A MESSAGE POSTED earlier on Instagram which purports to be a memo Apple sends its new employees on their first day is getting mixed reactions online.

With some responses to the original post describing the short message as “inspirational”, messages on the Ycombinator forum criticise the company for “bragging about itself in a way to make employees work more without asking to get paid for it”.

“Talking of work and no rewards and compensation is not very impressive these days,” another wrote.

Other contributors have defended the message, with one saying they saw it as “being honest about the worst parts of a job, kind of like the ‘for better or for worse’ part of a wedding vow”.

Here’s the note, via BusinessInsider:

There’s work and there’s your life’s work.

The kind of work that has your fingerprints all over it. The kind of work that you’d never compromise on. That you’d sacrifice a weekend for. You can do that kind of work at Apple. People don’t come here to play it safe. They come here to swim in the deep end.

They want their work to add up to something.

Something big. Something that couldn’t happen anywhere else.

Welcome to Apple.

What do you think of the memo? Is it inspirational or unimpressive?