Getting a job at Bending Spoons comes with no bonus, no fancy title, and a warning—800,000 people applied anyway

Joining Bending Spoons, the Italian tech conglomerate that owns Vimeo and AOL, comes with a warning. Each prospective hire is sent a list of its “controversial” workplace principles, which advises candidates to prepare for “considerable” challenges, workloads, and expectations. Those that don’t fully commit, don’t get the job. Despite this, Bending Spoons is regularly inundated with job applications. Last year, it received 800,000 CVs but hired only 286 people—making its recruitment process 100-times more selective than the Ivy League. Chief executive Luca Ferrari once described Bending Spoons as “like private equity had a baby with Google.” It buys underperforming apps, rebuilds their technology with its own engineers and, unlike a typical…