When I was working at startups in Cambridge, there was a company there that had a similar reputation called "JumpTap". They were in the same building as us and

When I was working at startups in Cambridge, there was a company there that had a similar reputation called "JumpTap". They were in the same building as us and their people complained a lot a the nearby bar. Long hours, long weeks, no recognition, even guys on the same team sabotaging each other's projects to chase promotions. When I saw that comment "getting a lot of advice from JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon," I remembered that JumpTap was founded by a former Morgan banker. At the time I knew some people at investment banks and they basically report the exact same environment. Right around then my friend went to JumpTap and lasted about 5 weeks before he walked out, reporting the exact same thing. So when they called to recruit me I knew it would be wasting my time to even explain to them I thought that they should fix their rep as an employer first - rapacious and exploitative is the only environment they know how to run. It works for Morgan's and Goldman and the rest of Wall Street so they bring it with them into tech. It seems to me that only about 5% of engineers are suited for it, that suitability doesn't correlate with actual technical talent, they don't really gain anything in the long run for the extra time they put in (JumpTap's never gonna have a big stock pop, and Square employees will never see a Google kind of IPO payout), so for pretty much everyone it's best to steer clear.