Mike Roberts - Founder of San Diego Code School

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Cox Business and welcome back to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host Neal Bloom. We are continuing with our special Growing Economy Virtual edition of the podcast. Missing our studio but we've gone virtual Our our studio. The Nest Co Working Podcast studio has been helping us work virtually and with that, we're enabling to get more people on the podcast from kind of all over. So with that, we've been able to bring a special guest co host with me, Amy Chang, serial entrepreneur and investor. Amy, thanks for joining again.

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We are going to have a really fun conversation, especially between who our guest is. We've got Mike Roberts, founder, chief apprenticeship officer for the San Diego Code School. Mike, thanks for joining us.

Yeah, absolutely. Glad to be here.

We're going to have a conversation not just about what you're building, but because the three of us are deeply passionate about the future of the workforce. I'm really excited about this conversation specifically, but why don't you tell us a quick overview of what San Diego Code School is and what it's doing?

Absolutely. So if you had asked me this question three weeks ago, four weeks ago, probably be an entirely different answer. Let me give you that answer first because that's kind of interesting.

Right.

So I would have told you that we are a fast moving boot camp that helps people prepare for entering the tech space and being ready for day one on the job as a software engineer.

Right.

Then we went on a little Corona cation and so now we're looking at changing things up a bit. So the first adjustment we made is we went online and then we've been working on apprenticeships for quite some time. So we can kind of get into that a little bit later. But I would say now at this point we fully transition. And at this point I'd say we're innovating how companies source the best talent and then prepare them for careers as software engineers via apprenticeships. So we help existing teams perform better, we build great software and then groom a bench of talent for future growth.

So just to, for our audience, let's define a few things so that we're all on the same page. You want to give us an overview of what apprenticeships are?

Yes. It's not an internship.

Perfect.

So that's the first thing that people usually think of in their mind. And so starting from that foundation, super important. So a couple things that make it different. So an internship is typically like, and these aren't like official terms, like we do have an official sanction, like registered California apprenticeship. It has to have certain qualities to it.

Right.

So it has to be 2000 hours in length, it has to be over 12 or 24 months. There has to be a salary, it has to be at certain pay grades. So technically those are the things that are required to Be an apprenticeship, but an internship, the really the value there is a short experience that allows someone to get a taste of what it's like to be in a particular field, to work at a specific company. And it's really about getting experience. An apprenticeship is different because an apprenticeship is kind of like you've earned a job and now it's yours to lose. And so the goal is ramping you up over usually a 12 month period. @ the end of that period then you are ready to take on work kind of more on your own independently and you're ready for billable hours if you're working at an agency or you're ready to be on projects if you're at a bigger enterprise level company. So think of it like how we traditionally think of trades like plumbers and electricians. You start as a journeyman, you work alongside of master, and eventually you kind of work your way to be independent.

Hey Mike, I'm just curious, how do you find employers who I presume are your clients that are willing to make that investment and take somebody on and hire them full time who may not have, you know, the immediate experience that they're looking for? Is it hard to find those employers or clients?

It is exceedingly difficult. So one of the biggest challenges in my prior life, what seems like 30 years ago, but it was really just like three weeks ago, was aligning what employers were looking for in terms of talent and what they were ready for, what they had the capacity to handle with what we were trying to produce. And so in San Diego we kind of have this unique marketplace where we have lots of fast innovative companies, lots of startups, and we have enough larger companies that have the capacity to support engineers that are in the early stages of their career. They're just, they don't have the appetite for it and they're not really geared to groom people as senior engineers. And so I totally get it from their perspective, right? We haven't made it easy for them. We haven't provided them enough like baseline opportunities, enough models for them to see success. And so a lot of the way they think about it is let's do a summer internship program. Let's create the typical CS degree pipeline into our organization and we know that they come in with this skill set and then we can take that skill set and get them leveled up within our organization. Not as many of them have been willing to in the past, take advantage of the opportunity they have as a larger organization to invest over a longer period of time to grow that bench. And so what We've seen in the past is a lot of the mid to smaller size companies carry more of that burden where they have to leverage what's available in the talent pool. And that means sometimes they can't afford senior engineers. And so they're the ones that become sort of that bench where people can cut their teeth, get some experience, and then transition after about a year or so into a large organization. So I would say that was like the number one challenge. When I set out to make this transition more than six months ago, I was like, here's what I was told. I was told by people that are really good at running these apprenticeship programs nationally. They're like, if you want to make an apprenticeship happen in your city, you need to find a big company that will hire five apprentices and start you with a pilot program. And I was just like, oh, listen, I can't get large companies to invest in boot camp graduates that already have like 16 weeks of experience under their belt. So getting them to invest in someone that has like zero experience, that seems like super far off. But it got me thinking, well, if I know it's a challenge, I'm all about solving problems. So how do we solve that problem? How can we fix that? And so there is an apprenticeship that we use as a model in Colorado, a program called Tectonic. And there's some awesome folks there. And so their model is a little bit different in that they have a full blown agency, about 70 to 100 software engineers. So they have mid senior level engineers. They do a lot of support. So they do like enterprise level support for larger organizations. And so they can afford to help their own pipeline develop talent. And when those folks are ready, then they can start getting billable hours. And they've created sort of their own internal ecosystem. And so that's what we wanted to emulate. We're like, let's try that. And then we can be the employer and we can take the risk and we can say, hey, I can make this happen. And then my goal is it catches on like fire. And like tons of companies are like, hey, I love what you're doing. That seems super smart. Like, I'm totally down with like making the investment. And then we can either step in and help them out, or we can just hand them a playbook and be like, here's what we did. Like, you could do this. Like, have at it, right? My guess is most of them are going to want some help. But even if they don't, I mean, if I can get tons of companies in San Diego, like training more people then. Then I'm.

I'm winning, right?

Because that's the problem I'm trying to solve.

So, Mike, you've. You've obviously culminated to this model from a lot of learnings. I mean, you were a senior engineer yourself and pivoted to teacher trainer to your own code entrepreneur. It's your own cold school. So how. Well, first of all, where did you learn to code? Did you learn in any environment like this?

I was born with a skill.

Of course you were.

No, when I was young. Actually, I started coding when I was about 12 or 13. So I tell people all the time I love to brag and shine that, like, I've been coding for 31 years, but the reality is, like, half of that time I just did it as a hobby. And I was like, literally encouraged not to go to college for coding.

Right.

