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Women’s coding school Hackbright Academy acquired by Capella Education for $18M
- cbd1984 11y agoReposted to avoid trolls: Do they accept transwomen? How about people who don't identify as either gender? Do they set themselves up as arbiters of who qualifies as a woman, and, if so, what criteria do they use?
- pg_is_a_butt 11y agosexism is sexist.
- Brainix 11y agoIf it had been a men's coding school, it would've been acquired for $25M. Edit: Apologies, couldn't resist.
- oh_sigh 11y agoYes, you could resist, you just chose not to. You're still free to delete the comment.
- omonra 11y agoIt's called a sense of humor. You should try it out.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- na85 11y agoPerhaps because the market is saturated with coding schools that are chock-full of men, and thus there is no demand for a men's coding school.
- Brainix 11y agoI believe that my joke (perhaps in poor taste) isn't being taken as I intended. I'm a Python programmer, and my favorite feature of Python is the community. https://www.python.org/community/diversity/ https://www.python.org/community/diversity/ I was only trying to make light of an otherwise painful reality. There's a need for women's coding schools, and their alums will only make our field better. Congratulations to Hackbright Academy on an acquisition well deserved.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- lazzlazzlazz 11y agoIt seems quite obvious that being a women-only school was an asset for them.
- cbd1984 11y agoDo they accept transwomen? How about people who don't identify as either gender? Do they set themselves up as arbiters of who qualifies as a woman, and, if so, what criteria do they use?
- swanson 11y agoLooks like you can find that sort of information here: https://hackbrightacademy.com/transgender-inclusion-policy/ https://hackbrightacademy.com/transgender-inclusion-policy/
- eplanit 11y agoI guess people assume you're trolling. Perhaps you are, but actually the question is valid in the context of the current time we're in, especially recent news like restroom laws[1], Chariot for women[2]. These issues practically beg the question, in fact. As asked about this instituion, can a man who identifies as a woman drive for Chariot? [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/04/19/u-s-civil-rights-commission-says-north-carolinas-bathroom-law-jeopardizes-the-physical-safety-of-transgender-people/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/04/1... [2] http://safeher.com/ http://safeher.com/
- minimaxir 11y agoAt minimum, it's off-topic to the story at hand. (I do think the OP is bait regardless)
- pg_is_a_butt 11y agooff-topic? a sexist segregated institution being questioned on their application of sexism? you're an idiot. go to idiot academy.
- cbd1984 11y agoIt's entirely on-topic, because it's a question all gender-specific groups must be confronted with, and if they refuse to answer, that needs to be an issue.
- expjpi 11y agoGoogle searches for Capella Education are not promising. I hope Hackbright continues to do well.
- philip1209 11y agoI volunteered at Hackbright for multiple classes. I supported the mission - more diversity in tech - with my personal time for hours per week. However, after a while, the idea of an army of unpaid "volunteers" to mentor students seemed at-odds with the school's startup growth and profit goals. Their policy on recruiting graduates even seemed to imply that we could owe them money if we hired a student. I don't regret having helped Hackbright for free. I helped some ambitious students enter the tech world and begin new careers. It just saddens me that many of the shoulders on which this for-profit institution stood were ignored.
- kaikai 11y agoThis is a huge discussion in the the alumnae community right now. While Hackbright has never been a non-profit, the equation for volunteering felt different when it was an independent startup with a strong mission. Alumnae volunteer hundreds of hours mentoring current and past students, making connections, talking to prospective students, etc. Some of us even help with admissions! I'm very interested to see how this will affect Hackbright's access to that kind of unpaid emotional labor.
- aaronbrethorst 11y agoplus ça change, plus c'est la même chose http://www.wired.com/1999/10/volunteers/ http://www.wired.com/1999/10/volunteers/
- thefastlane 11y agoa for-profit entity will externalise any cost it can. why? in order to maximise revenue streams, nothing else. recruiting a volunteer workforce was a somewhat clever -- though disreputable -- business strategy on the part of Hackbright, and it appears to have worked really well for the folks who are now cashing out with this Capella deal. i'm not speaking to the OP in particular but to everyone when i say this: out of respect for yourself and your own career, don't donate free labour to a for-profit entity. just don't do it.
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- tedmiston 11y agoSo how does one estimate valuations for a coding school anyway? Their funding doesn't seem to be listed on CrunchBase, but $18M is substantial, more than an acquihire, which suggests there's something I'm missing.
- ultrasaurus 11y ago$18M for a 25 person company that raised seems like an acquhire. I wonder how much of the goodwill & volunteers that kept Hackbright going will transfer over to Capella. Disclaimer: I have a hackbright grad on my team (she's great) and a few friends who've done the program (and are mostly happy).
- dominotw 11y agoMy HR team sent us an email last week that they are proud to have recruited 'all women internship team' . Definitely a profitable move to fund women's coding school given chances of graduates getting hired at entry level is higher for women.
- kaikai 11y ago"chances of graduates getting hired at entry level is higher for women" This is highly debatable. I hear a lot of men saying that, and I encourage you to read more about the very real challenges and biases that women face in the tech industry (and the rest of life, too, not just jobs). Even if there's pressure now to hire more diverse teams, it doesn't make up for the lifetime of sexism, or the faulty pattern matching of the hiring team.
- dominotw 11y agohttp://www.cnet.com/news/google-cfo-hiring-women-is-good-for-business/ http://www.cnet.com/news/google-cfo-hiring-women-is-good-for... http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/24/tech/innovation/women-at-i-o http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/24/tech/innovation/women-at-i-o http://www.cio.com/article/2971293/apple-intel-cite-gains-in-hiring-women-and-minorities.html http://www.cio.com/article/2971293/apple-intel-cite-gains-in...
