dfriedmn

That's actually a different firm called Apollo Group (which is mostly comprised of Phoenix and a small number of other things) – Apollo Global is a much larger private equity firm with a confusingly similar name

Also, this might answer the question of potential acquirers...

First commenter's co-founder here: Sure, you definitely need to screen for culture fit. There are great people who would be bad fits here. That said, we want people who have succeed in most positions they've had in the past. If there are two people who have had 4 jobs in their career, you're way more likely to pick the better if you favor the one who outperformed in 3 of those 4 jobs rather than 1 of the 4. When you combine that with looking closely at their experience as it fits with the role, and their fit with the culture, then you have a complete screening process.

Thinkful (thinkful.com) - NYC, full-time.

We are a team of educators and students. Whether you’re building the product, designing a curriculum, or working directly with students, you’ll be asked to learn quickly and help others do the same. We hire for the curiosity, enthusiasm, and grit that characterize our students. We believe in both teaching and learning while at work, and we provide the freedom and support you need to learn any skill.

We offer everything you should expect from a well-funded startup: competitive salaries, health insurance, significant equity, and a few perks that reflect our culture: gym membership, Kindle, and monthly book credit. We share an office with other great startups in the Flatiron district of Manhattan.

Python/Django engineers

We’re building the tools to deliver curricula, expertise and live help so anyone can advance their career. As an engineer at Thinkful you’ll be working directly with both Darrell and Dan to architect, build and grow our technology and our team. You’re excited about learning new skills and applying them to help others learn. You must have a portfolio of interesting software engineering projects you can show us. The ideal candidate has a keen interest in education and learning, reflecting the aspirations of our students. Talent and curiosity matter more than raw skill: Experience is valued, but not as much as potential. This position is with us in New York City.

Contact Darrell (darrell at thinkful dot com) to apply. Send along your GitHub profile, or any work that makes you awesome.

UX/UI designer

We need to build a visual voice that reflects the values of Thinkful: Aspirational, curious, and open to experimentation. In this role, you’ll define the look and feel of the Thinkful brand and create the UX and UI of our educational product. You’re excited to design experiences that help our students learn faster and retain what they learn. You want to contribute ideas, and take others’ ideas to the state of finished products. If you don’t already know how to code your designs, you’re excited to learn (we’re happy to teach you). Your experience must demonstrate that you’re versatile, and your curiosity must convince us that you intend to become more so. This position is with us in New York City.

Contact Darrell (darrell at thinkful dot com) to apply. Send along any work that makes you awesome.

Couldn't agree more – when we started Thinkful (mentor-led training for front-end development), my co-founder and I mentored every student ourselves, and it was amazing how quickly it exposed every hole in our understanding of even basic concepts. Even though the team has grown and we now have 12 mentors, we still try to work with a few students because we enjoy it so much.

We've mentor about 75 students in front-end development at Thinkful (thinkful.com) – we're actually working with a team of about 12 mentors now. If you'd like to join, feel free to reach out (email is dan at thinkful). We've learned a ton about best practices for how to help beginners learn over the last 6 months of doing it.

Also OATV is a seed fund – they may have participated in a few series A's in the past, but probably don't deserve to be mentioned in this list. Should probably add a filter for investors that do 80%+ seed deals and just a few series A's.

Coaching is less likely to mask incompetence than reveal competence.

Right, and it's one thing if the problem is, "you're a douche," which frankly requires more than interview feedback to fix. But if the problem is, "you came across as timid," and the problem is strictly about speaking with more confidence, that's a highly fixable problem that you can improve with a reasonable amount of practice.

Free month of Thinkful to the team that's supposed to be keeping it up. Could have order something and had it delivered in the time it took to get back up...

With such comprehensive layoffs (4% of the company), I can't imagine they wiped out 80% of their bottom 5%.

Signs certainly point to yes.