales funnel for formation. Either way, it’s gross behavior.

  • It's widely agreed in your sub that you over post, are overly critical of CS, fail to moderate your friends (or possibly socks) like u/Ok-Donuts, and are generally a bad moderator and should step down.

    Also you have failed to refute anything in the OP.

  • >Agreed, try to figure out how I benefit in any way from Codesmith's decline.

    According to your Hacker News post history, you are the co-founder of Formation.dev. Source: https://www.codesmith.io/

    It does not seem that far-fetched that you benefit as the founder of a company that is competing against bootcamp companies like Codemsith.

  • I know of THREE people

    Well That Settles It. /sarcasm

    P.S. - quit saying there are some missing pieces in the story until you are going to fill in the rest of the story. You keep saying it, and you are pegging to 11 the bullshit meter of people (like me) who never heard of you or your company (which I won't get near with a 10m pole next time training budget is on the table) or the companies you clearly tried targeted.

    P.P.S. - Get a media consultant. Seriously, you suck at this.

    • > Get a media consultant. Seriously, you suck at this

      Well the author thinks I'm a mastermind marketer ... maybe I'm not and I'm just a person frustrated with a company that I pointed out problems to for years, they did nothing about them, and those same problems caused their implosion.

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  • Why did you obsessively stalk and harass people? Very, very weird behavior.

    • Stalking is a serious allegation.

      If you want to publish your projects everywhere under the sun in public and ask for them to be 'stared on Github', giving people a script to instantly vote 50 claps on Medium, etc...

      Then I can open up those people's LinkedIns and note down how they represent themselves.

      Is that weird? I don't think so but you can decide, but it's not stalking and harassing.

      If that's stalking then the guy who wrote the post was stalking the hell out of me.

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