WEBVTT - How Tech Companies Stake Out Hackathons for Future Stars 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:23.160 Yes. Now we're entering Hwong Engineering Center. Here at Stanford 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:32.400 h It's a freezing, cold, rainy Friday night in February. 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.240 The campus is a ghost town, but inside the hall 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.680 it's hoppen. Hundreds of people are lined up to register 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:44.360 for something called tree Hacks, Stanford University's annual hackathon. It 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:48.080 will last for thirty six hours straight. They're mostly high 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.520 school and college age kids. Lots of them are wearing pajamas, 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:55.560 pushing roly suitcases and wearing backpacks. They're looking at their 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.800 phones and scanning the crowd for friends. One of the 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.320 great things about learning computers science. Yes, it's like a 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.240 superpower and you feel like God when you're able to 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:08.280 create something out of nothing. That's Cliff Whitesman. He's in 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.760 his final year at Brown University. I'm able to sit 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:14.240 in the dining hall beyond my computer, build an app, 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:16.800 launch it, have seventy thousand users within a month. I 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:24.560 just came up with an idea, built it. Pre Hacks 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:27.640 is an elite gathering of more than six hundred extraordinarily 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.600 motivated students. Many of them study computer science. All of 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.000 them build new technology for fun and of course bragging 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.480 rates They're not doing it as a means to like 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.959 get money or whatever. They're just doing it for the 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.399 sake of doing it and for the sake of creativity. 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:48.280 And that's why that's memo Duran, And he works at Amazon. 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.280 You see, there's another group of people arriving for this 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.760 coding contest too. They work for the biggest tech companies 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:59.080 in Silicon Valley. Memorous job is to mentor the hackers, 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:04.840 help them figure out how to use Amazon's Alexa voice technology. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:10.399 And I saw reps from Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.960 all circling the hackathon. They were showing students how to 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:19.880 use their company's latest technology while impressing them as potential employers. Right, 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:23.000 and that last part is crucial. These kids, they may 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:26.079 be here just for the fun, but for the technology companies, 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.919 this is serious business. Hackathons have turned into a battlefield 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:44.040 for the best software engineers of the future. Hi. I'm 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:47.520 Brad Stone and I'm Lozette Chapman, And this week on Decrypted, 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:50.120 we're going to explore the rise of hackathons and the 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:53.400 role they play in the technology ecosystem. The hope is 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.760 that these bright pajama wearing moderately sleep deprived students that 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:00.360 you just heard from, students who are often still years 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.919 away from finishing school. The hope is that they will 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.880 become the future Mark Zuckerberg's of the world, and that 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:11.200 they will power the next generation of innovation in Silicon Valley. 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:13.880 And because of that, for technology companies as well as 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.000 venture capital investors, a lot is hanging in the balance 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.280 at these NERD slumber parties. Will take you inside one 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:28.080 such hackathon today. So about these talent wars, there's a 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.480 lot of talk about how there's a shortage of engineers 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.120 right now in Silicon Valley. Well is that? What exactly 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:35.800 do we mean by that and what are the implications? Well, 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:38.920 you can see it in the salaries. You know, starting 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.320 engineers can earn a hundred and twenty five thousand or so, 0:03:42.320 --> 0:03:44.680 but it can easily go up to two hundred thousand, 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:49.680 three hundred thousand dollars or more, because one excellent engineer, 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.120 when truly exceptional, one that writes brilliant, clean CRISP code, 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.040 is worth fifty of his or her counterparts. And remember 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:03.720 you're losing at engineer is usually your competitors gain. Right, 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:05.920 So why did the tech companies need these hackathons. Why 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.480 not go to places like India or China or somewhere 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:11.600 else in the world and find the talent that they're 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:16.360 not finding locally. Well, they want them nearby an in house. Now, 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:19.240 let's go back to Stanford's engineering Hall. I want you 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:21.599 to meet Jeff Shaw. I own a pair of Snampchat 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.320 spectacles and they're really awesome. Like I was about to 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.320 stop using Snapchat, but then like I bought Harris spat 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:32.240 Coles and its eye opening. Jeff studies philosophy at Lewis 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.760 and Clark University in Portland, Oregon. He likes country music 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.640 and tinkering with everything from cars to computers. And then 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:42.159 I realized, like, um, not all my friends gonna see 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.280 what I do. So I'd love to make version where 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:45.760 everyone gets to see what I do is so you know, 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.360 face would be a good great platform for that. Jeff 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.000 has a track record at hackathons. He won forty dollars 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.600 for building a payment app at a recent one sponsored 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:58.760 by Mercedes Benz. Tree Hacks doesn't have big prizes, but 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:03.000 Jeff says that's not what motivates him anyway. I'm not 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.720 here to demo this product. Um, I'm I'm just here 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:11.279 to build stuff. I love his idea. So did his 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.720 Facebook spectacles work? Well, we'll get to that right now. 