On the Closing of 42 Silicon Valley from 42 co-founder Kwame Yamgnane | Hacker News Reader

On the Closing of 42 Silicon Valley from 42 co-founder Kwame Yamgnane

blog.qwasar.io

34 pointsofou32 comments

I did my first internship at 42 Paris where they manage the whole 42 network.

On my first day, a colleague showed me a room filled with desk chairs that were from the Fremont campus and said I could bring one at home if I wanted to (which I didn’t).

Also, a lot of cameras and computers were allegedly stolen by students or returned to Paris unusable when the campus closed.

I went to 42 SV and was there when it closed, now gainfully employed and grateful for the opportunity.

There was absolutely rampant embezzlement of money by the French staff who came to initially start it.

It was the hubris from Paris that caused the school to fail (opening up a massive campus with no real plans to actually fill it up, tying grant money to enrollment numbers that were infeasible and leading them to take anyone) that caused the school to fail. If they had started slowly, and focused on quality 42 SV would have been great- a lot of good people were there.

As it was, I have no doubt that they were thrilled to use Covid as an excuse to close the branch without bad publicity. A lot of scandals at 42 if anyone cares to look.

Why would there be more than 40 other campuses in the world that seem to be running smoothly then?

Actually it would be funny if you were right because it would mean I’ve met these guys back in France.

Regarding the scandals, it’s true that there has been a lot of them back when 42 was managed by the former director of Epitech (he had sexual relations at school).

But with the new director (who joined in 2018), things seem to go pretty smoothly

Nicolas Sadirac had sex at the 42 campus? Never heard of that one...

Source: https://etudes.developpez.com/actu/256794/A-l-Ecole-42-de-Xa...

(The picture in the middle of the article doesn’t require to understand french to be understood)

Thanks for the link. I am an Epita alumni where Sadirac was director (before founding Epitech)

Could someone translate this part? "Il s'adonne au piratage informatique et fait parler de lui en piratant les plans du Rafale, des distributeurs de billets, et le site du premier ministre français."

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Sadirac

Sure. "He devotes himself to computer hacking and becomes well-known by hacking the plans of the Rafale [French fighter aircraft], ATMs, and the site of the French Prime Minister"

For those who can not read French, the testimony relates numerous rapes, sexual assaults, degradation and violence against women.

(2020)

Not a 42 alumni, but Epitech 2015 (so I saw the split and the creation of 42 while I was between my second and third year).

I'm not surprised that it was much more difficult to get the school to work in the US. Their loss.

Best of luck for qwasar !

Throwaway as a former student, now gainfully employed and grateful for the experience.

Kwame (and a lot of others) stole money from 42 SV, so I am not sure why we care what he says.

In addition, covid wasn't the real reason SV was closed, it was just a great excuse to stop it without pushback. The real reason is they built a school for 1000 people and expected that immediately, which never materialized.

Could you elaborate on this embezzlement? I was under the impression that 42 was closed as a cover up to the rapes mentioned above.

Trollish usernames aren't allowed on HN because they effectively troll every thread they post to. Celebrity names are one variation of this, so we don't allow them as usernames.

We've learned that it's better to deal with this earlier than later, so I've banned the account. Happy to rename and unban it if you want to pick a more neutral username.

(Of course, if it happens to be your real name, that's entirely different, but in that case please email hn@ycombinator.com so we can sort it out.)

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

I am a Fortune 500 recruiter; I'd exercise caution if you intend to put unaccredited companies (as opposed to schools) on your resume. You might as well leetcode, it will save you some money and you will get better results.

42 is not a company

Can you give some examples of common accreditations that apply to companies and how you would rate them (the accreditations) from a recruitment perspective?

I opened the campus with Gaetan in 2016, and I still remember the first day of the first piscine.

The first... what? Fishes?

Wikipedia tells me that "piscene" means:

Piscine: pertaining to fish.

It is also a French noun meaning "swimming pool"; see La Piscine (disambiguation).

The Latin word piscina (or sacrarium) denotes a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church.

None of these make sense in the context of its later use ("...we started the first cohort with around 300 students, and grew to just over 1,000 over the next 18 months with another 1,000 in the pipeline for future piscines..."). It seems to be used as a vague synonym for "cohort"?

That's a 42-specific term referring to the intensive training slash selection period at the beginning of their cursus.

You can trust Korfuri's explanation because he has some experience with Piscines ;)

Hello there !

"Cursus"?

Piscine in French == Swimming pool in English.

This choice of word stands for the fact that you are intensively immersed in it.

A more American English translation would be boot-camp.

Even in French it doesn't actually make sense.

> Part of that science is about motivation, and from my experience, free education is not always what is best, and we saw that in many students. It has its place undoubtedly, but there is also power in motivation, discipline, determination, and accountability - many of you have succeeded because of these traits.

How does paid education influence motivation, discipline, determination and accountability in ways which a free education does not? This reads like a shot taken at public education but maybe I'm misunderstanding here.

Education is always paid, and the beliefs embedded in the curriculum taught are always naturally aligned with the interests of the payer.

There is no "free" education.

If that's taking a shot at public education, well, it just depends on whether you think the government's interests are always aligned with the interests of pupils

But really that’s just pedantic hair-splitting, everyone knows that there’s no such thing as a free anything.

The whole point of “free” education is that it’s free at time of use. That’s the whole benefit of it.

Free education is a great equalizer in society, otherwise it’s another exclusionary thing for the wealthy to hoarde.

I cut a lot of class during my undergraduate education, which I didn’t pay for. I never missed class in grad school, which I did pay for.

(I regret my immaturity in hindsight)

crazy to learn that 2 years after it's happened. There was absolutely 0 media coverage on the subject. Searching for it on google only returns the articles publishes when it opened, both in french and english...

Feels like a fluff piece, I’m not sure what we’re supposed to get out of this. It sounds like 42 and Qwasar were/are coding boot camps, which are a dime a dozen.

Yeah, it's just not worth it, there are no real teachers, I doubt taking that class will land you a job anywhere.

You surely heard of Docker, right ?

42 is a spin off of Epitech. At Epitech, the student pays each year directly. 42, your first employer pays back the school. Something like that.

dotCloud/Docker was built by graduates from Epitech. Not sure if you can draw much conclusion. Maybe that this style of school does seem to work.

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