AFAIK, this is also how Hacker School NY works. I'm not a recruiter, nor want to be one :). I've never been recruited either. It sounds like a lot of money to me too, but it's the industry standard. On top of consuming all my free time the last 2-3 months, flying/hosting residents, paying for office space, etc is a significant cost. We hope that after the first batch, people are so appreciative that they will find it criminally bad if there's no next edition of the retreat. Making some money will give us the freedom to fly the best people, and provide the best experience possible. This is not a non-profit, but it's not run with the only intention of making money.