Skillsoft Buys Codecademy for $525M
skillsoft.com
skillsoft.com
Best of luck in this new chapter for your company, your team, your loved ones, and your life.
You're also reminding me that I've been on here for 10 years.
(Also, great to see someone from my high school class doing huge things. Well done!)
Thanks again
Show HN: Codecademy.com, the easiest way to learn to code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2901156 - Aug 2011 (232 comments)
Codecademy Surges To 200,000 Users, 2.1 Million Lessons Completed In 72 Hours - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2914854 - Aug 2011 (75 comments)
"dang, thanks for resurfacing these!"
I always wanted to work for a big company so I managed to land a role at a large network provider and when they found out I was interested in scripting they dubbed me the automation guy so I started writing a huge python/expect script that could do automated troubleshooting on these vendor systems that previously could only be navigated with SSH commands. Basically I truly learned Python doing this along with reading "Fluent Python" cover to cover. I recall days of frustration chasing bugs when I finally tracked it down to copying variables from lists without doing deepcopy() and having them modified later. My coworkers complained about speed to load data so I had to learn about multithreading and GIL so I could lazy load data. Then an old coworker reached out about a snazzy new startup so I went there to do this newfangled DevOps thing.
The DevOps role is where I was forced to round out my overall language awareness (not exactly learning the languages) so I could help manage the CI/CD pipelines and supporting infrastructure. For example, I had to learn that C# was compiled and developer machines were special snowflakes that compiled things differently. Days of frustration digging into to "compiles on my machine, your TeamCity is broke" type stuff. I had to use a lot of my sysadmin knowledge to prep machine images and do VMWare bootstrapping stuff which requires some healthy scripting. I was one of a few Linux guys so I was dubbed Hadoop dude (bought an O'Reily Hadoop book and read cover to cover) and my python scripting came in handy here plus had to buff up on bash. Started getting frustrated with the dynamic nature of Python and not being able to hand a script off to someone and expect it to work on their machine so I did some googling and learned that I needed to learn a compiled language. Golang sounded cool so I started teaching myself this. Startup life was getting to be a drag so I took an opportunity and another massive corporation doing Cloud stuff (new hotness, right?).
Massive Corporation was trying to govern triple digit AWS accounts with a newly hired team of 4 people--what could go wrong? The only way to be successful at this is to code automation. At this point I had to live and breath Golang/Python/AWS-SDK to survive. At this point I was being nudged into taking a people manager role and I'd been around the block enough to know in my bones that bad leadership was the source of a lot of engineer frustration so I felt obligated to at least try it. Now I'm pretty much full time leader and haven't coded anything in about a year but my job now is to spot talent, call BS, and nip bad ideas/programs in the bud.
I can't tell you how many stupid, pointless technologies I dug into and then fixed that provided no immediate benefit whatsoever but I learned to spot patterns which is invaluable. For example, I screwed around with Artifactory as a result of left-pad-gate [1] at DevOps job and got a working system together so now at massive corporation I'm helping some teams learn basics of artifact management even though it's not really part of my job. All of these experiences add up to value for a technology company.
I learned most of my skills from making the "mistake" of curiously trying to help someone fix something and then ending up three days later at 2AM writing some script and thinking to myself "What the hell was I thinking?" but it's always provided more value for me than them in the end.
None of this would be possible if I didn't live in the trenches and absorb systems into my bones via programming. Best advice I can give is to be curious, then be helpful, and then be stubborn. Throw in a few dashes of RDD [2] for self-preservation.
[1] - https://medium.com/quid-pro-quo/what-should-we-learn-from-th... [2] - http://radar.oreilly.com/2014/10/resume-driven-development.h...
very cool
10 years later I'm a senior engineer and can take care of my family for life. I wouldn't be where I am today without the start you and the company gave me. Thank you and best of luck in whatever you choose to do in the future.
So many of us owe you all a huge debt of gratitude. I have a stable career and lifestyle in part to your work which made programming accessible to people like me.
I got an internship at the guy's old company and dropped out of school shortly after to work there full time, since then I've done so many things, moved to the US to work for Microsoft, built some really cool software, worked at all these places I couldn't even imagine 10 years ago. It's crazy to think that it all started in a small classroom going through Codecademy, I don't think anything else would've captured my interest in the way your website did. Thank you.
I was always an average student in school. Never had the motivation/curiosity to study since I felt it was all pointless. Never had any programming/computer classes in school.
I completed the python course that was available at the time that eventually guides you to build your own version of battleship with 2 players. It was an eye-opening experience for me.