I won't. I won't single out which one of my parents, but one of them was like, that's a terrible idea. You should be an accountant. And I was like, all right, I guess. And so. But that, I mean, to be honest, that was early, right. I graduated high school in 96. Sorry, 94.

Right.

And so in 94, we didn't have what we have right now.

Right.

It's like, now it's like a legit thing when you say, I'm gonna be a software engineer, right? You're thinking, I'm gonna be coding at the beach, living the life.

Right.

But back then, you know, the solid thing to do was like, get a business degree, something solid, like accounting. And then later on, if you want to, like, f. To become a musician, great. Like, have at it.

Right?

And so being young, being 12 years old and having a family that could afford to have, like, we actually had like one of the first Apple computers and then one of the first, like, Microsoft, like DOS computers and being able to see the evolution and just do it as a hobby and like, build a passion and then sort of fail at college and take like the ten year plan at San Diego State and then just like, kick it in gear and be like, all right, now I want to finish my degree and get the degree and then get the master's degree and then like, the. This is what I want to do, and then just crush. It was super exciting for me. And so as soon as I was at that point where I felt like, okay, now like, I'm making some money, I'm a senior engineer, I was super involved in, like, let me join San Diego JavaScript community. Let Me start giving talks, like, let me give back and like, help someone along the way so they don't have to like code in their basement for 13 to 15 years before they figure out like, you could actually make a living doing that if you really enjoy it.

Hey, Mike, I have a question in that, and it sounds like you're a good person to answer this because your own parents were sort of conflicted about whether you should go to college or not to learn coding. And by the way, I started my career as an accountant, so I think. And I didn't stay in it, so, you know, I don't know that well, if you love accounting, you should definitely go to college and be an accountant. But I don't think it's for everybody. My question is, today, especially with what's happening and everything's gone online and we're not able to get the whole college experience necessarily, which is in person, what are your views on if a person wants to be an engineer or computer scientist and they want to learn how to code and they're passionate about it, do they really need to go to college? Or is going to a coding school a better vocational, more cost efficient pathway? And does that prepare you enough? What are your views on that? Because I'm just wondering if there's going to end up being a big backlash about college right now since the price has escalated so much, but people aren't getting the same experience. What are your thoughts?

So I have mixed feelings on this. So the way I usually will start an answer to that question, when people are like, what is your opinion? I always start with, it's not a binary choice. So we need to be clear that, like, when you're a young person, if you're not sure that you should be going to college and you get the advice to like, go do this major, I would say, nope, stop, wait, figure out if you really want to make that investment because it's going to be really expensive. And to your point, you should want that experience. Like, you should want to go like, live on campus. So I fortunately had the chance to live on campus, even though I was here in San Diego. I was like, I want to live on campus. I'm tired of being at home. So I got that part of the experience that was really important to me, to have some independence, to kind of live on my own, to get that college experience of living in the dorms. And that was one factor. So I wouldn't give that up. I wouldn't say it's not worth that. And I would also Say, I'm working towards what I think is a more cooperative education model. I would love to see students graduate from high school and if they're not ready for a college experience and they don't value a 4 year CS degree, go learn how to code and go work out in the industry for a couple years and save up enough money that you can pay cash for a CS degree and get some credits while you're going through whatever training program. Build up a year's worth of credits and then when you go back to school, get your company to help pay for your school. Take it over, you know, three or four more years. I'd love to see more colleges and universities embrace a cooperative education model. And we don't have that many out here. Like, I don't know of any. There's like Drexel. I don't know where that's at, But Northeastern does one. They've been doing it for like 50 years or longer. So those are great models. So I think it's not the right question to say either. Or the question is like, what's the right fit for what that young person wants to do? And then you don't have to be young to go to college, right? So we shouldn't say you can only go at the beginning part. But if you're transitioning and you're thinking about like, what does your career path look like? I would say your career path could be going to a vocational program and staying in that track and just working professionally and being like, heads down, getting better every year and just like climbing your way up. It could be starting to work and then going back to school when you feel like you want to get to that next level. Or it could be going to get the college experience first and then in my opinion, go to a finishing school, take at least the summer and go to a code school or, you know, really immerse yourself in some code before you start saying like, hey, I'm ready to conquer the world as like a recent CS grad, because it's going to get harder and harder for you to compete against, against my guys and gals.

I'm curious whether a person chooses to go to university or to a coding school, a vocational school. It sounds like they're both good options, but there does seem to be some kind of gap between that and starting your first career position in technology. And that's precisely why you came up with this apprenticeship model. And so I'm curious, what exactly is that, that gap? What kinds of skills do those students need to attain that is missing that causes them to not get hired immediately from their first career job at one of those employers. What is that gap, are you saying.

From the CS perspective, from a skill.

Set perspective, what is it that the employers are looking for that they're not getting from a new grad in tech?

I don't think they're evaluating it based on a skill set. My hypothesis is that they make the decision to stay with the status quo because there's a big infrastructure in place that encourages you to just, like, keep your head down and go to the college campuses and recruit the best candidates. Because we want to be able to say we got the top student out of this class and so go get them.

Right?

And there's a lot of cheerleading behind, like being super competitive and we take a lot of the permission. I say we. I'm using the, the. The greater sense of that term. I don't want to pick on an individual company, but let's just say a Fang company here in San Diego. So that's one of the big ones, right? They don't have the control to be able to reach out to the code schools. Like they, they're just. It comes from the top down. And they say, look, if they have less than one year of experience, then you send them up to the Seattle team and the Seattle team has a college recruiting team. And that's the path. There is no alternative path. If they have one year or more of experience, then you can recruit them locally and you can handle that all in house. That's on you. And so it creates this dynamic where if you wanted to change that internally inside of that organization, you got a lot of. You got to stick your neck out. You got to get a lot of people to buy in on that. And progressive companies will. But a lot of companies aren't going to take that kind of risk. And they're just going to be like, no, like, we got the money we're willing to spend for that top talent. And until they don't or they can't, they're not willing to change. So I would argue they're not making a rational decision based on skill. They're making the decision that, like, this is a safe path and, like, let's just keep doing what's working. Why break what we don't have to break? Like, let's not fix what's. What's not broken until it's broken.

Right?

And I would argue it is somewhat broken because they don't have the diversity on their teams that they would have if they Changed up a few things. They have an education system that's sort of failing and not giving them the skills that we see out of our graduates. They don't have the grit, they don't have the skill set in terms of communication and collaboration and the actual, like, experience working on small teams and projects and getting to be like hands on the keyboard coding on projects that add business value for local organizations. Like code school graduates do. Like students that go through an immersive program. They're coding every day, right. They're not coding to turn in a Java project.

