
Women’s coding school Hackbright Academy acquired by Capella Education for $18M - robbiet480
http://recode.net/2016/04/22/womens-coding-school-hackbright-academy-acquired-for-18-million/
======
philip1209
I 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
This 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.

~~~
thefastlane
a 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.

~~~
kaikai
I can't speak for all the folks who volunteer, but I was willing to give my
time because I saw the impact that Hackbright had on a lot of lives. It was
something I was willing to put time into to support, even though I understand
the realities of running a for-profit business. I don't think Hackbright could
have had those impacts without the amazing support of its volunteers, which is
why many folks are a little upset about what they perceive as selling out.

It's not always a bad thing if you go into it with that in mind, but it's
definitely a fine balance.

~~~
klipt
Couldn't you have had the same (or even greater) impact at a non-profit
though?

~~~
kaikai
Probably! For many of us alumnae, it was giving back to something that had a
direct impact on our lives. Many of us already work with other groups, and/or
will shift our efforts to those groups now.

I don't know of any non-profit bootcamps for women/underrepresented genders in
the bay area :) The work that Hackbright does takes a lot of one-on-one time
and a lot of money, and that's hard for a non-profit/volunteer model to
support (I used to run a non-profit and have been a part of many volunteer
groups).

There are, however, a ton of neat projects doing great work around adjacent or
overlapping issues, and I'm working on a list to help provide alternatives for
folks who can't stomach supporting Capella. Feel free to post suggestions :)

------
ultrasaurus
$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).

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expjpi
Google searches for Capella Education are not promising. I hope Hackbright
continues to do well.

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dominotw
My 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
"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
[http://www.cnet.com/news/google-cfo-hiring-women-is-good-
for...](http://www.cnet.com/news/google-cfo-hiring-women-is-good-for-
business/)

[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...](http://www.cio.com/article/2971293/apple-intel-cite-gains-in-hiring-
women-and-minorities.html)

------
kaikai
One 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
This 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
It'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.

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tedmiston
So 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.

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Brainix
If it had been a men's coding school, it would've been acquired for $25M.

Edit: Apologies, couldn't resist.

~~~
Brainix
I 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.

------
cbd1984
Reposted 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?

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kaikai
The next time someone wonders why people think HackerNews is a crap place to
be a woman, I'm pointing them to this thread.

~~~
kelukelugames
One 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
I 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
I 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
I think that we're arguing the same point...?

~~~
kelukelugames
I'm not arguing. I literally paraphrased what you wrote in agreement.

