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Agreed entirely. I only meant that when you choose do work harder than you have to, the necessary trade off is that you're sacrificing time with other people you love.

A typical dev could probably work 60% of a normal schedule and afford a comfortable life for their family. You could go home at 1pm every day and that'd be fun, but you can also sacrifice a bit of that and make change.

IMO, life without friends and family is wasted.

Sorry guys, I know the typography needs works. The orange-on-grey is tough on my color-blind eyes. We've been stretched thin getting ready for this conf (CodeMash) and launching Hungry Academy.

Thanks Allan, I hope people get excited about this.

I really believe there's going to be a kid out there with some junky computer, a dial-up net connection, who participates in what we're doing and becomes a developer. If one of those makes it, then it's worth it.

Go the non-developer route.

Awesome!

Send more details questions to hungryacademy at livingsocial dot com.

Maybe a library with a webcam-equipped computer? Friend with a camera phone? Volunteer somewhere for a few hours in exchange for using their equipment?

Yep, that's my understanding -- it's basically "we spent $xx,xxx training you, then you left. We think you owe us $yy,yyy."

That being said, it's a company of humans. What good is a developer who's shackled to their desk while a spouse is distressed in another state? None. There will be a way to work it out. We want you to be happy and great at building software, not imprisoned.

Apply, then if you're accepted I'll call your parents.

I think the calendar/rush is a bigger problem than the will/funding. I will do my best, for future iterations, to invite the world.

I'm sorry, I was mixed up about this. It's still possible for future iterations of the program, but for this one they've decided "no."

One big motivation for the video is that it's much harder to fake. It's easy to have my friend write some BS essay for me and submit it for a job, it's a lot harder to do it on camera.

Effective development teams are powered by communication in code, writing, and face-to-face. To be a really excellent candidate, we need all three.

If face-to-face is something people feel uncomfortable with, there are still SO MANY great opportunities to be a developer -- they're just not the right fit for our team.

I don't think they're common, at least not in the dev world. One of my training clients runs a six month "get familiar with the company" program where new hires do different jobs -- it's the same spirit but totally different intensity. Theirs is like "hey, it's better than an intership" and ours is like "this is more valuable than college. Work hard, learn hard."