[sean-duffy]

Agreed, if indeed he is using "internship" to mean "unpaid internship". Far too much importance is placed on unpaid work these days, particularly in tech, and it just isn't needed. He clearly has enough experience to spend his summer doing actual work, and should be compensated for it.

[hn_]

Generally speaking in the US unpaid internships are illegal (for for profit companies) if the employee is doing real work that brings business value to the company.... The DOL has a six point test to see if an employee needs to be paid:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf