<story><title>Salesforce’s Hackathon Scandal: Secret Judging, Favoritism, Cheating?</title><url>http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/11/25/salesforce-hack-scandal/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>bronbron</author><text>Hackathons in general should be viewed with a serious amount of skepticism because it mostly is, as Liu notes, a way to get you to work for a company for (basically) free.&lt;p&gt;That being said, this sounds above-and-beyond scummy based on the information provided. The lack of transparency and the fact that the grand-prize winner worked at Salesforce for 9 years is a seriously questionable combination.&lt;p&gt;Aside from apologizing profusely, though, I don&amp;#x27;t know what Salesforce does here. It&amp;#x27;d be pretty mean to yank the guy&amp;#x27;s prize (and would only lend credence to the conspiracy argument), but doing nothing or promising to &amp;quot;do better in the future&amp;quot; will certainly be a PR hit for Salesforce both in terms of recruiting and future activities sponsored by them.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re in a tough spot, though I don&amp;#x27;t really pity them since it was their own doing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wheels</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; Aside from apologizing profusely, though, I don&amp;#x27;t know what Salesforce does here.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re a big enough company that &amp;quot;throw money at the problem&amp;quot;  wouldn&amp;#x27;t be an especially difficult fix.  They could just apologize for the confusion, bring in a new review board and dole out additional prizes.</text></comment>
<story><title>Salesforce’s Hackathon Scandal: Secret Judging, Favoritism, Cheating?</title><url>http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/11/25/salesforce-hack-scandal/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>bronbron</author><text>Hackathons in general should be viewed with a serious amount of skepticism because it mostly is, as Liu notes, a way to get you to work for a company for (basically) free.&lt;p&gt;That being said, this sounds above-and-beyond scummy based on the information provided. The lack of transparency and the fact that the grand-prize winner worked at Salesforce for 9 years is a seriously questionable combination.&lt;p&gt;Aside from apologizing profusely, though, I don&amp;#x27;t know what Salesforce does here. It&amp;#x27;d be pretty mean to yank the guy&amp;#x27;s prize (and would only lend credence to the conspiracy argument), but doing nothing or promising to &amp;quot;do better in the future&amp;quot; will certainly be a PR hit for Salesforce both in terms of recruiting and future activities sponsored by them.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re in a tough spot, though I don&amp;#x27;t really pity them since it was their own doing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>igul222</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t yank the winners&amp;#x27; prizes, but re-judge the entire hackathon and award the new winners equal prizes.</text></comment>