If you're determined, I would say don't listen to the haters. I've been a member of FIRE since college, downshifted and it's amazing. I never really enjoyed working (actually, hated it) so I get to spend my time on this earth doing what I want to do (read classic books right now.)
If you want to use the roads to Rome example, I'm sure there are some roads that have lots of pot holes. I guess you technically still get there, but there are easier roads that are quicker and safer.
It's not a perfect metaphor, obviously. But I still stand by the position that the simple, straightforward answer to the question as posed is "No". It is not the case that "building software is a bad route for entrepreneurs" in any universal sense. And we know this, because we've seen plenty of "existence proofs" where it has proven to be an incredibly good route.
But what is good for one person may not be good for another, for any number of possible reasons: skill, risk tolerance, desired outcome, geography, age, health, support from family and friends, blah, blah, etc. etc.
In the end, all I can say, is that if you consider building software to be a bad route for you, then don't do it. shrug
I HIGHLY suggest vetting the placement "statistics". For me, I just read 95% get a job, went to the open house, listened to a couple "rah rah" testimonials and did it. It was a big mistake.
A friend of mine from the class estimated that only 30-40% of us got actual dev jobs. The rest are either in customer service at a tech company, sales or testing (keep in mind this is people who dropped $15k+ to do the bootcamp), back in our old industry or in the case of one, working at Trader Joes.
I was under the impression that 95% get good jobs. If I had known only 30-40% did I would have never done the boot camp.
How did they manipulate the numbers? I never dug deep but here are my thoughts:
* to qualify as "actively looking" you can't have a job to support yourself. That's right you're supposed to not have an income while job searching, kinda hard when it can take more than six months. If you get a job, you get dropped from career support and your statistic gets placed in the "not actively looking" category
* "industry related jobs". If you go to a dev boot camp, you want to be a dev. You're paying $15k to do it. A customer service job at a tech startup is better than nothing but you don't have to pay $15k to do it. Likewise for sales.
As a positive point, all the females in our cohort got dev jobs, including the only one who actually failed the class. Startups are pretty aware of the gender discrepancy and actively looking to hire those with double x chromosomes. Not complaining about affirmative action, just wanted to give you as full picture as possible
As a dev in Denver who routinely interviews candidates from some of the nations top bootcamps, i can corroborate these claims. Many graduates from these programs are hired by the bootcamp itself, as tutors or web devs. Rarely are these hires profitable to the school, instead the are done strictly to maintain the placement statistics that are paramount to their continued enrollment.
Constructive criticism since you had the courage to publicly inquire: was there something about the commenter that made you feel machine learning was a targeted approach? I can't immediately see anything particular about the commenter or the company (in profile), so my first impression was that you were using a buzz word.
Also I recognize that a forum is really not conducive to this, but perhaps you could quantify what you mean by "do machine learning"...what sort of business deliverable would you contribute?
Overall though, you might want to just aggressively hunt for the person's email and pitch in private :)
I brought it up since his profile pointed me towards a dating site, which is prime ground for predictive analytics. Also, the website didn't have a "careers" section that I could readily find.
Things have changed over the last few years and what was true in 2013 is no longer true.
In 2013, the few bootcamps that existed and the fewer cohorts they each had were much more selective and they were producing in total many fewer candidates. The result is that bootcamp grads were very high quality (albeit very junior) and they got snapped up quickly.
In 2017 there are bootcampers everywhere flooding the market.
So I'm not sure they are outright lying but maybe they are using data to market their programs that is out of date.
The first two CS courses at my top university are enough to be qualified for your entry-level junior engineer: the intro course "Programming with Java" (recently changed to Python now), followed by the second course, Data "Structures & Algorithms."
All the bootcamp would have to do is be similarly very selective and do the same exact curriculum, and the people who "survive" these two weed-out courses (you needed to score higher than half your classmates in each course to receive a passing grade, otherwise you had to keep re-taking it) would be the ones able to get hired with nearly 100% placement.
This is common in highly ranked programs in the United States. We had the exact same system in my accounting program which was ranked 11th in the nation at the time.
The % of people who get jobs doesn't matter. Those people are not you. Maybe the 70% decided they didn't like coding after all. Or maybe the course was crap. Who knows?
You have a good point but I have to disagree with you when you say that "The % of people who get jobs doesn't matter." It does matter. I'm sure you'd agree if it were 1% and not 70%.
It doesn't matter if you aren't looking for a career in that field.
If you are choosing between fields or are looking to increase your income, how many people got good-paying, permanent jobs is highly important. It is also important if you are spending money that might be better invested in something else (such as a reliable vehicle or a down payment on a house if you live in the Midwest).
If you simply want the learning, the money isn't an issue ,and/or you don't actually care to land a job with the knowledge, then the job thing isn't an issue. All depends on perspective and desired outcomes.
Then you need to assess more deeply than % employed because you don't know how motivated they where. For example a ReactJS course could increase your chance of getting a job from 60 to 80% due to your motivation, but only 30% of that class got a job because most of them are just course hopping looking for a career change.
Make a pitch for 3 of your ideas that you think have the potential to make the most money. Pitch them to your friends/colleagues/people whose opinion you trust who would be in the market for such a product.
Ask them which one you think is best/most likely to be a product they would use. Tell them it's okay to say none of them. If no one thinks those 3 are good move on to the next.
I felt the bootcamp really exaggerated outcomes. They said like 95+% got jobs. In reality, probably only roughly 30% got "real" coding jobs (a bunch got support or testing jobs at well.) Some ended up empty handed, one of us is working at Trader Joes.
Bewares statistics! They can be easily manipulated.
They definitely do. Every one that I've interviewed has unrealistic expectations on salary or hourly rate.
These camps are telling their students that they should be getting $75/hr all day long. The reality is that most should be like $20-30/hr. They'd be better served if they were told to go for a fair rate, get a job and experience and were prepped on how to negotiate as their skills increase.
That being said - I really like the personalities of the people coming out of the camps and I've hired a few. They're generally hungry and excited.
OP didn't say anyone from his cohort is actually unemployed. The job at Trader Joes may not be what that person was envisioning, but it is a job.
Even if they claim something more specific than literally any job at all, they'll probably count anyone doing something related to IT (if only for a week).
I've also read about boot camps hiring their alumni as teachers/tutors for a bit if they can't find a job. I always assumed that's mostly to be able to count those people as successfully placed.