Right.

They're building an actual project using the same technology that the current internal team is working on at X, Y or Z company. So that, in my opinion, is more valuable. And that's what we hear directly from the employers that we actually do work with. So the employers that we talk to, they're not looking for a specific technology stack. Like, they never come to me and say, I need a developer that knows Java and has like a year of experience with Java. It's always, I want grit, I want communication, I want problem solvers. It's none of the things that our folks can't do. So that's where I kind of push back sometimes and say, I don't think it's based on skill set. I think there's a different mechanism, different KPIs that are involved in how they make those decisions.

Mike, you were a senior engineer, senior developer, and then a senior manager at a tech company. And then you made the leap, but before you made the leap to being in the co, to the training world, I want to know how much you ate your own dog food. Like, what were you, what was hiring like for you when you were, you know, at your last tech company? And did you have the resources available to hire from the ways that you. You're kind of training people now.

Okay, so I wasn't technically, I didn't have the. I wasn't the final decision maker at the last tech company I was at. When I was at, let's say, like Zito, when I first came on board, it was interesting because they had never hired a graduate from a code school before. And the same week they hired me as a senior engineer, they hired a student that had gone to a dev bootcamp and they hadn't gone to a San Diego dev boot camp. They'd gone to like the San Francisco one. But it was interesting cause the week I started, he was like out sick or something. And so I started. And then the next week I was like, who's this kid. I thought you were hiring seniors. And then they're like, no, no, no. I got permission. Like, we're doing this experiment. We're going to see. We're going to try out a bootcamp graduate and see, like, see how that works. And so that was the only one we hired for a long time, right? And so we actually had to go through. We went through several CTOs, right? And so we had several changes in regime until we landed with, I think, Matt Ferguson. I think he's still there now. And Matt was, like, super open to, hey, we're going to. We're going to mentor. We're going to grow people. We're going to try different things. We're going to just, like, see what works. And he was very open to, like, new technologies, changing things. And he actually brought in, I think, like, I want to say, like, three at the same time, which is, like, not what you're supposed to do, right? Just so everybody's clear. Like, they were in no position to be able to, like. And most companies are not in a position to be able to bring three super Junior people on at that size.

Right?

You should have, like, a really deep headcount before you try and do a team that large.

So, real quick, how big was the engineering team? Just so we. We know what we're saying for size.

I would say they were probably at about 50 engineer headcount at that point, 4050, somewhere in that range. And so three is like, that's a lot. You got a lot of new. New boots. You got, like, one per team for each of the, like, the. The heavier teams. And so that's a lot. And what ends up happening inevitably is if you don't have enough, they won't get a lot of good coaching, and they won't, like, develop. And then the company will just be like, oh, man, we hired bootcamp graduates, and they were terrible. And I'm like, yeah, because they only have, like, 16 weeks of coding. They're just. They just know enough to break things and to learn from that experience, and every day learn and get better. So they'll get better if you develop them, but if you don't have the resources to develop them, then start slow. Take care of the ones that you hire, and they'll stay and they'll be like, they'll be super good, right? They'll be super loyal. They'll work harder than anybody else, but if you're not prepared for that, then it's not going to be that great. I think they still have like one of the ones that started in that last batch, like that last year or so that I was there is still there today. So like tenured employee has been there for now probably like four to five years and is working on like their, their back end, like one of their, you know, their engineering teams, like hardcore teams.

Right.

And then I think we lost one like super early on.

Right.

And that's usually what happened. One will just not shake out very early and then the other one, I'm assuming, been there for a while but may not be there anymore. So that's not bad. Like to be able to get one that actually gets all the way to like mid to senior, that's a, like, that's a success story.

Right?

So did something happen in seeing the onboarding and the resources available to train these people that you said I need to go to the source and solve this? Because at some point you. I remember, I think that's when we met, like maybe your first day or even maybe months before when you were doing, I think, leading the JavaScript meetup at origin Code Academy. Shout out. Jeff Winkler.

Yeah. So I don't know when we met, but it might be around the Jeff Winkler era, right? I think that's about when you were on my radar and man. Okay, so I was. So I'm going to give you like some deep, like, this is stuff that's never been out there, right. So when I was at, when I was at Zito, I got permission from of course, Stefan. Stefan was like, yeah, do whatever you want, I don't care. Like, don't break anything.

Right?

