I generally agree with the op, but there is are few things unmentioned.
Not everyone lives in the US, meaning not everyone knows that you can simply build a product, get money for it, and have it grow. I learned this at a Hackathon. I attended a mini seedcamp because of a Hackathon, and they made sure none of the attendee judges would steal anything.
Yes, there are bad VCs, but for example in Germany, you grow up learning that you will never do well unless you get your degree in the university and then go work for Airbus, Intel, you name it. In fact most of my co-students went that exact path and they were utterly surprised when I told them I wasn't a student worker anywhere, but an experienced engineer helping startups grow their companies.
Long story short, Hackathons can be empowering. They can get you great jobs, startups, co-founders, etc. And yes 48 hours of coding is not good. But you never code 48 hours. It won't even be close to 48 hours, and chances are even if you have something nice at the end of it you might have to ditch it and rewrite from scratch.
Not dismissing any of the points, merely amending. He's right on almost every regard imho.
Not everyone lives in the US, meaning not everyone knows that you can simply build a product, get money for it, and have it grow. I learned this at a Hackathon. I attended a mini seedcamp because of a Hackathon, and they made sure none of the attendee judges would steal anything.
Yes, there are bad VCs, but for example in Germany, you grow up learning that you will never do well unless you get your degree in the university and then go work for Airbus, Intel, you name it. In fact most of my co-students went that exact path and they were utterly surprised when I told them I wasn't a student worker anywhere, but an experienced engineer helping startups grow their companies.
Long story short, Hackathons can be empowering. They can get you great jobs, startups, co-founders, etc. And yes 48 hours of coding is not good. But you never code 48 hours. It won't even be close to 48 hours, and chances are even if you have something nice at the end of it you might have to ditch it and rewrite from scratch.
Not dismissing any of the points, merely amending. He's right on almost every regard imho.