Curiosity
Ask sharper questions about how university funding, research, and hiring actually move, not just repeat what's already assumed.
hub About
Raised in Michigan. Rooted in the Bootheel. Building the free classroom for the AI economy.
Bot That Lyfe is where my software engineering and business-analytics background meets storytelling. Every week we take a real story — a policy vote, a court ruling, a farm bill, a market shift, a strain on the grid — and turn it into an animated episode on YouTube and a free workbook that teach the engineering, data, AI and agentic AI principles underneath it. The research practice that started this site still runs under every drop: funding, labs, people, policy and jobs, sourced and cited. I grew up in Michigan, where I first got curious about how systems actually work, and my family is from the Missouri Bootheel, where I spent every summer growing up — which is why agriculture, small towns and public institutions show up in the stories as much as Silicon Valley does. Start with the series, go deeper in Courses & Workbooks, or bring us a project through Work With Us.
The parts of the tech pipeline nobody explains clearly.
A lot of what actually shapes a computer-science student's path — which labs just got funded, what a grant actually buys, which courses map to which research, which companies are hiring for which skills right now — never gets written down anywhere a student, a professor, or an employer can just go read it. I research it, cite where every fact comes from, and publish it free.
And if you're a student reading this trying to figure out where to actually start, the free courses are built for exactly that — the same fundamentals behind every internal tool Bot That Lyfe ships, no cost, no catch.
I don't pretend to know more than I do. When I haven't found the answer yet, the page says "open question," not a guess dressed up as fact.
apartment Tech and Business Analytics, Pointed at University Research
Whatever a lab is building, someone funded it and someone's hiring for it — I map that first.
Years before this, I was a software engineer and business analyst at Microsoft, Citi, Veterans United, and Atomic Object — mapping how data, money, and decisions actually move through a complex system before anyone touched it. I grew up in Michigan, and my family's from the Missouri Bootheel, where I spent every summer growing up. Once I pointed that same discipline at the university research economy, it fit immediately: whether you're a student, a professor, or an employer, the approach is the same — map the real chain from funding to research to people to jobs, and source every claim before we build anything.
diamond Values
The standards behind the work.
Systems Thinking
See the money, the labs, the people, the technology, and the job market as one connected graph — not isolated headlines.
Integrity
Every number gets a source. Every open question stays labeled open until it's actually answered.
Creation
Publish real analysis, build guides, and tools — not just observations.
handshake Work With Us
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Bring me a real question — I'll tell you straight whether it's a fit.
Opportunity research, build coaching, and university/employer partnerships, national in scope.
help FAQ
Common questions
Why animated episodes?
Because attention is the scarcest resource in learning. A story with a cast you care about keeps you watching; a concept engine that shows the real code, SQL or prompt on screen makes it concrete; and a workbook turns it into a skill. It's edutainment with a syllabus — and every season adds up to a course.
Is it really free?
Yes. Every episode, Short, workbook and written lesson is free. Universities, employers and teams can work with us on custom seasons and program briefs — that's how this stays free for everyone else.
Why universities?
Because they're where the money, the research, and the next generation of engineers all actually meet. A federal grant lands at a university, funds a lab, trains students, and eventually turns into open-source projects, startups, and jobs. Tracing that whole chain — grant to lab to student to career — is the most direct way to see where computer science, agentic AI, and engineering are actually headed.
Do you only cover a few schools?
No. The radar rotates across a deliberately built network of U.S. universities — research-intensive, regional, and community-connected — 7 a day, so the whole network gets covered on a regular cycle, not just the usual handful of famous names.
Are you a professor or a recruiter?
No — I'm a software engineer and business analyst by background. I'm not pretending otherwise. What I bring is the ability to research a system carefully, source it honestly, and explain it clearly — the same way I'd document any other complex system.
How do you make sure this is accurate?
Every fact on this site links to its public source — a grant record, a lab's own page, a company's careers page, a GitHub repo. Where I don't have real data yet, the page says so instead of guessing.
Do you also do coaching and partnership work?
Yes — opportunity research, build coaching, and partnership work with universities and employers, national in scope. See Work With Us.
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Bring me a real question about a university, a lab, or a career path.
Students, universities, employers — wherever you are in the country, every path starts with a conversation.