So Stefan's super cool, loves supporting the community and he was just like, sure, you want to have meetups here? Great. Don't break anything. And so we started hosting some meetups at Zito. We were kind of bouncing between Evo Nexus, which was a great host, downtown. When they were no longer hosting meetups, we did most of them at Zito. And so we're like Senegal JavaScript community was just like there. And so Todd Basher, I gotta give a shout out to my guy, Todd. And Trey Hunter was another guy that the three of us were in the JavaScript community. And we were seeing that, like there was a bunch of junior engineers that weren't sort of progressing and they weren't getting from junior to mid and mid to senior. And so we were excited as senior engineers to just like jump in and help these folks. So we started a little like little boot camp, like mini boot camp. And it was called Starters Academy. And we ran it for one cohort and none of us were doing this to like make a bunch of money or create a business. This was just like a side hustle before they called things side hustles. And it was just like, hey, let's help some folks and figure out like what it's like to take someone from mid to senior. Well, because we didn't do like business development and we didn't do like product market fit. We were just like, hey, is anybody a mid level engineer that wants to become a senior? All we could find were like super junior that were really kind of like not ready for even junior to mid. And so we had a terrible experience as instructors because we were looking for something out of it that like we didn't build a business around to actually accomplish. And so we did one cohort, we helped folks kind of get started and a lot of them kept sort of self teaching themselves. And so we all decided at the end of it we were like, okay, like do you guys want to do this? Because, like, I'm busy full time. We're doing the meetup thing. Like, I'm good. Like if you guys want to bail, I'll bail as well. We weren't really all like entrepreneurial in spirit and wanting to start like a code school, right? So that sort of dwindled and we just all kind of went back to just like collaborating on the meetups and just doubling down on community and getting people to come out and speak and all that, like, all that jazz. And so then for whatever bizarre reason, I would keep getting hit up at meetups by random people that wanted to start code schools, right? So I talked to Jeff Winkler one night and I was just like, this dude, like, he sounds serious. Like he sounds like he's really going to do this. I need to warn him because Jeff was like, I'm going to have this number of people, we're going to start on this date. Like, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? So he was doing like his due diligence. He was doing like product market fit. He was asking me all the questions. So someone had told him, like, go find the organizer of the JavaScript meetup. And like he can tell you like what it's going to take for you to get your first class going. And so I was just like, just trying to tell him, like, pump the brakes, like, go slow, like it's not going to be fun, it's going to be terrible. And he was just like, I'm going to do it. I've Got my first student. I've got someone that's going to give me, like, a little seed. Like, I can do this. I went to a code school. It was terrible. I know I could do it way better. Like, I can find people jobs. Jeff's all about just, like, I can find people jobs. I know I can do it. Like, I know I can do it better than, like, the school that I went to. So it's like, all right, bro. Just, like, pump the brakes. It's going to be super hard. And so I was just like, oh, man. Like, good luck, buddy. And then I had conversations with, like, conversation with Kevin Solario, who came out to open up Dev Boot Camp here in San Diego. And, like, again, he was just like, I'm scouting locations. We're thinking of, like, two or three different cities. San Diego's on the radar. I'm like, dude, you got to come to San Diego. Like, Deadboot Camp's a great program. You guys are going to crush it out here. Like, come to San Diego. And he did. He, like, he brought a campus here. They ran a shop for a while. It was awesome. I knew Robin Chelsea from the Ruby community. So when they started to learn, like, I was actually giving them tours, their classes, tours at Zito when I was there. So, like, I just kind of was, like, around the bootcamp space, but I was not interested. After my first taste of it, I was just like, this is terrible, and wanted no part of it, right? So Jeff invites me to his first, like, invited guest speaker, and I show up, and he's literally doing a bootcamp in a conference room. This was, like, his first week. And, like. Like, he'll tell. Like, if he asks Jeff, he'll tell you the wildest story about how difficult it was for him to get his, like, first class launched. And, like, I didn't know the half of it. All I knew is when I walked in and they were in a conference room, I was like, this dude is legit. He's running a code school in a conference room. He's got an instructor. Like, this dude is going to make it. Like, whatever. He's like, this dude's going to make it, right? And so I gave my talk day in the life of a software engineer, got them all hyped up, and. And then I bounced, and I was just like, that was phenomenal. And the end of that class, I think it was like, either that class or, like, a couple classes later, Jeff invites me to a demo day, and I didn't know he was setting me up. But I feel like now he was setting me up because I show up to the demo day and, like, the students are, like, doing their presentations and they're crushing it, and they're, like, showing all these amazing things that they worked on. And, like, employers are there and there's judges, and I'm just, like, almost crying. Like, it made that much of an impact on me. And it was like, all right, dude, like, I can't not help you because I know, like, you're gonna make this work. And, like, I can't just sit on the sidelines, so. And then, you know, next thing you know, I'm there at origin, and we're just like, just like tearing the curriculum apart, like, reworking things. And, like, I spent, you know, a good, good two years there. We had a good long run.

So you left Zito to become, like, head of curriculum or what was your role? I guess.

Yeah. So my official title was I was the chief academic officer. So I basically took over the classroom experience at the time. There were two other instructors. The first thing they put me on was a failed experiment. But it was good. We learned from it. It was the nighttime part time class. Brutal. But we learned a ton. And it helped us to really solidify. Like, now I can tell someone, like, all the reasons why it's a terrible idea. And, like, if you want to do it, you can, but you have to be, like, cognizant of X, Y and Z, and you can make it work, but it's hard, right? So now we kind of have that part of the playbook, like, all built out. And Jeff and I were always like, okay, let's go back. Let's get our binder with our playbook. Now we understand, like, this is what it takes to do this product. We've learned a lot from this experience. Now let's take another experiment. Let's do another thing. And it was always focused on, let's, like, Jeff's always about, let's get people jobs. And I'm always like, jeff, stop saying that. Because it sounds like you just want to give people jobs. And we both know you want to give people jobs, but we want to give people jobs so they can get paid every day to get better on the job. And you have to say that second part, because other times people just think you're crazy, and they're just like, you just want to, like, give people jobs. And it's like, yeah, that's the point. But it's so that they can get paid to get better.

Right?

And now I'm Just like, I just want to give people jobs so I can train them, right? And so I'm moving the goalposts all the way back to, like, the starting block, right? And so started there, and we started with two instructors. When we got to sort of the finale of Origin, I think we're up to, like, five instructors, couple software engineers. Like, we had a full, full team. Like, we were cranking at that point.

And you were. I mean, every class, it seemed like you were running a new experiment, right? You were like, okay, no more class. Now it is finish at the pace that you want to finish.

Oh, yeah.

I saw that at the very beginning as, like, super problematic. Like, when I walked in the classroom, and I was just like, man, these students are, like, freaking out because every day it's like a brand new topic and they're trying to keep up and they're drowning. And, like, if they don't, if they miss a day, then they're like, two days behind, right? And so putting your life on hold and having all that pressure and all that stress and then knowing, like, you got to keep up or you're going to get, like, have to repeat and maybe have like, a whole nother month of your life that's on pause, that puts an enormous amount of stress on a human being. And you can't learn in that scenario. And it's just like, we gotta. We gotta rethink this, because this doesn't make any sense at all. Yeah, some people are going to get a great experience out of that and do well, but a lot of people are going to really struggle. They're going to be panicked to the point where, like, Dev Bootcamp had. They had, like, I don't know if they're a psychiatrist, psychologist. They had trained professionals that they would have in their office that were available for students to talk to because there was that much pressure and stress that they were going through while they're going through the program. And I was like, that's very bad. That's not. That's not healthy.

Right?

Like, they should be enjoying the learning experience and, like, getting a lot of value out of it, but, like, it shouldn't be something where you have to mitigate it to that level. So I was like, well, why don't we just, like, let them stay as long as they need to stay? Like, what's the. Like, why do we. He's like, well, you know, the classes that finish on this date so we can start the next class. Like, why do we have to do it that way? Why don't we just like start them whenever? We'll just call it start now and they can just start whenever they want to start. He's like, okay, I'll go on a thought experiment. How do you do that? And like, it kind of goes from there.

Hey, Mike, I'm curious, how much emphasis do you put on recruiting the students or the workers into your apprenticeship program? Because I imagine that because you're investing in them that you can sort of be very selective. And so I would imagine you have a lot of applicants, you can be relatively selective. But then are you very intentional in branding yourself with the employers as being like, hey, I literally have the best people. I'm very selective about who I recruit. I invest a lot in them and therefore you should pick my people because they're so high quality. Quality. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah. So part of that is just my sheer laziness.

