Layoffs at Treehouse

I don't know some of those folks, but Nick, Jay, and Ben are big surprises. I have no doubt they will all be successful in their next endeavors, whatever (and wherever) they may be.

I imagine those that are still there have their hands pretty full. But if they stay true to form, there will be some information forthcoming soon, perhaps on Ryan's blog.

And Ashely's tweet clearly indicates production of new material is still underway. That may not remove all concern, but hopefully it's enough to reduce it below "panic" level.

Hi bot .net ! Thanks for reaching out!

I unfortunately don't have that much more information than you do at the moment. I believe Dave McFarland might have more answers to your concerns.

Stick with it!

At least it sounds like Craig and Dave are is still on board.

Hey Steven Parker ! I actually took another job in January, just got tagged in this post. But yes Dave McFarland is still around.

Hope all is well with you! Thanks for all the help!

Oops, sorry Craig, it slipped my mind when you responded so quickly. I hope you're enjoying Twillio.

But didn't you say you'd left some content still to be released?

I think many of us share the same concerns. The remarkable quality of the courses here has made Treehouse my favorite online learning resource, and the forum community has extended that even further. I hope both the course quality and forum will continue, though how that might happen is a bit of a mystery.

The good news is that much of the inner workings of Treehouse have been mysterious all along, so maybe they have something "up their sleeve" that will allow them to pull it off. We'll see!

In the meantime, if you have space available you might want to download the videos from courses you're interested in. .

And ironically, one of the first promotional videos for Treehouse that I ever saw was one where a guy was laid off by surprise — and that guy was played by Nick Pettit.

You need a pro account.

Conspiracy videos?!

Those were actually known as the "Adventure & Reward Videos".

They can be seen on YouTube. I posted a list of them in my answer to this other question.

I sure hope not, it's been a great resource for many students.

Are you asking if I make videos? I've actually thought about it, but I haven't done any yet.

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure that sharing the pro videos would be a violation of the Terms of Service.

And I learned node.js right here myself! I don't have any personal experience with other info sources on it.

That's just the first of several sets. See the complete list in my answer to this other question.

... or employment prospects, if that's really the reason it missed the cut.

Hey Thomas, I shot you an email a few minutes ago discussing this. Again, apologies for the delayed response.

This is mostly for anyone else who is curious, but we haven't had the number of students join that we need to keep the iOS Techdegree running. However, we'll still be supporting folks who are currently on the iOS Techdegree: our great Slack Moderators and Champions will still be around to help you out, grade projects, etc.

You might want to write the Support folks. But my guess is that current students will have a reasonable time to complete their programs before things get permanently retired.

If already enrolled, you'll get to continue

I highly doubt that they're going to pull the rug out from under you. In all likelihood they're going to allow current students to finish their iOS techdgree.

He mentions a few others they will keep, and says some new ones will be added. But yea, it sounds like about half of the current topics won't have anything new added, and will likely go away entirely at some point, starting with WordPress. And while I hope I'm wrong, the forum areas for those topics will probably go also.

The focus will be on Python for data analysis, but not web development. This is a good move. Python web development is kind of a niche area and most companies do their server-side stuff in C# or PHP, JS+Node, Java etc.

See this may not be a very popular opinion, and I feel bad for those who got laid off (though, lets be honest. they'll have new jobs in no time), but by focusing on a few and giving more time and resources to each, is actually a very good move.

FEWD is here to stay. It's doing incredibly well!

From what I know the FEWD techdgree is not being chopped.

I just confirmed it in my previous reply to you. :)

Yes, that's staying and like the FEWD, is doing exceptionally well.

I just complete the FS JavaScript TechDegree today, and I can say that during the months I spent on it, I noticed many students joining me in my journey, and there have been considerable numbers of graduations, as well.

So, for my part, I think the FSJSTD is still getting a lot of attention.

In Ryan Carson's post yesterday, he specifically mentioned four topics they will focus on:

• Full Stack Javascript
• Front End Web Development
• UX  
• Data Analysis with Python

So I think that one's covered. The majority of the current topics are not mentioned, but then that would explain laying off the majority of the full-time teachers.

The UX Techdegree is also here to stay!

I haven't done a whole lot with node outside of courses. I think the most I've done with it was solving the puzzles in the Advent of Code series. I'm probably one of very few people who have done those entirely in JavaScript (Python seems the be the popular choice).

I can only guess that someone else will be taking the lead on UX productions. The connections to many of the contract UX course teachers (Devin, May, Dan, Anya) may not have changed this week.

@Bobby Conti I don't actually know, but I suspect that enrollment for the iOS techdegree was simply down. I doubt that you are going to have much trouble finding a job when you're done. I suggest you don't sweat it and keep right on coding.

No. The reason for its departure was because not enough students were signing up.

If you're really interested in starting it right away, you might contact the Support staff and see if they'll accommodate you. Let us know what happens if you do!

Hi Daniel! We did receive your email about this here in Support and we're working on getting you the help you're looking for. We appreciate your patience!

What you just described sounded a lot like Office Space lol.

Under capitalism, there is never enough profit. Corporations will always seek to maximize profit. Also, remember, the hosting and maintenance for a site like this is going to be gargantuan.

It's pretty simple why they're no longer offering VR, because the past course wasn't watched enough to make it worthwhile for them to create more courses on it. I doubt their choice had anything to do with the future of VR itself, but an opportunity cost between creating courses that are popular compared to unpopular courses.

It absolutely is about making money. It it wasn't, then Treehouse would be a non-profit organization. Don't get me wrong, it's a great service, the content is of a much higher quality than almost anywhere else, but make no mistake: the progressive, do-good vibe that Treehouse its CEO broadcast to the world is just very good marketing. This is a for-profit company and that is ultimately their first goal. If you are doing a track or Techdegree that isn't selling well, you may well log on one day to find it gone.

Sounds like we need to update that information to make that a bit more clear. We do not have 180,000 active students and but over 180,000 students have signed up and used Treehouse since it's creation (2011).

I'm confused. If 180,000 is the total number of all students current or past, active or not; then what does the figure shown as "412,277 students" on the leaderboards represent?

Steven Parker I don't think that number has been updated in a long time.

Oh, I see, but you might not guess since other info on that page is from Q1 2019.