Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

[haskellvilain]

I am an american CS student that goes to (a lot) of hackathons. The purpose of this post is to get feedback/opinions from people that are outside the "Hackathon Hackers" bubble to determine whether or not my rant is founded and if the issues I am highlighting are characteristic of the tech industry.

It bothers me to see how obsessed with success this generation of "hackers" seems to be. I have met people who were justifying censorship, population control and unfair business practices because they could benefit from them someday. I was expecting a little more regard to civil liberties and ethics from students and so called "hackers".

People win by making "cool" apps (Uber for X) whereas technical hacks are totally ignored.

I am glad that people are motivated to succeed but this lead to some of them taking themselves very seriously. Often to the expense of ethics.

"There is such ignorance in this world about who we are. We are not criminals. We are innovators. We create things. We change the world.[...]"

And this is one example among many other from a guy who has never engineered anything. Weeks are spent planning for their new "great project" with at the end little to no execution.

Students who believe to be 1000x SE because they can stick two APIs together and use bootstrap end-up to be very condescending older engineers.

This "bro"/"my framework is the best"/"Make money fast" culture that stinks a little bit IMO.

Hackathons are great to try out new technologies, meet new people and outreach to demographics that are traditionally under-represented in CS but I don't like where this is headed.

Like HS there is "cool kids" who are "Student Entrepreneur" or "Innovator, UX Artist blah blah", "RoR Genius" etc... and the rest of the world.

My apologies if this post is a little bit ranty, I hope to get other perspectives on this.

[GolfyMcG]

We hired a dev that's very much like you described. We "knew" he was smart because he did well in some Hackathons. Had built some cool projects on his flashy portfolio. Went to the same university we want to, which is a top university in the world. Had good grades at said University. etc.

He had all the markings of being a fantastic intern for us.

About half way through his internship we had to fire him. He lacked the attention span for a long term, rigorous software development project. We later hired someone whom we evaluated very differently and it has been incredible. He's doing a fantastic job. Constantly questions our opinions about software and pushes the boundaries of our depth of understanding.

To add to this, we knew the fired intern went on to another startup to keep doing whatever it is he thinks he's doing. The founders of that company ended up telling us the same exact problems were happening with them. Don't worry about these "hackers" and what they're doing. They'll all end up getting a reality check at some point. If they frustrate you, then just remember that the best revenge is living well.

[yoklov]

FWIW, In the games industry it's fairly common practice to totally ignore anything a potential programmer made in a game jam (unless they carried it on afterwards).

Feels somewhat equivalent, even though it's probably for different reasons.

[nmb]

How did you evaluate the other person?

[iheartramen]

This is so true. Steadily working on a long-term project is so much more valuable than writing shitty code that you won't look at again for 24 hours every few weekends.

[jmcohen]

Penn's hackathon is by application only. I think this is pretty silly. Here's a quote from a Medium post by one of the event organizers announcing this year's low acceptance rate of 30% [1]:

  The people that got in had almost all either won major hackathons before or 
  worked on multiple projects that each blew our socks off in a spectacular fashion.

I'm just trying to imagine these kids at Penn sitting around a table deliberating which applicants have the most "major" hackathon victories and most "blew our socks off" projects:

Organizer #1: This team looks promising. They placed second at the State U hackathon last spring!

#2: That's not impressive. Everyone knows that StateUHacks is a third-tier hackathon. A monkey with a rotary phone could win the Twilio prize there. Who do you think we are, Cornell? This is UPenn; we accept elite hackers only. Only the cream of the crop from HackMIT is good enough to don Dropbox t-shirts with us.

#1: Ok, how about this girl? The side project she submitted under the "Supplemental Materials" section of our application looks pretty good.

#2: As IF! I'd give that side project a 4/10. No infinite scrolling? What a waste of my time. And look at that .ly TLD. It's like, "HELLO, 2012 is calling and asking for its domain name back," am I right?

[1] https://medium.com/pennapps-x/pennapps-x-application-stats-6...

[golergka]

To be fair, if you're criticising selective hackathon idea, you have to go all the way criticise the whole competitiveness of hackathons altogether. Because "selective hackathons" are just a logical continuation of the idea that hackathon can be won. Personally, I don't yet have a definite opinion on the whole matter, but you certainly can't be OK with one thing and be opposed to it's logical conclusion.