Okay.

I only want to work like I'm at that stage in my life where I only want to work with a players, right. I live that, what we call the Zito lifestyle, the work hard, play hard. And so I don't, I don't mind a project, right? So I don't mind a student that has a lot of things that are just like, hey, let's get some wraparound services, let's set some support. But you're a decent human being and you're going to try real hard every day. Like, I fully support that. I don't believe someone has to be like super high achieving or needs to be like the smartest person. Like I've taught a lot of students are just like boxes of rocks and we can still get them jobs and they can still do a really decent job and just be a hard worker and just come in and like work hard and get better every day. So what, what I'm focused on now, partly in my own self interest, is like making sure we're taking a chance on people that are going to do the work. They're going to show up, that are going to have no zero days and just like, just like deserving of this great opportunity, right. And not, not throw it away because we're going to pass on other people. So like, if we give you a shot, like, you got to make sure you take it and run with it. So from my perspective, that also helps in like making sure that we can deliver on that promise, which is on the other end. We're going to help employers and they're not going to have to sift through a bunch of Talent, we'll be able to identify that for them and, like, hand them on a silver platter. Hey, this person has 12 months of experience coding, and they're really good. So you should probably invest in this newer person versus, like, any other resource from a cost versus value metric.

I've heard that some of the employers are very interested in recruiting a more diverse tech workforce, because if you're a large employer and your tech team is not diverse at all, there's a lot of criticism around that. And so some of them desire to have a more diverse workforce. And to what degree are you seeing that come through in the employers that you work for? And do you in turn, then feel like, I need to have a base of people that I'm training who are also relatively diverse?

I think employers are excited about that. I know a lot of employers that are. Like, when they get a candidate that doesn't fit the typical demographics, when they see women candidates, candidates of color, they're excited at the opportunity of talking to those candidates because they know they're going to bring something different than a lot of the other folks that they are typically dealing with. And so we get a lot of people excited about that opportunity that, like, thank you for, like, helping us find this person. And so when I put out the call and I say, hey, applications are open, and I look at the demographics, I'm like, this is exciting. When I see, like, 25 to 30% of them women candidates, I'm like, this is great. Like, this is phenomenal.

Right?

So we're seeing a lot of that, and employers are. It is resonating with what they're looking to do.

Mike, I want to. I want to ask about kind of the changing attitude for not just employers, but, like, regulations for this kind of training.

Right.

The ending story of Origin is related to state regulations, unfortunately.

Right.

Origin was amazing things, training a lot of people, and were forced to shut down and leave the state, in a sense. But you didn't stop, right. You said, you know what? I'm going to figure it out, how to make it work. So tell me from your own perspective, like, what did you learn watching Origin have to shut down and to be resilient enough to be like, I'm going to do it again, like, I'm still at.

Was one of the most painful things that's ever happened to me in my life.

Right.

Because I felt like we were right at that crest of the hill, and we. Every obstacle that they had thrown in our way, and they were like, you got to do this. And you got to do that. You should do this and do that.

Talk about what actually happened.

So here. So here's the deal. So when. When Jeff started Origin, they were still in the middle of, like, locking down what the legislation was going to be in California around code schools in general.

How long ago was that? That actually, that was. That was happening.

I mean, this has been going on for a while. So they were about. I would say, I think they were about a year in when, like, they had codified what the rules were going to be and how they were going to handle and treat code schools, because they were kind of new. And so my understanding is that a few of the larger code schools that were not operating in California were involved in the original sort of formation of, like, what the rules and guidelines should be. And so they sort of grandfathered themselves in and made it easier for someone to come in from the outside and created sort of a moat around the process where, like, people that wanted to start and get into this business had these really just, like, insane processes that you'd have to do in order to follow all the steps and all the rules.

Right?

And so, again, I was not there when Jeff started going to the workshops, but I have since been to some of the workshops. And so I can personally attest to what you hear when you go to the government workshops. And they'll tell you something like, well, this is what the law says that you need to do. And then you're like, but wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense at all. And their response is always like, I know, but we don't make the rules. We just enforce them. And you're just like, but that's insane. Like, I. I just need a little help. Like, what would you suggest that we do to comply with this rule? Yeah, we can't tell you that. We can't tell you how to run your business. And you're like, well, have you ever seen anybody successfully do it? And they're like, well, you could do X, Y. So I'll give you an example, right? Let's make this super tangible, because sometimes I talk like I feel like I'm a crazy person when I'm explaining this. And people are like, bro, it can't be that crazy, because, like, that's. Then that just makes no sense. So you like, are you on drug? Are you drunk right now? Because that makes no sense. So here's an example. In order for you to be able to operate as a code school, you have to have 12 months of audited financial statements, right? Before you can advertise, before you can charge any money beyond an exception that they have, you have to have 12 months of audited financials, you have to have staff members, you have to have an approved curriculum, you have to have a lease on the space where you're going to have your students.

Right?

You have to have all of that in place and 12 months of audited financial statements. And so the question I asked her is like, all right, and this is after origin close. I asked, okay, so how are you supposed to do that? And they're like, I don't know, like, what we've seen people do is like, you can open up a bank account, you can put some money in it and just make sure you take a little bit of money out every month and then put some more money in it. And as long as at the end of the year you have like 125% of the money that you put in, then you'll pass the ratio test that we have and you get your books audited, you're good to go. But you can't apply for your to operate until you have that done. So you have to wait at least 12 months, right? So you have to have deep enough pockets that you're going to wait 12 months minimum just to apply. But when you apply, at the time Jeff started, there was a three year backlog. It took Jeff three years to get through the process. So you gotta have one year of operating, making like no money, three years of waiting for your application. Like today, I checked today, they're looking at applications that were filed in October of last year. So if I already had my 12 months of audited financial statements and I was ready to apply today, I still would not get my application looked at for like six more months. And so as a, as an investor, if you're coming from out of the state and you're like, I want to start code school in California. I'm like, no, you don't, because you're going to wait 18 months and you still don't know if in 18 months you're going to get approved. They could be like, yeah, we're not there yet, or you need to do this or you need to do that. And so it's different than like getting a liquor license where, you know, okay, it takes exactly this much time. They will or will not approve you. And like, you're going to have it or you're not going to have it, right? Or an occupancy permit, like these are things you can kind of control the Timeline on. But this is almost like. Like a real estate development where you're just like, we're going to spend a lot of money and, like, and maybe in five years, we can build this big property and make a ton of money. But they're not the kind of margins in a code school.

