Hackathons are a great example of this. Ostensibly they should just be about the project that is the coolest or most interesting. But participants started to realize that it wasn't really about the most fascinating project. It was about the project that got the usually non-technical, naive judges to go "ooooh". People started hacking hackathons by building projects that were totally infeasible and completely fake in terms of technical implementation, but had some sort of wow factor through buzzwords (AI/ML/CV/VR/etc) or "making the world a better place".
It's no coincidence that some of the largest hackathons are run and attended by students from the top universities pg mentions in the essay.
Which is why YC's hackathon was so satisfying. It was great seeing people pitch the normal hackathon-y ideas, then getting simple but direct questions such as "Why would someone use this app?" or "Why wouldn't I use <alternative> instead?".
It's no coincidence that some of the largest hackathons are run and attended by students from the top universities pg mentions in the essay.
Which is why YC's hackathon was so satisfying. It was great seeing people pitch the normal hackathon-y ideas, then getting simple but direct questions such as "Why would someone use this app?" or "Why wouldn't I use <alternative> instead?".