[polymathist]

I happen to know a few hackathon organizers and have an idea of how these things work under the hood. I wouldn't be so quick to judge. The reason Penn's hackathon is application only is that they literally can only support a certain number of participants. There's a limit to how many people they can feed, fit in one building, control in a big crowd, etc. Some hackathons manage this limit by accepting participants first come, first serve. Penn decided to take what they consider to be the best applicants, and I don't blame them for that. Their goal as organizers is to impress sponsors enough so that they can do it again next year. There's no evidence that this sort of conversation happened.

People are right in criticizing some aspects of the hackathon culture, but be careful about generalizations. For example, HackDuke has taken steps to include beginners with a series of seminars in the off-season (and by offering a beginner prize), encourage projects that do social good (as opposed to just "hacks"), and they encourage people to continue working on their projects after the hackathon is over. Disclaimer: I went to Duke and participated in their hackathons (and greatly enjoyed them!).

[Aradalf]

I've gotten to to PennApps multiple times and the only hackathon I've ever won is a Codeday, so this scenario that you're constructing is blatantly false. I'm assuming they look for people that will attract big sponsors to their hackathon, and the idea makes a lot of sense. Hackathons can't expand indefinitely, and the idea of having some consistency still makes more sense to me than random selection, which leads to situations where you're not accepted to a single hackathon in an entire semester. Unless you have a better idea, perhaps you should not mock this one?

[richardjordan]

yeah the selective hackathon is a relatively new thing and kinda stupid - like hackathon organizers have some magic formula for picking winners... dumb idea

[timguoqk]

Got rejected by several hackathons. Once I was rejected but my friend (similar college, same previous hackathon experience, significantly less experienced than me but is a girl) was accepted. And I just got a summer intern from a well-known tech company a week ago.

[jonathankoren]

Ironically does UPenn even have that highly regarded of a CS program? B-school sure, but CS? This really sounds like B-school bullshit.

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

The alternatives to a juried pool are (a) first come, first serve and (b) random selection, which would you have preferred in this case?

("Admitting everyone" is simply not possible, there's neither the space nor the support staff)

[lifeisstillgood]

2012 is calling and skiing for it's domain name back

Love it :-)

[fsk]

>Students who believe to be 1000x SE because they can stick two APIs together and use bootstrap end-up to be very condescending older engineers.

Yeah, I've noticed that younger programmers started talking down to me like my experience is worthless. Then they ask me to debug their code for them.

The frustrating part is that, when I interview, my experience in now-obsolete languages has a value of $0. My skill for understanding business requirements and debugging is mostly transferable, but that doesn't seem to be valued. I understand valuing my experience in older languages at a discount, but I don't understand why it gets a value of zero or negative.

I never saw the point of hackathons, because I'm interested in projects that take more than a couple of days to finish. You can do "Uber for X" in a weekend, but not something substantial or truly original.

[DrJokepu]

I don't know about your specific case but it's typically not the presence old technologies that devalue a resume; it's their presence AND the lack of new technologies that does that, because it indicates that the candidate doesn't think it's important to keep himself up to date regarding the latest developments in his profession, which is a huge red flag.

Just this week we've interviewed a lady for a development position who had a very long career and had experience with not just old technologies such as, I don't know, Delphi, but she taught herself new things as well such as ASP.NET MVC and Node. She is a mother of two yet she has managed to find time to keep her skills up-to-date. Obviously we have offered her a senior position pretty much immediately.

[arfliw]

If they had to choose between you and somebody with no programming experience, who do you think they would hire? If they hired you both, do you think you'd get the same salary?

Answers are obv: (1) you (2) no - so your skills are not valued at $0.

[richardjordan]

Hackathons are a good way to make yourself try to build something in a short space of time with a new language which can teach you more about it than any amount of lessons.

[jedanbik]

Honestly? You're hanging out with a bunch of ambitious, entry level devs, probably all college students. This is what you should expect from a crowd like this. Take what you need and leave the rest. For more depth and maturity, go to your favorite language meetups and attend/participate in talks from/with folks with some industry experience under their belt. Kudos for having perspective enough to ask for feedback about this. You'll be fine.

