| You've made two very astute observations. 1 That's because most hackathans can't decide whether they want to be hackathons or pitchathons. and 2 The current Hackathon culture is indicative of a general tech and investing culture of picking "hot" ideas made by charismatic teams over people doing true technological innovation which takes sustained, serious effort. The real innovation is what ends up making an impact, but the little prototype parties can be a good stepping stone into the industry. My sense is that the market needs these type of pitch events with some type of filter. One filter is letting a group of experts at an incubator pick who you see. Another filter is having folks savvy enough to appreciate what can be gained from gaming hackathons. One way to view this is, "If you want them out of hackathons, how do you pay for hackathons and attract the right people, and where should the pitch-masters go?" I'm not sure ditching recruiters and VCs is the right answer. Perhaps having very technical keynote speakers helps? Or making the objective to be code reviews from famous engineers? (Instead of Google paying for expenses and a dozen recruiters, Google sends a couple very good engineers to peer review code. This is more expensive, but perhaps brings them better benefits too.) If there's no product pitch and PR, and a better alternative elsewhere, perhaps the pitch-masters will stay home? So what to do with the pitch-masters, when there's only so many presentation slots at TC and seats at YC? I don't have a good answer for this, but it sounds like a market opportunity for someone. |