The apprenticeship is split into three parts over a year: Roughly four months at the start-up bootcamp Hack Reactor, four months of training, and then four months on the job, after which Slack may hire an apprentice, or help them get a job at another tech company. Next Chapter will train and place three “ returning citizens” inside Slack as quality-engineering apprentices-and build a process to help them acculturate to one of the most successful start-ups of the past decade, with help from a small support team led by a formerly incarcerated man named Kenyatta Leal. Almost universally young and San Francisco casual, but not universally white and male, they were there to see John Legend, and to celebrate Next Chapter, a new partnership the chat start-up has entered into with The Last Mile, a technology-training program for incarcerated people, and $800,000 from the W. O n the fifth floor of Slack’s new building, overlooking the fancy Salesforce Park, a standing-room-only crowd of employees had gathered.

Slack butterfield