[richardjordan]

I think a key part of the question though is the fact that it didn't used to be just entry level devs and college students at hackathons.

[parfe]

1. Get a PAID internship

2. Get a part time job

3. Graduate

4. Get a full time job

5. Do things for fun that don't involve computers.

The fact I happen to interact with X framework in Y language, running on Z environment has zero relevence in my life. I more quickly ignore people talking about Ruby/Python/Javascript running Rails/Django/Node than the homeless person trying to wash my windshield.

You get too involved in tech communities and you forget what the real world looks like. I've literally met better people while delivering HIV test kits than while dealing with HPC systems. Find good people rather than defaulting to people like you who make money.

[adrusi]

Some people are genuinely passionate about computing and for them it will always be more than just what they do to feed themselves. There's nothing wrong with this, and nothing wrong with the alternative, so long as you're effective, happy, and don't delude yourself.

[mden]

And out of curiosity, how do you resolve your statements with the fact that you have over 5k karma and over 1k posts on this site alone?

[aurora72]

First off, the sentence of "the people who were justifying censorship, population control and unfair business practices because they could benefit from them someday" echoed back the news I remember from 2012 or so which was like "In America, half of the lowest earners are opposed to raising taxes on the rich, because they reckon they will someday get rich and raising rich taxes would mean their children would be deprived of having the possibility of getting rich someday" (If someone could find the link of that news I'd be grateful)

As for the hackers, let's see the distinction between the "hacker" and the "problem solver" Richard Stallman did not only hacked software, he solved the problem of software being unaccessable to everyone. Rich Hickey did not only hacked software, he solved the problem of Lisp being unaccessable to newer generations and platforms. The founders of YCombinator didn't only hacked software they solved the problem of eCommerce.

I actually love the people who stick two APIs together and use bootstrap end-ups to show something interesting because they at least 'do' something. But the problem solvers are always the superior ones and I eventually spend more time following them because I myself have to solve problems in my life :)

[pgeorgi]

Regarding the notion of not raising taxes on the rich, that's coming up every now and again.

From a 1976 musical, for example: "Don't forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor." (Peter Stone)

[r0naa]

I think that this is from "From Zero to One" but I am not 100% sure.

[gailees]

Hackathon Hackers is an eclectic group of over 13,000 individuals -- I started it 8 months ago to create an inclusive, welcoming community for up-and-coming hackers.

People come from tons of different backgrounds and this community provides a space where radical ideas are welcome.

You'll definitely find some people with interesting, sometimes scary, views but that by no means defines the entire group of people. "Hackathon Hackers" has over 100 active subgroups that explore a wide range of topics and perspectives.

That said, by creating this space, the issues we face in tech, and in the world at large, are more visible in HH than any other community I've ever been a part of.

Improving the culture will be a never-ending pursuit and will take tens of thousands of young hackers banding together to do so. The issues you pointed out are very real.

It won't happen in a day, but we've come so far in just a few short months and this is still just the start.

[saul_goodman]

A hackathon at a school is going to exist to further the adjenda of the school which is fine, but not anything related to "hacker ethos". A hackathon at an actual hackerspace however will be much closer to what you are after.

Some other folks brought up Startup Weekends. We have them in my town and I've never seen them get anything off the ground. Some of the organizers tried to cozy up to our hackerspace which is fine, but we really had nothing in common. The reality is that Startup Weekends are stupid. It's a nice idea to get a bunch of technical people and investors together to build something, but you don't start a business worth pursuing by committee. You have a small number of folks very focused on what they want and that builds momentum until it can draw others in. By the time outsiders are being attracted there's usually a solid idea there that people are contributing towards. A committee is going to water an idea down until it's a shallow frank-n-beans version of the original idea. The other possibility is that they end up making a new "Uber for X" which never goes anywhere.

But someone with their wits about them can use this to networking opportunity with local tallent. Just don't participate in the main project if you can avoid it.

[jhsu42]

Hosted a Startup Weekend, can confirm.

A ton of it is muddled in politics and branding. I have yet to see many "big, scalable" companies come out of the ones that have been hosted.

Getting developers is tough, and being the only developer on the organizing team selling the event to other developers when they had free, more legit hackathons made it an insane choice.

