Translation for those who aren't used to the distorted language of arrogant assholes:
> "...it’s not about work-life balance. Rather, it’s about optimizing work-life imbalance"
Translation: If I use the word "optimizing" in this sentence, the crushing work load I'm about to give you will seem like a rational choice rather than bare exploitation.
> "Long nights and weekends spent away from families are the norm in the startup world. We often chuckle at glamorized notions of the startup lifestyle: table tennis games, fully stocked kitchens and generous stock options."
Translation: We know what it's really like to work in a startup - having families and fair pay are luxuries we know don't really exist. Anyone who expects otherwise is lazy and doesn't fit with our "culture".
> "We work long hours, we are not paid much, and even after raising over $10-million within our first year of operations, we still have a mountain to climb in our efforts to expand this company."
Translation: While you might not be paid much, I hold a majority stake in the company and will be handsomely rewarded for your hard work when the company gets bought. And just because we raised $10 million doesn't mean any of you are getting a raise.
> "We have also ensured that each employee has an unyielding belief in the company’s mission. If anyone in the office doesn’t believe they’re a part of something incredibly meaningful that will truly reinvent banking, they’ll likely struggle to relate to their co-workers and eventually “burn out.”
Translation: I mean... they're going to burn out anyway after working 80 hours every week, but forced belief in the "mission" of the company allows us to squeeze a couple more months of hard work out of them before they finally quit, feeling guilty and ashamed of their perceived failure.
> "Our husbands and wives help pick up the slack on our long days, and our kids put a smile on our faces after stressful meetings. Many of our team members have young families, and we do our best to respect their needs through flexible hours and by encouraging the ability to work from home when needed."
Translation: I mean, I'm not a monster - if someone wants to spend a portion of their 14 hour work day at home, using their own computer and resources, of course we'll accommodate them. Far be it from me to prevent my employees from bringing all the stress of their work lives into their homes.
> "While the work can be challenging, the rewards are endless."
Translation: The rewards for me, that is. For you, the rewards are very much finite.
> "Having said that, it takes a special kind of personality to seek out (and succeed in) such an uncertain and risky environment. At the end of the day, I guess you still need to be a little nuts to succeed in a startup."
Translation: Young, well-off techies without families or hobbies who can afford to live on breadcrumbs and are healthy enough to keep our insurance costs minimal to the front of the line.
Hey, I wanted to offer the perspective of an instructor at General Assembly - I guess take my response with a grain of salt, but I'll do my level best to be objective.
I think, perhaps unsurprisingly, the statement that
> "GA seems to not really give a shit about actually educating people or getting them jobs, just about making sure they pay tuition"
is flat wrong. We have a large, dedicated "Outcomes" team whose sole job is to educate and prepare students for the workplace and find them positions after they graduate. Unlike other bootcamps, GA does not act as a recruiter by taking fees from employers for placing candidates, nor do we take a percentage of students' first year salaries as tuition. I think this is great, because it means that our Outcomes team is only concerned with finding the best fit for each student, rather than placing them with a "partner" company or in the highest paying job, which may not be suitable for them.
We also integrate workplace related programming throughout the entire course by bringing in developers from other companies to talk about what it's like to work in the industry, taking students on tours of potential employer offices so they can see what a typical dev environment might look like, encouraging students to participate in meetups and local dev events to grow their own development communities, and more. Also, GA has an excellent (90%+) success rate in helping our students get relevant (i.e. something that uses the skills they just learned) jobs post graduation.
As far as the curriculum: frankly, most of the bootcamps (including us) are teaching on the same stack (Ruby, Rails, Git, and obviously HTML, CSS/Sass, Javascript, jQuery and some JS framework). I would be very surprised if the curriculum was wildly different amongst bootcamps. What we've found is that the quality of instruction and an emphasis on problem-solving techniques is more important to long term success than particular technology stacks. I'd be very interested to hear if Flatiron has some groundbreaking new way to teach the Rails stack.
Finally, on instructor quality: I'm obviously very biased here, but the other instructors I've met and worked with at GA have been some of the best I've seen. I suppose it could be argued that I must not have seen great developers before, but if that's true then I have been faking my way through the last several years coding at prominent VC-backed startups. My co-instructors are experienced, knowledgeable, and most of all they take pride in their craft and care about their students. I have a lot of respect for Flatiron and think they're a great bootcamp, but I wouldn't trade the developers I get to work with on a daily basis for anyone.
> "...it’s not about work-life balance. Rather, it’s about optimizing work-life imbalance"
Translation: If I use the word "optimizing" in this sentence, the crushing work load I'm about to give you will seem like a rational choice rather than bare exploitation.
> "Long nights and weekends spent away from families are the norm in the startup world. We often chuckle at glamorized notions of the startup lifestyle: table tennis games, fully stocked kitchens and generous stock options."
Translation: We know what it's really like to work in a startup - having families and fair pay are luxuries we know don't really exist. Anyone who expects otherwise is lazy and doesn't fit with our "culture".
> "We work long hours, we are not paid much, and even after raising over $10-million within our first year of operations, we still have a mountain to climb in our efforts to expand this company."
Translation: While you might not be paid much, I hold a majority stake in the company and will be handsomely rewarded for your hard work when the company gets bought. And just because we raised $10 million doesn't mean any of you are getting a raise.
> "We have also ensured that each employee has an unyielding belief in the company’s mission. If anyone in the office doesn’t believe they’re a part of something incredibly meaningful that will truly reinvent banking, they’ll likely struggle to relate to their co-workers and eventually “burn out.”
Translation: I mean... they're going to burn out anyway after working 80 hours every week, but forced belief in the "mission" of the company allows us to squeeze a couple more months of hard work out of them before they finally quit, feeling guilty and ashamed of their perceived failure.
> "Our husbands and wives help pick up the slack on our long days, and our kids put a smile on our faces after stressful meetings. Many of our team members have young families, and we do our best to respect their needs through flexible hours and by encouraging the ability to work from home when needed."
Translation: I mean, I'm not a monster - if someone wants to spend a portion of their 14 hour work day at home, using their own computer and resources, of course we'll accommodate them. Far be it from me to prevent my employees from bringing all the stress of their work lives into their homes.
> "While the work can be challenging, the rewards are endless."
Translation: The rewards for me, that is. For you, the rewards are very much finite.
> "Having said that, it takes a special kind of personality to seek out (and succeed in) such an uncertain and risky environment. At the end of the day, I guess you still need to be a little nuts to succeed in a startup."
Translation: Young, well-off techies without families or hobbies who can afford to live on breadcrumbs and are healthy enough to keep our insurance costs minimal to the front of the line.