Their prize structure reflects rewards in winner-take-all scenarios, such as the tech industry. How much money is the second-best CRM system making compared to Salesforce?
A whole lot? I mean, I don't have exact figures but knowing a few I hardly doubt the next competitor has 95% less profit than SalesForce. Tech isn't winner take all in most cases, it's a few take all, like say 4-5...
the prize structure was simply so that one company could eventually say "1 million dollar hackathon". no other reason. it's more reasonable to even it. every other company does that in the tech hackathons.