I will say that events that Code for America have hosted have been nice. They seem as far as I can tell trying to change something a little more real than the "Uber for X".

[geofft]

Take a look at the free software community (which is incidentally very well-correlated with what the "hacker" community used to be 20-30 years ago, and has much more of a claim to being the intellectual heirs of that group than the hackathon crowd does or even the HN crowd does). There's a lot of focus on ethics and civil liberties, and maybe a bit too little focus on effective PR and on shipping, but it's very refreshing.

As a concrete suggestion, LibrePlanet https://libreplanet.org/2015/ is next weekend at MIT, and free for students. Or see if there's a Debian group in your local area.

[carucez]

Welcome to the future of CS. As technical fields cross into the phase of commonly understood knowledge, the ability to exploit imbalances rises. Opportunity exists everywhere, but we as insiders with our vast technical knowledge are distracted by our awe of capability. We fail to exploit the low hanging fruit that a capitalist might immediately sense. We would rather pursue deeper knowledge within our domain to be masters of our craft.

People selling cell phone mods don't usually know anything about electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or manufacturing; yet they somehow can pull millions of dollars of profits out of plastic cases and LED mods simply by dangling a few slices of pizza in front of a hungry college student.

Point is, exploitation is everywhere -- don't be exploited, and computer science is at the stage where it's simple enough to follow some rules and slap a few APIs together to build a decent mash-up that's never existed before... that a fraction of people are willing to pay for, and "make bank bro".

I hate it. It's not just you feeling this frustration. Just see the writing on the wall, and know that app dev / pipelining of data feeds is going to be as "easy" as programming a VCR in the 90's.

[woah]

Why is this a bad thing? Business people are good at selling things and making money. This is what they do. If you are envious of their skills, learn how to do it yourself. Get a low level sales job on commission and see what it's like. I doubt it is as easy as you might think.

[wiseleo]

Reasons why I go:

1. Get introduced to new technologies 2. Get inspired to build something new 3. Meet interesting people and help them debug code 4. Win prizes

The immovable deadline is an amazing motivator for me. I recently finished some code at 12:59:28. The deadline was at 1:00pm. At 32 seconds on the clock, my code finally stopped returning errors.

Technical hacks are not ignored by everyone. They are, however, often poorly presented. I got tired of that problem, so I am working on making it easier to get better exposure during hackathon presentations even if the presenter is not amazing at pitching. I helped many presenters improve their pitches in only a few minutes, but it's a difficult skill.

Sponsors don't ignore cool technical hacks. For them, such events are partially a recruitment opportunity. They often continue to work with interesting people after the event is over even when they are not winners.

Although I won several hackathons, more importantly I got started working on my products at such events. They were a catalyst for me to stop dreaming and start building.

[r0naa]

> They are, however, often poorly presented. I got tired of that problem, so I am working on making it easier to get better exposure during hackathon presentations even if the presenter is not amazing at pitching.

I think that hackathons should revamp this process. If the goal is truly to build something amazing then judging people on 2 minutes pitch does not make sense. Maybe let a couple days to a team of judge to go through the project/code etc...? Just a random thought.

> They often continue to work with interesting people after the event is over even when they are not winners.

I second that, I got several interviews that way.

[sudeepj]

There is nothing inherently wrong with hackathons. Software development is one of few disciplines in which one can cook-up something valuable quickly in few hours. Imagine medical students trying out this in their discipline :)

However, there is somehow perception that creating via hacking == great engineering. Hacking is a part of engineering. Engineering requires discipline, attention to detail, due diligence and long term view. Think about all the amazing bridges, or design of fighter aircrafts. Sure there might be moments where something was solved with clever hacks in these endeavours, but its the rigor of engineering that makes the product final shape.

There is also non-technical aspect. Great hacker may not be == great team person. All the amazing things around us were created by "teams".

[14113]

I think a great comparison would be between the British tv show "Scrapheap Challenge", and "real world" engineering.

In the show, teams have to compete, over a period of 3 days, to build specific vehicles (e.g. amphibious cars, remote control tanks, light aircraft) out of what they can find in a (well stocked) scrapheap. The vehicles are invariably unsafe, hastily put together, and look you think they'd look after being made out of scrap. Generally however, each vehicle actually performs the task its made for.