Right?

And so the finances and the numbers just don't make a lot of sense. And the sad part is that everyone that passes through and gets approved as a code school, at least so far, has not been willing to pay it forward and say, you know what? You guys should change these rules, because they're kind of dumb, and it causes people to not innovate, and it causes people to not enter the space, and it causes the same thing to happen all the time, basically, because, like, no one's willing to fix it after they run the gauntlet because they're like, I don't want competition, so, like, I'm in.

Right.

Does that make sense?

Totally. So except for that, after going through all that, you said, let's do it again with Santa.

I said, let's do it. I said. Because I was so irritated that I was just like, they took this good thing and they did my boy dirty, and, like, they made him scared. And, like, I don't want to say, like, scared, but, like, they made him feel like he was not welcome in California. And he. They were just like, we're gonna keep throwing risks your way, and we're just gonna, like, just keep, like, throwing these things. That's, like, as a startup, it's already hard enough, but to have these, like, random things that you have to deal with that make no sense and are illogical is, like, it's tough, right? So. So Jeff was like, peace out. I got family on the east Coast. I'm gonna try something on the east Coast. I was just like, please just don't put chains on the doors. Because, like, I want to still have a career here in San Diego, and, like, I want to do the right thing and do right by people. So. So, I mean, there's a whole story in the newspaper. You guys can read that one. So I don't want to talk about, like, you know, the volunteering and all that kind of stuff, but we took care of everybody. We. We actually, like, wounded down the right way. And, like, I'm proud of how they handled it. I was an investor, so, like, my vote didn't count with how they're going to do. So I'm just fortunate that, like, all the people that were involved at origin from the Leadership, perspective. Just took care of everybody that needed to be taken care of, right? So the day that we made, like, the internal decision or the decision was made for me and I was, like, laid off, I was like, all right, cool. Like, like, I'll take the layoff. You can give my salary to, like, another instructor. Because I think I want to do something else. Like, I'm not ready to throw away all the lessons we learned over the last, like, three years. Like, I want to, like, figure out if I can, like, beat the state. And, like, that was my mission. I was just like, there's got to be a way that you can do this and follow every single one of their rules and, like, make it happen without what most code schools will do, which is, like, they just pop up a school and they operate and generate revenue, and they, like, screw all the rules. Like, I'm just going to do what I'm going to do, generate enough money, fight the state, get my license, square up with the students, and then move forward.

Right?

That's exactly what, like, Lambda is doing right now.

Right?

They're just battling the state. They're like, we don't need to get licensed in California. Like, we're an online program. It's like, Nabro doesn't work that way. You got to get a license. So the whole point is, like, most people don't do it the right way, but I was just like, I'm going to see if I can follow every single one of the rules. And so I went to the workshops and I asked questions. I literally almost started a riot in the middle of one of the workshops because I was like, wait a minute. Is there an exception? Like, what's the exception for this? And it caused everyone to start just peppering questions at the person teaching, and she was just like, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. This isn't a seminar about how to not be following the rules. This is a seminar about how to follow the rules and, like, do what we're telling you to do. And I was just like, yeah, but I think there's a way around it. And I think you just said what it is, right? And so the exemption that we grabbed a hold of was if you charge less than $2,500 for a single program, then you are not required to be approved to operate by the state. So as long as you keep your tuition below 2,500, like, they're hands off. They really don't care what you're doing. And it makes sense, right, because there's a reasonable amount of like, risk to an individual. If there's a shady company that's like taking people's $2,500 and not delivering a quality product. But on the other hand, like $2,500 is not nearly enough to run like a really high quality program and just operate in the current economic conditions. So, you know, we ended up splitting our curriculum and having two separate programs. We ended up having a front end course and a back end course, which meant that the total lifetime value of some students was closer to $5,000. But that's still like less than half of what the national average is for code schools. And the average in California is much higher than that in tuition. And there's a reason why the tuition is the price it is. It's just there are dynamics and you have to be able to like, generate a profit to have a sustainable business model, right? So we knew that the $2,500 product would give us the lifeline that we needed. To do what? To get our 12 months of audited financial statements and put us in a position to be able to follow all of their rules and just make it to the finish line and be able to say, okay, now we can charge whatever tuition amount is appropriate for the types of services that we're providing. And in the process of doing that, I learned lots more valuable lessons, right? And the biggest one for me was that the price isn't the biggest thing. And even though we tried to be super flexible, right? So we created a weekend class, we created a program where you could work part time and go to school full time, it still wasn't enough for us to be able to reach and make it accessible for a lot of folks. There are a lot of folks that are just like, but I still don't have $2,500. And I was just like, well, I could finance you, but if I finance you, everyone's going to want to be financed. And like, I like, there's like, there's no margin there. I can't create a product that's like, well, it's $3,000 if you finance, but it's $2,500 if you pay cash, right? Because the limit is $2,500. Right. Basic economics say that when you're in this, like, capped fee, it creates this weird dynamic where, like, now normal business things just don't make sense, right? So I was just like, there's gotta be something else. There's gotta be some other way of doing this. And then I thought back to when Kevin Solario from Dev Bootcamp had been talking about apprenticeships, and he was talking about it really early on. He got some mentoring from one of the other founders of Dev Bootcamp. His name is Dave Hoover. And Dave Hoover is like super big on apprentices. He's written a book on apprenticeship patterns. Super, super good book. And I was like, let me give that a try. Like, let me think if that's the next evolution and that's where we are today. Like, I fully embrace now the model of apprenticeships. I think it's a fair model. I think it provides way more equity for the student and the employer. We start eliminating the pieces that don't add as much value, like maybe like the recruiter piece, right? Like, we can serve that role. We can identify that talent for you. Let's take the money you're typically spending on a markup and let's just bake that in. Let's take the money you're paying on churn. Let's just give you a higher quality candidate. And so if we start taking those, those normally, those expenses and we start stacking them up, well, now there's enough money to pay for the training, right? So now it's just like, okay, who wants to jump in and who wants to try this out and who wants to, like, be the person that learns from it and, like, gets better than everybody else because they have a leg up. They get started earlier than everybody else. And I think it's a way better model than a lot of people are high on, like, income share agreements. I think they're terrible. I think this is a way better model. So I'm 100% in on apprenticeships.

I mean, getting paid to learn is pretty great. As opposed to the other way, right? Which is just the general higher ed way of learning. So just from a basic level, apprenticeships make sense, but on the job, learning makes sense for a lot of people. That's a lot of ways that people learn. I know I am a learner like that, right. I need on the job training. But another aspect that you put in is the geography that you decided to go into, right? You went into areas that you said, all right, access is a thing, price I can't do stuff on. But let me bring it to where people are that wouldn't have access to this kind of training.

