May 20

I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons

The billion dollar tech startup valuations and acquisitions are starting to attract a lot of opportunist to the industry. A lot of these people are not technical and they know they need a CTO to get to get to MVP.

I don’t have any problem with non-technical founders teaming up with developers to launch a product. Heck, it’s what I’ve done. I have a Computer Science degree, but it’s been five years since I’ve written a line of commercial code, so now I employ very talented Developers to build product.

The problem is that articles like This City Never Sleeps, and Neither do the Hackers and job posts that mention hacker mansions are starting to appear everywhere.

It’s a joke and I’m tired of it. Developers aren’t monkeys in a cage who can’t wait to do the next “hackathon”. They’ve got families, bills to pay and every other pressure that normal people do. They don’t want to drink Red Bull all night and sleep under their desks.

Next time someone asks if you want to crash at their hacker mansion for the summer (which has a ppol, BBQ and pool table!) or team up for a 24-hour hackathon, think twice. They’re probably just trying to cash in on your youth and optimism.

Photo credit: u-suke

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i somewhat agree, i also see tons of people moving in...making some sort
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afuchs reblogged this from ryanleecarson and added:

This is in response...Ryan Carson’s post on opportunists at hackathons. Let me start by...
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desk they’d like
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“Startup Edmonton.”...someone with money...Agree with this...
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Ryan Carson’s post neatly sums...Startup Edmonton....latest...
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