This post on X caught the attention of many people.
An Austin-based company called Gauntlet AI is promising software engineers a $200,000 per year salary if they complete their 12-week program. The deal is said to include housing, food, and travel. The program is intense as it entails work of between 80-100 hours per week. The expectations are that you will emerge as an AI dev wizard or sorts, it seems.
Is it too good to be true? Who knows. The AI market continues to be red ho,t with some believing it has entered bubble territory. That being said, AI will soon be infused in just about everything.
Founded by Austen Allred, who is CEO of Guantlet AI, Grok (of course) says he has “spiky points of view.” Grok shares that he has some critics due to prior legal issues, including a 2024 run-in with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), when the agency ordered BloomTech (Lambda Inc.), operated by Allred, to pay civil penalties for disclosure failures.
Regardless, a great earned media strategy.
Engineers! We want to:
Fly you to Austin
Give you an apartment
Clean your room
Do your laundry
Feed you 3x/day
Help you master building with AI
And give you a $200k+ job.
You pay nothing, ever, no matter what. Even if you don’t take the job.https://t.co/06w4S94fMp
— Austen Allred (@Austen) September 26, 2025