Quote from Dobbes:
Part of my decision to quit was this math: If you do a banner year and get +800%, you are still making a paltry amount of money, and the splits give you incentive to maintain and attempt to grow the account with them. Myself, I was looking for something I could use as a career... busting my ass, being in the top 10% of traders and taking home <50k/yr pre-tax under a best case scenario just didn't seem worth it to me. Anyways, Patak is making most of its money off of people rushing into combines and getting crushed. Through the chat, I saw hundreds of traders wash out. They have no interest or infrastructure to help you succeed. You have no access to senior traders, and Eddy and Mike will only give you vague and useless advice.
Think about how the model works: They target college students and post on college job boards. These are people that by definition have minor and informal at best trading experience. They then set a very high bar of short-term performance, charge them what they can get away with, and let them flop. Hopefully, they get hooked on the game and come back for seconds.
It is as legitimate as a US prop firm gets, but that doesn't make it a good deal. If you're looking for a career in financial markets, look elsewhere.