I started to view all my math/chemistry/physics problems as “programming problems”, it really made learning fun for me. My grades changed drastically for the better with little extra effort. And more importantly Im now working as a SWE years later.
So thank you Codecademy :)
All of my earliest programming projects have been lost to time.
So my Commodore 64 and 128 and all the software I spent my childhood writing were thrown away. I had a full BBS program that I wrote when I was 14 along with a half dozen BBS games. Would love to see that code!
It was almost ten years before I started building serious personal projects again.
I wish I still had that code.
I got my feet wet and learned basic Python through them. Really got me over my fear of programming being crazy hard and the my fear doing something "wrong" to mess up my computer. Took a couple more years before I really got invested, but codeacademy cracked opened a door which led to a few more.
The other day I had the top down after cutting out of work early to go flying, and thought “life is good.”
I worked all over the room, answering questions and seeing how students were doing. The site kept track of progress with game-like points and badges. The last week of the semester, students created two interactive web pages using what they'd learned. These two projects were similar to programming labs I had done in past years, but the instructions were much shorter because Codecademy prepared them much better; and the results were better because students were more competent and felt more confident from their Codecademy work.
In subsequent years I continued to use Codecademy for JavaScript and added HTML instruction around 2014 based on their site too. Overall I think hundreds of students benefited. Many thanks.
I more than doubled my income from that job to my next job, propelling me to the middle class, and have since achieved consistently high pay raises over the last seven years without much difficulty.
As someone who dropped out of high school due to family issues and lack of motivation, I hope free resources like Codeacademy always exists on the internet and will be a pathway for those who have the aptitude to learn to code. For my personally it totally transformed my life as I was basically destitute before I got my first job as a web developer.
He did it all via self learning. Obviously this individual was special and most people wouldnt be able to teach themselves how to code entirely on their own but these types of courses exist and will continue to exist as a free or low cost option for those people. Then there are the rest of us who have 15 paid courses that we will never start :)
I'd disagree. Sure online learning tools such as CodeAcademy and free videos on YouTube are useful and can provide a great leg up. But I know quite a few folks who pivoted their careers from non-programming jobs back in the 90's and none of these learning aids were available. We just used books, vendor documentation and whatever random stuff was available on the fledgling web and usenet groups to get us going.
I don't think it takes a "special individual", it just takes a bit of willpower and attention.
In my mind this is a statement that contradicts itself. Having the prerequisite willpower and attention is the special attribute.
When I started all I had to do was turn on the computer (booted to a BASIC interpreter), type a few lines, and hit F2.
I think you missed my point. My point was that it doesn't take being a "special" person to get started. These days all you do is type "How do I learn to be a programmer" into google and you'll get a general gist of where to begin. The assumption that people are that utterly helpless makes my mind boggle.
> Add to that the immense complexity they face just to get python or .net working.
Ok, I'll let you get away with .NET, but getting python installed and starting it from the command line is not immensely complex. Even my brother who is technology averse managed to do this without even asking for my help.
> When I started all I had to do was turn on the computer (booted to a BASIC interpreter), type a few lines, and hit F2.
You were lucky, when I were a lad, the computer turned on and presented me with a monitor ROM prompt, then I had to work it out from there ;)
Self-studying from scratch to the level where you're a valuable hire requires falling in love with the work. I don't think anybody has the willpower to work through, think through and internalize all the stuff we work with daily if they don't find it at least a bit fun, and a lot of people don't. It does take a "special" individual, though not in the sense that they're better than anyone else.
With the Internet, it's real easy to lose focus and bounce around between topics.
~1 year ago I pointed some friends that wanted to learn Python towards Codecademy (because it's just the most prominent example of it's kind of platform). Just out of curiosity, I looked over their shoulders, and I'm glad I did.
From what I could the tell the course offered very little beyond a Python REPL in terms of guidance. It didn't teach the difference between a variable name `foo` and a string `"foo"` (one of the most common struggles for newbies), at a point in the course where it assumed that knowledge to complete a step. And all it gave as feedback were bad error messages (IIRC 1:1 the one of the Python interpreter, which are very hard to interpret for newcomers). I was baffled that the flagship learn-to-code-platform had that level of quality after ~10 years of operation.
So as you describe, they're not great for starting out with programming, and for advanced programmers, string manipulation exercises just don't teach you anything.
I think it's an untapped market for the webbased coding challenges, although quite hard to pull off if you are needing to have a database for the users to interact with, etc. The same would apply for any network-based challenge, or ones requiring interacting with an API, etc.
I imagine a similar solution could work for coding, networking etc training.
HN: make it so!