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:17.760 We're just getting underway. I mean it's only midnight on 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:30.400 Friday night. People are rushing around forming teams. The scene. 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:35.160 It's chaotic, girl, I am looking, I cannot find my team. Crisis. 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:40.000 But many teams form on the spot at the hackathon. 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:42.800 If they don't know each other at the beginning, well 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:47.720 they definitely do by the end. Technology companies like IBM 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.920 and Microsoft have been holding hackathouns for decades, but the 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:55.680 number of college events has recently exploded. Seventy one hackathons 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.800 in North America alone this year. That's three times a week. 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.960 You have hackers build things straight, well not totally straight. 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.039 I mean they do take naps once in a while. 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.120 You know, they sleep in shifts, They drink insane amounts 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.000 of red Bull, eat pizza, and from what I could sell, 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.520 very few took showers or brush their teeth. I'm sort 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.200 of curious, what does it what does it smell like? 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.400 At one of these, it was a little funky. That's 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:26.799 really gross. You know, the hackathons have changed over time. 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.880 You know, it's no longer just guys or super technical 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:31.680 people that are doing this as it was in the 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.320 early days. People interested in figuring out how apps and 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:39.520 services actually work can participate, and it's gotten easier for 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.800 them as tools and technologies have become more and more 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.000 user friendly. There's been explosion of new tools available for 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.920 anybody to create applications and create games and share them 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:56.560 with the world. That's Dan Garcia from the University of California, Berkeley. 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.960 He teaches the Beauty and Joy of Computing and introduct 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:05.000 re class for non computer science majors between Scratch and 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.160 GameMaker and Unity. It's an incredible time and it's incredible 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.880 space for beginners to create applications in games rather than 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.600 just be passive users of them. He said that what 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:16.960 used to take weeks to build, now you can do 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.080 in a couple of hours. So what are the building blocks? 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:23.440 I'm thinking it's Amazon Web Services or Google's cloud business 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.080 or Microsoft is it is it payments to a p 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.720 i S. What are all these pieces? It's all those 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:30.760 things broad exactly. And you take a p i S 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.080 for example, they're kind of like legos. They don't have 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.520 to start from scratch, pouring the plastic and you know, 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.640 doing the mold. These are preconfigured chunks of code to 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.080 do things like process payments, connect to Twitter, or even 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.080 send a text. Hackers just combine them in new and 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:51.440 interesting ways. So it sounds a little like competitive playtime. 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:56.720 It absolutely is, and it's playtime for people who want 0:07:56.720 --> 0:08:00.400 to build the coolest or most technically difficult thing while 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:06.680 the clock keeps ticking down. By ten PM, hackers have 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.080 all formed their teams and are starting to get to work. 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.720 Around midnight, I checked out the four floors of Engineering 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:20.000 Center where people were working. It's pretty facebook. A few 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:23.360 lucky ones scored conference rooms with whiteboards. Most were working 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:25.960 at wooden tables lined up in rows, or they lounged 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.280 on bean bags shaped like smiley faces and poop emojis. 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.440 Some groups were still debating what to build, but quite 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:39.360 a few had already decided. We want to build the 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.480 slag for doctors, and we want to link still that 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:44.800 patients and doctors are still in touch after the pat 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:50.360 patient gets the treatment. I'm gonna build a plug in 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:54.120 for the Internet that will connect on text, either on 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:58.760 Twitter or on blogs and disrepeatable news sources directly back 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:04.320 to Russian state media sources. But we most recently decided 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:07.960 on using the artist simulate like some visual and auditory 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.000 disorders UM that you might not otherwise be able to understand, 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.199 Like what if you have a visual disorder that impairs 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.920 your like vision or someone you're hearing, or maybe some 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:20.959 kind of cognitive disorder that influences how you see the world. Sorry, 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:27.600 that's a wide range of projects. I actually love the 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.800 slack for doctors and patients. One did everyone stay hunched 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.240 over their laptops all night? You know? I thought they 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.600 were going to I was expecting to see everyone crowded 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.000 around sitting there straight, but but they weren't. I mean, 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.040 sometimes members would go off and and work at the 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:45.200 soldering station. Other times they'd go and meet with different 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.040 engineers from Facebook and the like to get advice on 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:50.200 how to use an a p I. And well, one girl, 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.720 she just kind of wandered off looking for Uros, and 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.360 like two hours later she still hadn't come back. The 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.520 Grand Uros. Excuse now, dare? I asked, did you get 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.600 any sleep while you were covering the UM? I did. 