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I liken the bootcamp business to the mortgage lending business before the subprime crisis.

In the beginning, there were plenty of candidates that were suited for careers in software engineering. Now we are at the point where each school has fewer great candidates so they market to a bigger audience.

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They have fewer great candidates (if that is even true) because the hip candidates are looking for the ladder somewhere else-- they can now see they will never get hired based on skill alone, however well developed for a beginner.(and if they had golden personal connections to add to it, they were in the first wave and/or would not be desperate for work) They all have ambitious, skilled, motivated friends who recently spent money on these bootcamps and who didn't get work that was any better than the work they took the course to get out of in the first place. Many can't find work at all. This is getting out there now, from student to student. There is now enough of a din to finally hear above the denials. But I agree, the bootcamps need to demand more of themselves so they don't end up all being hucksters to the few people who are so far away from tech in their lives, they have not yet heard that the ladder has been pulled up long ago. I hope they can learn how to innovate on a grand scale.

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