If you took any one of the competitors on scrapheap challenge, and dropped them into (say) Lockheed-Martin, they'd undoubtably flounder (at least initially). The skills required to hack together an aeroplane in 3 days, are entirely different from the set of skills required to design an f22.

[iwtbf]

Last summer when I was an intern I totally bought the hackathon culture. Then I went to one and was absolutely appalled at what goes on inside hackathons. Big talks about the next cool app, and raising money from VC coz I went to Y school and know Z. One of the apps that won was a chat app for hackers in 2014. There were some good people too, but they were hard to find and very few. Since then I have started moving away from the so-called hacker culture and just ignore hackathons. Fundamentally the whole concept of hackathon just sounds bad to me now. You code and don't sleep or sleep in some random place at random time. I would take good sleep any day over learning some fancy new technology. I would prefer hackathons to be more where a set of people show something interesting they have built and then people can discuss merits/demerits and start contributing to them. Sprints of open source projects comes to mind. The likes scikit-learn under python for example.

[sb8244]

How many high school "CEOs" are there in the HH community? I think that tells a lot about the type of people that are attracted to HH.

However, I don't think a gross generalization of people who go to hackathons (possibly competitively) is very accurate. A lot of people in the hackathon community are making actually cool things beyond just sticking APIs together, and there are many who can not program at all.

WRT selection for a hackathon. When thousands more apply than spots are available for, there is going to be competition. A lot of the hackathons realized they were not being inclusive enough and began initiatives to change that. That type of responsibility is exactly what they should have done.

[michaelbuckbee]

Hackathons, Startup Weekends, etc. aren't really intended to birth the "next great startup". They are primarily a way for you (and me) and fellow people who are better at coding than chit-chat networking to meet some interesting new people, make some friends and if startups are really your thing to maybe meet a cofounder or a business person.

I get it, it's extremely frustrating that hackathons, like TechCrunch and the rest of the startup press focus inordinate amounts of attention on lightweight, consumer focused startups that are probably going to go under in a couple months if they ever actually get off the ground. But that is the reality that we live in because that which is easily understood (obviously) gets more attention from more people than other topics which may have more value, but require significant industry knowledge to even understand, much less competitively evaluate.

We fall into this same trap though, as a CS student you probably understand on a much more detailed level what a profound breakthrough it would be to have some sort of technology that would double the speed of database queries, but it's much less likely that you'd really deeply get the impact of a cool "hack" for some chemical process for doubling the rate of some reaction.

So, in summary:

1. Don't despair.

2. Go to hackathons to make stuff and meet people and don't worry about winning them.

3. Found your own company and do your own thing.

[microtonal]

3. Found your own company and do your own thing.

I realize that this is news.ycombinator.com, but it's really sad that everything needs to end in entrepreneurism, startups, and money.

In hacker culture, the hack used to be the end, not money or power.

The Theo Deraadts and Werner Kochs are the real hackers of this world. They could have worked for anyone from Google to Facebook and have big paychecks. Instead, they accepted having more modest means to do what they love: hacking on code and being in a position where one can uphold their ethics (and the hacker ethic).

[smtddr]

Your rant is perfectly founded. There is absolutely an issue in the current tech-scene of people with super-sized egos and the ability to justify nearly anything if it means their start-up idea will succeed. Most of these attitudes change with age, but some won't simply because they'll never encounter any real consequences or talk with people outside their social-circle. You're running into a high-concentration because, I assume, you have a lot of young inexperienced people at your hackathons. Already tech-scene in general has this issue; it's higher with the young who tend to be inexperienced; then you're at a hackathon where it has a high chance of attracting the extra-intense of those types of people. It's even extra x 2 if the person comes from a well-off family. So their parents are wealthy, probably the parents friends and their kids are all well-off, go to a fancy school walk right off campus into fluffy VC-funded paradise without knowing anything of the world outside of wealth & tech. Anyone would have a difficult time developing empathy in that situation.