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.480 I found this cozy little server room and I curled 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.080 up on a table and I got a few winks 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:08.600 it was nice. But actually a lot of people did 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.960 take naps, short naps, mind you, on tables, even just 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.599 straight in their chair, like this one guy who was 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.439 using earplugs in a blindfold just to ignore the chaos. 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.199 And what about Jeff in his spectacles for Facebook efforts? 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.199 Was he live streaming his life at this point? Well, 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:26.960 by Saturday he had made some pretty good progress. He 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.600 took an old baseball hat and he hot glued it 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.439 to a Raspberry pie. For our listeners, that's a super 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:34.880 powerful computer that's about the size of a credit card 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.120 and it's cheap. It's like thirty five. Um. So he 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.960 attached a camera and a battery to the hat, and 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.040 then he secured a WiFi connection so that he could 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.959 live stream the camera to Facebook. Then he encoded the 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:51.080 video so Facebook software would accept it and did it work? No? 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:54.200 Why is there red code in the green? That does 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.839 not mean you cannot open video device? That doesn't sound good. 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.560 That's the air that Facebook sending back. Okay, so yeah, 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.360 so does that mean how do you get around that? Dude? 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:07.080 Or this is that what you're figuring out now? Yes, 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.720 that's what trying to figure out The Facebook representatives at 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.320 the hackathon were there to help, but they couldn't figure 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.679 it out. Jeff was scouring online forms all of Saturday. 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.640 He tried swapping out hardware parts, even took an uber 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.959 to the nearest fries, but by dinner time, with about 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.040 two thirds of the hackathon over, it still wasn't working. 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:40.040 Time was running out to come up with a new idea. 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.440 Along with technical experts from Facebook and Amazon. I saw 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.640 others from Google, IBM, Disney, and Microsoft. They stayed till 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:50.680 late at night and they were back there early the 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.440 next morning, wanting to help. Most technology companies consider this 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.360 critical if they want to remain competitive. They can't get 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.760 the newest crop of makers excited about using their they 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.360 become irrelevant. So help me picture this. What what are 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.640 the representatives from Microsoft and Facebook and Amazon? What are 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:08.959 they doing at the hackathon? Well, you know, I thought 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:11.440 they'd be circling around, you know, saying, hey, use my 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.560 ap I, But it wasn't like that. It was a 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.640 lot more subtle. Remember their sponsors, so they paid to 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.480 be there. They got their tables set up with all 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.360 their swag, and they're waiting for people to come up 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.480 to them and passing out like swag what what? What 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:26.480 good is are they passing out? They had all sorts 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.119 of good stuff. They had special hoodies with inflatable pillows. 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:35.359 They had warm fuzzy socks, blindfolds, ear plugs, water bottles, 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.040 you know, all the normal swaggy stuff. So they were 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:39.360 waiting for people to come up to them and then 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.640 they could have a conversation. And they're holding events, they're 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:46.400 holding talks exactly. They were holding talks on slack online 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.000 and also uh they were having in person ones. In fact, 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.079 Google had one on its cloud services at one am. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.720 It was standing room only one am session on cloud 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.199 services that is Devotion. And Microsoft was also to the 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.760 late night crowd and they brought cool toys. We have 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:06.960 a couple of technical workshops on bots and cognitive services. 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.120 We try to get students wrapped on our cloud platform. 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:12.800 We have about five Hollowans devices, ten surface pro Force 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.240 so that students can check out and develop on um 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.080 free cloud credits. I mean the really point, the point 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.120 just to really get students to use the technology in 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:24.199 a fun, easy way that's friction free. As the hackathons 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.720 began digging into the technical nuts and bolts and began coding. 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.680 I kind of felt rude interrupting them. So I met 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.120 more sponsors, like via McGee from IBM that work with 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.520 the developers and they educate them on our technologies and 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:44.120 tap them um use our services an API and build something. 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.480 So how successful a strategy is this for companies? I mean, 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.560 what's what's the return on investment for sponsoring a hackathon? 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.000 You know, it's funny, Brad, I asked that a bunch 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.600 of times, and nobody could give me a number. They 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:59.840 were all squishy, feel good, kind of futuristic answers like 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:07.600 endearing themselves to future employees or um evangelizing their technology. 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.480 I mean, these are bright, self motivated college students who 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.400 will very likely go on to build great things in tech. 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:15.880 Is there anything substantial they get in return? Like? Can 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:21.080 they keep on communicating with these programmers? Yeah? Exactly. As sponsors, 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.880 they can access the list of everyone that was there. 