When was the last time you heard Goldman Sachs rent out a room, provide pizza, and give 10k to whoever can improve on their strategies the best? Oh, but they're providing test data for free!
Kraft is actually renting out a ballroom in SF for anyone who wants to improve their cheese recipe. You get 10k if you can make a better mac and cheese than Kraft! You'll get a gold star on your resume while we make an extra 13 cents per packet sold (on a scale of billions a year).
It probably cost Coca-Cola 10k to bring the consultant who thought of this idea. If they truly wished to repay people for bringing immense value to their business they would offer them upwards of a $1M USD, not less than your average car.
Coke nearly invented the modern day soft drink industry, and milk that cow to the tune of billions a year. Yet apparently if you beat them at their own game you only get 10k. And your IP taken. And probably a gag agreement.
If I am able to improve the vending machine (one of the most ubiquitous appliances in the US, at least) in a weekend don't I deserve something of that magnitude?
On the other hand, if I can improve on the vending machine, what makes you think I'm going to spend my weekend doing it for 10k?
Well, I guess if you have some million dollar idea and the market/human resources to produce it, you probably should do that this weekend instead.
Keep up your brilliance every weekend and you could retire to some tropical island of your choice by the end of this month. If your brilliance also correlates to previous time, I don't know how you have time to write back and forth with me over HN, you should probably be busy with your billion dollars or so right now.
The reality is, great ideas take time to produce. If you want to dedicate years of your life to producing a great idea, go ahead. I wish you good luck. If you'd like to have a few beers that weekend, meet some cool people, play with some cool technology, and possibly walk away with five new Macbook Airs or whatever HN folks would like to spend it on, come party.
I think you're missing the point, I'm not attacking HackerDojo or hackathons, those can be quite fun. For the right reasons. But if someone succeeds in this task, that invention is worth millions. Coke is offering 10k. That's exploitation disguised as a "party".
It just feels awfully similar to that guy you kind of know inviting you over for beers, and then preceding to try and convince you to build his app idea for a couple hundred bucks and no equity. Even if I wanted to help him, why would I do it for so little?
It just seems like coke is piling on the "Get those nerds to build X idea and let us profit off it" train, and the lowball offer isn't helping.
But if you really do succeed in the big ground-changing way, you can decline the prize money and keep your IP. We specifically worked that into the contract with them for this reason.
I understand why people are afraid of big companies, and I have certainly seen the wreckage of these things done wrong, I just don't understand how any of those fears are founded in reality in the case of this event.
Kraft is actually renting out a ballroom in SF for anyone who wants to improve their cheese recipe. You get 10k if you can make a better mac and cheese than Kraft! You'll get a gold star on your resume while we make an extra 13 cents per packet sold (on a scale of billions a year).
It probably cost Coca-Cola 10k to bring the consultant who thought of this idea. If they truly wished to repay people for bringing immense value to their business they would offer them upwards of a $1M USD, not less than your average car.
Coke nearly invented the modern day soft drink industry, and milk that cow to the tune of billions a year. Yet apparently if you beat them at their own game you only get 10k. And your IP taken. And probably a gag agreement.
Seems a little unfair, doesn't it?