Right?

So Escondido and other areas of San Diego. Do you want to talk about the kind of, the different kind of access you've done to diversify who gets the potential for this job?

I'm going to blow your Mind right now, Neil Bloom. Watch. This is actually because of Neil Bloom. And here's why. So I found out about the place that we are currently in because Neil had it like somewhere in his feed he mentioned Synergy. And he was like, hey, there's this new, there's this new co working space in Escondido. I was like, co working space in Escondido. And I looked at the pictures, like, man, that place looks nice. And so we were running around at the time and we were trying to like find a spot and we needed to get into a location right away. And so we're like, let me find that, that post from Neil. Let me search Neil, find the post. We, we drive into Synergy. We meet Cheryl, who runs Synergy, and she's also, she runs this non profit called Davis, the Methodist Heights B Vista. And so we settle in that spot. It's been like our second home since then. And one day we're just in there and we're always up in Cheryl's business. And Cheryl's talking about this building that she's going to be like, interested in getting in southeast San Diego. They do affordable housing, right? So she was talking about this project and she said, here, take a look at this. We're going to build this project. It's going to be in southeast San Diego. And it's like, hold everything, all right? If you're building a building and you're going to be in southeast San Diego, I want in. Like, I gotta be there. And like, that's a lifelong dream to be in that location. And I didn't want to get like blocked out. I didn't want her to like fill up the co working space and not have like the big corner office. Because we all know that corner office is like, it only comes up every once in a while. When it comes up, you got to be like right on the spot to get that. So it's just like corner office. I need the biggest spot that you have in there. Let's put a code school in there. And then like, I'm down with like growing some like, opportunity in an area that is like never going to be there other than like Cheryl building a co working space and Mike having that relationship and then knowing about it from like the ecosystem guy, Neil Bloom, right? So like, it could not have happened if all of those stars hadn't lined up in exactly that order. Swear to God.

It's pretty special.

It is.

But tell me, like, what's the difference in terms of diversity of the kinds of students you Got because of being in Escondido and southeast San Diego.

Oh, we all know San Diego, right?

So, like, our audience is a little broader. Like, like, break it down for us.

No, no. So what I'm saying is, like, San Diego's, like, public transportation system is not set up for people to be able to, like, use it to get to work and to get to school, right? It's. It's. It's. In my opinion, it's been designed in such a way to say we have it, but it's not what most professionals would use to, like, do their typical commute. Like, we're all in our cars. Like, that's how you get to most of the spots in San Diego. We're trying to bridge that gap, but we're not there yet. And so when we had a program in Escondido, I felt really bad. I was like, we're called the San Diego code school, but we're in Escondido now. I mean, I live in Poway, so I'm like, all right. Like, it's a cool area. And there's, like, cool people that also need that in Escondido. It's a very diverse neighborhood. Very diverse area there. A super great community. And so we love being there. But I was just like. But, man, like, the people that look like me, the people. When I came to California, we first lived in southeast San Diego. We lived with my grandparents, and then my parents were like, we are to move to Poway, because school's real important and that's the best schools. So that's where I got to go, because I had that privilege, right? But a lot of folks don't. And so if they live in, let's say you live in that neighborhood in southeast San Diego, it is super hard to, like, to get to a code school if you don't have a car, right? If you have to take public transportation, it's, like, nearly impossible. And so for me, it was all about, like, let's be somewhere where people normally would not have the opportunity. They may not have the opportunity to go to, like, CSU San Marcos or ucsd, which are traditionally the places that a lot of the bigger software engineering companies are getting their talent from. And they're not even going to be able to get to a code school if the code school, the closest one that's within their price point, is in Escondido. Or even if we were in, like, Mission Valley, right? And like, to go downtown and spend, you know, $15,000 or to fly to San Francisco and like live in San Francisco, that's just not a reality for the people that live in that community. Right? But if you want those people in your shop, if you're, if you're a company that has those people as consumers of your product, you probably want them on your team, right? So that they can address the needs and concerns of your customers. If you want to surprise and delight people, then you have to know, like, what's going on and what are, you know, like Travis Scott, perfect example. Like, I'm not a Fortnite player, right? But that Travis Scott video thing was legit. And it's going to like, change everyone's perception of like, how you can be entertained in virtual. You guys know what I'm talking about?

All right?

But if you, if you have super diverse teams and everybody's not listening to the same kind of music, everybody's not playing the same kind of games, everybody's not wearing the same kind of clothes, then you get more of that and you quick, you more quickly pick up on those trends and are able to leverage them to make more successful products.

Right?

So I would argue that we're in the right place to help companies get better at diversifying their talent.

You know, Mike, I couldn't agree with you more because I feel like if you want to have prosperity in a community, we need to go to where people are at. And that means that we want to see prosperity unfold in all of the corners of San Diego. And so right now we have an entrepreneur. I mean, the thing is, San Diego is filled with entrepreneurs and small businesses and founders, but a lot of our entrepreneurial so called scene takes place in north county. And not only that, it takes place in north coastal county. And so Carl, you can say it.

You can say it's okay to say it. Carl's bad.

Yeah, it's the whole. But part of it, it's the whole La Jolla, Carmel Valley, Del Mar, all the way up to, to Carlsbad. Right. Like that's where, you know, and then there's downtown, right. Which is also becoming very expensive. And so it's almost like, you know, that's where the scene is sometimes. But I really believe that, you know, if we want there, if we want the whole community to prosper, you know, sometimes we need to go to them and we need to go to all four corners. And so I just, I love what you're doing and what you're saying and you know, what your organization's about. I think that's awesome.

Yeah. And I think it's great to have like that place that everybody kind of knows. For a while it was downtown. Then it kind of moved up to, like, UTC and now it's in Carlsbad. I think that's awesome to have like a place that, you know right now, if you want to be in the hot tech hub, like, that's where it's at. So you can be in that space, but you have to, just like you said, you have to build bridges out of that space and you have to meet people with where they're at. And so that's what we're focused on is like, how do you meet someone where they're at? Let's not. Like, I could have easily. I don't want to say easily, but I could have built a scalable business using all of the knowledge that I gained in the code school space.

Right.