- wingless 11y agoA fool and his money (or in your case, time) are soon parted. The history of people being interested in computing goes back centuries, perhaps even millennia. Before the 50s most people interested in computing could only work with theoretical computers. In the 50s they had to enter a university and write code for vacuum tube computers. In the 60s computers got more common at companies and you could get a job operating and programming them. In the 70s hobbyists built their own home computers from scratch or from a kit they bought. In the 80s computers started becoming a household staple. In the 90s most children grew up with a computer. In the 2000s people not only had computers but also access to a global information network. If you are interested in programming in the year 2016, all you have to do is type a few letters and you will find hundreds of websites explaining programming to beginners. Yet, some people in the tech industry are convinced that the poor, poor people who don't have tech jobs never had the opportunity. This is wrong. They were simply not interested. Companies have been pushing this "tech jobs for everyone" agenda for some years now. This is understandable, since a bigger supply of programmers means lower wages. To this end, they even made secret wage-fixing agreements http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/03/apple_wagefixing_closed/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/03/apple_wagefixing_clo... . What is not understandable is how easy it is for programmers to believe that they are on a moral crusade while all they are doing is lowering their wages and job security. Perhaps people in the tech industry aren't that smart after all.
- tptacek 11y agoYou could cut the bottom three paragraphs off this comment and replace it with three new ones about "open source", and this comment would fit right in to a message board in 1998.
- yummyfajitas 11y agoExcept that in the case of open source, there is a clear counter argument. Open source increases developer productivity - this effect raises developer wages. Which effect dominates is unclear but I strongly suspect it is the productivity increase. The same is not true for increasing labor supply. (I do not support wage increasing protectionism as advocated by this guy, Trump, shiv sena, French taxi terrorists, etc - I'm just saying that the argument doesn't apply as easily to open source.)
- george_soros 11y agoWomen's coding school ? Can someone explain what happened to this world. Why should there be special places for women apart from rest rooms ? Aren't women fully emancipated already, don't they demand equality ? Isn't equality already served to women ? So they demand equality with men, but at the same time there is this need for coding school that only women can attend. Seriously ? Oh the irony. I think those women, that are interested in tech should go into tech and follow their dreams and of course it's nice to have women in tech. But, to somehow suggest, that men are to blame for the fact that there is less women programmers in the world; which places like this indirectly suggest just that, then this is just a spit in the man's face. The truth is, not that many women are on AVERAGE interested in programming. FACT! And there is nothing wrong about that. I don't see any nursing school for men. There is probably more female nurses in the world than men, but I don't see any male loud mouths that want to capitalise on that by convincing someone somewhere that there is injustice going on, because there is too many female nurses in the world !! There you go , I've said it. Now down vote me if you are soft, fuzzy and you grow your beard just right.
- kaikai 11y agoThe next time someone wonders why people think HackerNews is a crap place to be a woman, I'm pointing them to this thread.
- kelukelugames 11y agoOne bad joke and one flagged comment. Are you kidding? This is the most well behaved thread of all time for a diversity related post.
- kaikai 11y agoI see more crap than just those two comments, and the ratio of comments actually related to the article is seriously low (I realize I'm not helping on that front). I do think this is a pretty good example because there's a mix of subtle sexism and silly trolling, all because the article happens to relate to women. It's not even a post about diversity! It's about an acquisition! Honestly though, I came back here to delete that comment, because it's not a big deal and I didn't think most people would get it. I'm leaving it the way it is because in your reply you countered with the fact that this is a very well behaved post considering the topic, and frankly, that's depressing.
- kelukelugames 11y agoI don't think it's silly trolling. It's subtle and overt sexism. It is a big deal. It shows a few people can derail productive discussion and flag posts off of the frontpage.
- kaikai 11y agoI think that we're arguing the same point...?
- kelukelugames 11y agoI'm not arguing. I literally paraphrased what you wrote in agreement.
- kaikai 11y agoOne positive about this: Capella is an accredited school, meaning that there may be a way to allow Hackbright students to take out government backed student loans for the program, or even get Pell grants. Many students currently rely on outside loans, and would benefit from lower interest rates and grants. The cynics among us will of course acknowledge that that makes it much easier for Capella/Hackbright to make more money.
- douche 11y agoThis may be an incorrect association, but Capella is lumped into the same grouping in my mind with Kaplan, DeVry, University of Phoenix - maybe not total degree mills, but the kind of places that have late-night commercials on Adult Swim... So I'm not sure it's a real credibility boost.
- kaikai 11y agoIt's definitely a credibility hit, and those are the kinds of companies I associate with Capella, too. I believe Hackbright turned down an offer from Kaplan, which went on to buy DevBootcamp. Despite their predatory practices, however, the government has given them a seal of approval on which Hackbright can now hitch a ride. That makes Hackbright more accessible to folks without the resources to pay 15k+ and spend at least 3 months without a job in one of the most expensive regions in the US. That's huge, because of Hackbright's commitment to taking in students with a variety of backgrounds, races, and economic statuses (no word on how that will be affected by a corporate buy-out). Student loans are of course their own kind of mess; there's income-based repayment, less stigma, and even forgiveness, but it's also harder to get out of through things like bankruptcy.
- cbd1984 11y ago"The cynics among us will of course acknowledge that that makes it much easier for Capella/Hackbright to make more money." Especially with people like you spamming for them.