Wait, the same Thom Kim, Harvard graduate, who's an architect at salesforce.com?
Awful. Makes me think twice about doing company sponsored hackathon contests. Particularly contests that require a fee to enter.
Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
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Re: Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
#22Seems like many didn't even get their app reviewed http://salesforce1million.challengepost.com/forum_topics/264...
Re: Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
#23There is not an iota of honesty in SV. Sooner the world realizes it is better. Don't feed this fat cats that include google, salesforce and other billion $ startups.
Re: Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
#24One of the comments, kinda what I already expected: "Spoiler: One of those guys used to work for Salesforce! (not kidding, they announced it during the demo). The French guys were followed around during the entire hackathon by a salesforce camera crew (I was sitting right next to them, some of the salesforce people even came over to help them submit to be sure they got it in before the last 5 min was up, kinda knew t…
People also complaining that their apps didn't get any hits during the evaluation period [1]. If this is true, which it seems like to be, it is pretty shameful business from Salesforce given that people clearly used a decent part of their week in order to participate. I feel bad for Heroku employees who promoted this.
Edit: According to one of the judges [2], they only saw and evaluated the 5 Salesforce selected apps. Also the app gallery only shows the five winners [3]. No matter how the finalists were chosen, this is not how you run a hackathon.
[1]: http://salesforce1million.challengepost.com/forum_topics/264... [2]: https://twitter.com/alexwilliams/status/403723331007832064 [3]: http://salesforce1million.challengepost.com/submissions
Re: Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
#25One of the comments, kinda what I already expected: "Spoiler: One of those guys used to work for Salesforce! (not kidding, they announced it during the demo). The French guys were followed around during the entire hackathon by a salesforce camera crew (I was sitting right next to them, some of the salesforce people even came over to help them submit to be sure they got it in before the last 5 min was up, kinda knew t…
Not to mention it cost $500 to enter, meaning negative EV, not as bad as the lotto, but still a losers' gamble.
This part I just don't get it. Why? Salesforce is not a small startup. It can definitely afford a 100k hackathon.
Re: Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
#26The winning team presented their project at a Meetup well before the Hackathon was even announced:
http://www.meetup.com/Salesforce-com-Integration-Analytics/e...
Which is totally against the official rules for the Hacktahon, which stated "The application you or your team submits must: have been developed solely as part of this Hackathon" http://res.cloudinary.com/hy4kyit2a/image/upload/Final%201M%...
So there you go.
Re: Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
#27One of the comments, kinda what I already expected: "Spoiler: One of those guys used to work for Salesforce! (not kidding, they announced it during the demo). The French guys were followed around during the entire hackathon by a salesforce camera crew (I was sitting right next to them, some of the salesforce people even came over to help them submit to be sure they got it in before the last 5 min was up, kinda knew t…
Not to mention it cost $500 to enter, meaning negative EV, not as bad as the lotto, but still a losers' gamble.
An entry fee does not make something negative EV. $1,090,000 was added to the prizepool. If it was literally 100% guaranteed that the winner was pre-selected, then it would be -EV if >180 teams entered and all had the same chance of winning a prize. If the event was not rigged, then it is clearly +EV for even medicore participants.
Re: Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to mention it cost $500 to enter, meaning negative EV, not as bad as the lotto, but still a losers' gamble.
This part I just don't get it. Why? Salesforce is not a small startup. It can definitely afford a 100k hackathon.
The Web-Startup Tool Mindest.
Re: Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
#29Somewhat related technology to the winning team: http://delver.io/
They launched in stealth on HN around 12months ago and reached the front page. Since then they've been operating under the radar working on the technology.
Re: Two Harvard University Alumni Win Salesforce $1M Hackathon Prize
#30Congratulations to Turian!!! :)