Thanks codecademy.
freeCodeCamp was 5 years ago the foundational first step on a path to my current 6 figure salary in a job that enjoy a lot more than any previous one of my other careers.
I never learned well with videos, so codeCademy interface (which I think inspired freeCodeCamp’s) was a great innovation for me.
That being said, I've now asked a few folks about Skillsoft and they weren't that bullish about it. Kind of just hoping for a good return for the employees at Codecademy who worked hard to get to this stage (an exit).
It’s no S1 but for a lot of early contributors it’s probably a ticket to never having to work again.
A big thanks to them. I owe them my new career.
Real breakthrough for me was the Codecademy Python class and the benefits of the short form format. Get frustrated, take a break and come back fresh the next day or two.
That along with seeing Wes McKinney's Intro to Pandas talk around the same time ('13?) changed my career.
My comment is more so to tell others never to give up or at least try not to. Many who don't see great reward ...monetarily or as Zach is seeing here and has seen people being gracious for helping them learn an invaluable skill/changing and enriching their lives.
Congrats, guys!
I am curious if you've gotten a degree yourself, and whether that degree was from a reputable school. My CS degree is one of my proudest and most difficult accomplishments in my life.
The difference in someone with a 4 year CS degree and a bootcamp graduate is jarringly apparent and one that I have uncomfortable experience with.
My following statement will cause me to be downvoted, because the truth makes people uncomfortable. Computer Science education is a rite of passage, like getting a black belt, becoming a priest, doctor or anything else that requires intense study with peers for extended period of time.
The CS degree at a top school is more than a signal, its a badge of honor and respect. You may choose to ignore it to your own peril.
PS: I don’t think a CS degree is just signaling, but it could be improved an order of magnitude if the incentives of the professors and the institutions were aligned with teaching people marketable skills.
Well, the best analogy I can think of is a black belt in karate. It takes 10 years or whatever to get that. It has no marketable purpose. Why do it? The answer is more than "to get a job". It's about Discipline. Focus. Intense research into fundamentals. Stretching your limit if what you can learn in a weekend. Writing half a page of assembly code on a piece of paper. Debugging a C program. Red black trees. These have no purpose, but when reflecting on these experiences, I would not trade them for a second for "Intro to Javascript and HTML".
Second, your comment about "a reputable school" is interesting and indeed, probably, part of the disagreement with some people. On one hand, I'm open to the idea that someone can get a rigorous computer science education at any school, regardless of the prestige or admissions rate or rankings. On the other hand, I work with a bunch of people who are in some stage of earning an undergraduate degree through various online programs, and I sometimes see them doing schoolwork when things are slow (e.g. on a night shift), and I'm shocked that it confers college credit. I'm talking about classes on basic algebra that I learned in the 8th or 9th grade. Someone with a master's degree from a similar program bragged about writing his entire "master's thesis" in one sitting while drinking and receiving a grade of 100%... Anyway, it bugs me that they might think of their degree(s) as equivalent to mine. It's also easy to imagine that they might end up having a low opinion of all college degrees afterward, not realizing how much more rigorous the experience can be at other schools.
Goddard and von Braun both had a PhD in Physics. Yeah, funny, isn't it?
Early on in my career I used to think my CS degree was a waste. But the more people I worked with that DIDN'T have a CS degree - it became clear to me how much value the degree had.
All the seemingly theoretical / non-practical things we learned - I would see others get stuck and unable to progress. And for me, these were just things I understood inherently.
Sure, I think if you only ever plan to work in startups and be a mid-level engineer - maybe a degree isn't worth it. But I think it's definitely worth it if you have bigger ambitions for your career.
Seems very hostile, and a way to have users agree to all the cookies regardless.
On a Samsung S9.
In the recent weeks, I started getting 2-3 marketing emails a week. I got angry and deleted my account. This posed an interesting experience:
1. To prove it was me who requested the account deletion, I had to sign out and sign back in.
2. Upon signing out and signing back in, I navigated back through the menus to delete my account.
3. I discovered I had to prove that it was me who is requesting to delete the account by signing out and signing back in.
This was an infuriating infinite loop. After browsing through the forums, I figured out the problem was that I hadn't signed in for so long that my password was probably expired. So, I changed my password and viola, I could delete my account.
With my account deleted, I happily went on my marry way.
Next day, a Codeacademy marketing email arrived. I was absolutely furious. Turns out they retain your email for marketing purposes even after you delete your account. So, I issued a GDPR request and finally, the emails stopped.
Codeacademy, I ask you from the bottom of my heart,
What. The. Fuck?