I could have said, hey, I want to build something that scales. So we're going to go online. Here's how we're going to set up the courses. Here's how we're going to market it. Like, I could have done all of those things, right? And I chose rather than, like, doing things that I wasn't convicted in, I don't feel like that's solving the problem. It could have given me money that I could then use to solve the problem.

Right?

So, like, Jeff and I always reflect on that. Like, this is so hard. Why don't we just make a bunch of money doing something else and then we can just teach for free. I'm like, no, Jeff, like, let's. Let's figure this out, right? And so, you know, that's kind of where. Where I feel like you're adding value, right? That's what we want to be doing. We want to be building value with other people.

So where you guys are at now, I mean, you're again, apprenticeships is again, another regulation thing in California. Take us through what needs to happen for you to continue to be successful in training this next generation of the workforce.

Well, the good thing is that we've been able to navigate and get all.

Of the.

Same way we did with figuring out the exemption. We found a path where we could operate with the least amount of resistance so far.

Right.

But we're not inoculated completely.

Right.

So. So one of the things that's, like, scary that looms out there is like, if we were to create a program where, let's say there's this list of. It's called the eligible Training provider list, right. Etpl. And so there are government Funds that they allocate for training.

Right.

But in order for us to. To get those funds, you're going to love this. In order to get those funds, you have to get onto that list. There's two ways to get onto the list. The first is you get approved by the bppe. If you get approved by the bppe, you can request to be put on the list. Now, if you have a registered apprenticeship program, you automatically get put onto the list, right? So we're on the list. So now being on the list doesn't mean we can spend that money. If we spend that money, we're not exempt anymore. Because there's another rule that says in order for you to be exempt, you have to charge less than a certain amount of money. Or if you take any money at all that's from the state or federal government, then you fall under the bpp, Right. And so now we just have to figure out, like, what sources of money do we want to take and what's. What are the strings attached to that?

Right.

And then we can kind of decide, okay, if we want to take that money, here's the process that we need to do in the interim, here's what we can do as sort of another path. And so, interestingly enough, Corona has caused us to think about recurring revenue models, to think about transitioning more of our curriculum online and developing other strategies to get to where we want to get. And I'm not convinced that we're going to have to keep duking it out with the state. I think at this point, we can decide we're in a little bit better position that way. But it's still, like, it makes no sense. It makes zero sense. Like, I had to pay an extremely expensive lawyer. That's how you know they're really good when they're really expensive, to, like, parse the language in the law and then go talk to the folks and see if. Are these guys exempt? Are they not exempt? Like, what's going on there with this? And then she was like, yeah, you're gonna have to go. You're gonna have to run the gauntlet. If you want to use those funds, then you're. So it means that, like, there's a pool of $7,000 that we could use to train someone. Can't use it. Just like. And these are people that are, like, maybe unemployed or they're injured for whatever other reason, they qualify to have some money allocated to help them develop some new skill. But, like, even though one state agency says you're good to go and you're on the list. The other state agency says, nah, nah, nah, wait a minute. Like, we need you to go through this other 16 month long process. And then the other one is like the va. Like we. There's so many people that graduate or not graduate, but transition out of the military and are looking to do something as like a second career. And so lots of them would be great candidates for apprenticeship programs. But yeah, we can't touch any of that money. That's all like state and federal money. And it just means that we have to find different paths until we make the decision that we want to kind of fight for that money. And it changes the nature of what I spend my day doing.

Right.

I would rather spend my day helping students than lobbying people in Sacramento to change the law or going back and forth about rules that make no sense at all. So, yeah, at the end of the day you got to decide, like, what do you want to spend your time doing?

Right.

Yep. Now, you've always had to pick your battles, that's for sure. But now you get to pick the locations you want to be at. You spend, get, spend time. Escondido versus Southeast San Diego. Are you choosing it based before Pre Corona times? Based on what? Good foods nearby, Maybe some taco shops or. Oh, man, which one's got better tacos?

Okay, so taco wise, this is interesting. Escondido hands down has got some better, like, more dominant taco shops.

Right.

So there's a taco shop. I should know the name of it, but I don't. And it's kind of like Tacos El Gordo. And that shop is phenomenal. I mean, like, you walk in and you swear it's a Tacos El Gordo up in Escondido. And so that place legit. Best tacos in that area. The only other place you're going to get tacos like that is in South Bay on H Street at Tacos El Gordo or in Tijuana.

Right.

So hands down, now, if you had to ask me, like, not in either of those two. I think the question is always, like, what's your favorite? Like, what's the best? I got to go with, like, I got to go with the original Tacos Gordo in South Bay.

Yeah, fair enough.

Always message Neil later the name of the shop in Escondido and he can put it in the show notes for everyone.

I will.

Or give us the. Give us some, some label. Like, what is it? Do you know a street or is it by that other store? People know Their taco spots by a bunch of things.

Not sometimes we can find it really fast. I know exactly where it is on the map. So let me look real quick. So you basically go down Main street and you kind of head way down deep into Escondido. So you'd go down. Oh, it's TJ Tacos.

TJ. Oh, yeah, of course. TJ's Tacos is classic. Good one.

TJ Tacos. Yeah, that's real good.

Yeah.

So I would say TJ Tacos, hands down in Escondido. That's the spot.

Okay, Mike, where can people follow along and one, hire people from SD code school and get involved from an apprenticeship program? And is the best thing just get in touch with you or is everything kind of on your website or what's the best way to follow up?

Yeah, the easiest way is to follow up with us on the website. So that's SDCs. So San Diego CodeSchool. SDCs, IO because, you know, we're an edgy startup, so we got to get that IO right.

Yeah, no, it's nice little four letters. It's great.

Yep.

Awesome. Mike. We're going to continue this conversation on because obviously we're still in the very early days of this new whole program of apprenticeships. We barely even touched on advancing San Diego. But that's another thing we'll put in the show notes.

Oh, yeah.

Or how you are an approved vendor so that people can get early talent or get talent almost covered for free for the first two, 300 hours. But we're super thankful that you are a resource in town providing all of our startups and tech companies with talent. So thank you. Keep pushing forward. We know that sometimes you gotta work to fight the battles in Sacramento, but you're fighting battles. So thank you for superpowering our workforce here in town.

Absolutely. Thanks, Neil.

Thanks guys for being on and have a good week.

Thank you.

Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Bloom. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. Big shout out to School of Rap for our rad intro music. And thanks as well to Nest Podcast Network where we are recording live inside their studio at Nest Co working in Bankers Hill. You can find Neil Bloom on Twitter. Neil Bloom as well as Fresh brewed Tech and Tacos and Tech Pod on Twitter too.

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