You may or may not be religious, but this quote comes to mind: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" --Matthew 16:26

Best thing, imho, is don't let them change you. Stay compassionate and have empathy towards others; especially those outside of tech. Don't let your ego inflate to the point where you start saying things like "We create value! Everyone else should be praising us!" When you start to feel troubled by it walk away from tech. Have a walk in a nice park or something. Next time a homeless person asks for money, give a larger amount and perhaps try to strike up a conversation to hear their story. If you can, even volunteer at a homeless shelter. Definitely avoid trying to apply computer-world-boolean-logic to humans. Listen to people and appreciate emotions; don't consider emotions an inefficient distraction. Emotions is what makes us human and keeping in touch with them helps you understand others. Embrace your emotions and allow your heart to move you instead of your programmer-mind from time to time. Try a dancing lesson or 2. Maybe even read some romance novels. Remember the cashier that sold you that cup of coffee this morning is just as important as you are. Basically, don't lose your humanity in this goldrush.

There's more to life than social apps & VC-funding.

[richardjordan]

How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise -- Sophocles :-)

[lettergram]

I know myself and a large group of students constantly avoid going to hackathons because it teaches you to:

(1) Focus on short sighted goals

(2) reinforce "hacks" as opposed to well engineered code

(3) Not build long lasting projects

I spend 6 - 12 hours a day coding everyday (weekends and all), and I produce (in my opinion) really cool stuff. Producing a quality, bug free, code requires a program to be dynamic, and usually takes weeks to months to code properly. My goal is always to implement a new function every day, one 25 line max function. I actually learn more being consistent, as opposed to being exhausted and hardcoding an address.

I actually (sorry) hate working with the hackathon types, some can code really well in a pinch, but in the end they usually are not reliable and bugs usually go uncorrected. There was a post yesterday about the final 10% of a program being left incomplete, and that's where I feel hackathon types have a tendencies to leave.

[ethanbond]

I agree with this, but I think those are important skills to have; they just shouldn't be your only skills or even your default skills.

[realrocker]

Hackathon is a side-effect of a wider change in modern software development. We seem to have successfully commoditized a portion of it. This portion called "apps" is mostly a cosmetic rearrangement of underlying components. Flush funding and the apparent status such work provides is hard to ignore. I mean how am I supposed to say no to a 10k prize money for 10-12 hours of work?

Whenever a product is commoditised, the brushes hide and the hammers come out. Imagine how the elite calligraphers of the 15th century felt when their beautiful noble art form was replaced by a block of wood. And the disgust they would have felt of seeing books in the hands of common folk instead of the Kings. IMO I think it's alright since we are not sure yet whether the hammers cannot change the world. They yet might.

[prezjordan]

I'm also very skeptical of how fast hackathons are growing, but let's look at the results here. We have kids who would otherwise rely on their college courses to teach them CS and prepare them for the job market. Instead we have a few showmen (include the one you quoted) who get the masses psyched up about building things. I think that's pretty cool!

Don't go to a hackathon to "win." In fact, I wish prizes were removed completely. Instead, go to hang out with like-minded folks, learn something new, and teach a newcomer. You'll get the most out of THAT as opposed to slamming a few APIs together and claiming whatever quadcopter Twilio is giving out this year.

[ChuckMcM]

This isn't a "new" thing, there are those who create with technology, and there are those who exploit technology for gain. The original dot.com "boom" was the influx of people who really didn't care at all about what having the "Internet" meant if they all they needed was a good pitch and could get millions by convincing people that revenue wasn't a big deal, it was all about foot print. Those folks really offended the folks who were serious about the technology (or the art if you will) and they nearly all went broke or left in 2000/2001. The other crowd are the folks who use technology to take advantage of others, they rank from actual criminals stealing money out of banks, to the nominally legal adtech startups with "negative" patterns. This group doesn't care about technology either, except as a vector to get to "someone's" money and transfer it to make it "their" money.

This spectrum though is everywhere, from professional sports, to programming, to finance, to dog training.

But from your example, " ... this ... from a guy who has never engineered anything." pretty much defines the term 'poser' people who try to talk the talk and act like people who they see getting a lot of "coolness" or "celebrity" without actually understanding where that coolness or celebrity comes from. There are a lot of them, they are mostly harmless, identify them and move on. If they are trying to recruit you to come work for them, work somewhere else, you will be happy you did :-)