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.080 That means they definitely get a leg up in recruiting. 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.160 That sounds valuable. Was it just tech companies? No, there 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.960 were some venture capital firms that go to hackathons, like 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:37.120 at Tree ACKs Andrews and Horowitz had a table, and 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.040 of course Peter Teal's fifteen seventeen fund. They've made that 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.840 their entire strategy, visiting hackathons around the country and doing 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:49.160 the circuit. Yeah, in the tech community, we have mythologized 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.400 innovators like Evan Spiegel and Mark Zuckerberg, who both began 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.600 building their companies when they were in college. So I 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.840 could see why investors would want to prowl these hackathons 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.840 looking for the next generation. Exactly, these these invest in 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:04.280 raw talent. That's what fuels innovation, and they want to 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:06.800 be on these kids radars. They have to be, and 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:08.640 they want to be early, right because the first money 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:15.000 went big. Exactly, first money in biggest check out. And 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.320 this is a group of college kids who, instead of 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:19.880 going out and partying with their friends, are pulling all 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.000 nighters in an engineering hall. Not for a grade, mind you, 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:26.240 but for the sheer joy of creating something new and 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:32.800 pushing their skills to the limit. So by now is 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.120 that it must have been getting pretty late. How many 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.280 hours have you been there at this point? Quite a few. 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.560 And you know, when I was walking around, I saw 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:45.520 some groups hyper focused, surrounded by chip wrappers and chocolate 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.040 kisses and cheese. It's and red Bulls and the like 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.200 and acting like no one else in the whole world existed. 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.840 They were totally in the zone, super focused, and other 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.920 ones were taking a break and having a blast. I 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.280 came up and you ladies are here and you're laughing. 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.680 What are you laughing about? What is it funny? A 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:10.760 lot of things, Yeah, mostly sleep deprivation. No, um, I 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.000 don't know. It's like it's it's almost like funny at 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:15.880 the point where like you've been spending like all these 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.080 hours trying to get like all these like random things 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.520 to work, and it's like finally starting to like come together. 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:25.520 It's like a little unbelievable. So it was relief and 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:29.400 surprise basically when you've been trying like the same thing 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:34.280 twenty times and then it randomly works. Okay, now give 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.240 us an update on Jeff, the guy who was trying 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.280 to make Spectacles work with Facebook. Jeff, he was determined 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.080 and he wasn't talking very much, so I just sat 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.720 down and hung out. The last time we heard from Jeff, 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.560 he had hit a wall. He had asked Facebook engineers, 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.520 scoured online forums, but new parts from Fries, but nothing 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.920 was working. Then he asked one more friend to take 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:03.200 a look. I so you just screamed, what is it? 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.840 What happened? So this problem we've been trying to fix 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:10.439 for twice four hours. Um, we've found the solution. And 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.040 it's the stupidest reason ever. Um. So, as you can see, 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:15.920 this is Facebook right now. So it's on Facebook live 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.160 through my hat that I have. It's like live video. 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.159 And we couldn't get to work because we left these 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.679 quotation marks out of this one fragment that we have. 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.439 Let me see the fragment of code. Yeah, family, you 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.160 want to walk all right through it, it's just right 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.360 where is it? So basically over here you can see 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.080 we need these quotation marks and we had this link 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:44.600 like this, and that's why they work. As simple as that, 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.040 As simple as that. But Jeff still had a few 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:51.080 hours left until deadline. Yeah, but in that time he 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:53.120 wanted to keep working. I mean, that's the whole point 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.560 of a hackathon is to push your limits and keep 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.320 building something until you run out of time. Yeah, Jeff, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:07.600 so we are is there audio? Hello? Hello? I don't 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.560 hear anything, do you? So what are we just here? 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:17.680 With that success, that was him working through continued issues 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.159 again in the nature of the hack he had gotten 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.960 the microphone hooked up but hadn't quite figured out how 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.120 to encode the audio, so it streamed through as well. 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:29.400 So what happens to all these projects after they get 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:31.920 them working in the hackathon wraps up? You know, That's 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.439 something that surprised me probably the most when I was 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.720 reporting this out, was that most of these projects, however 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:42.000 cool they are, don't go anywhere. Alex Ayatala, who helped 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.720 organize Stanford's first hackathon and is now working on his 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:52.359 startup What's Goodly, calls Hackathon's the graveyard of ideas of 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.480 the project takes of the time, and the last which 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:58.919 is about making the marketing and getting it on the 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.159 app store and fix seeing bugs, making it so users 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:04.440 can actually log in and sign up, which a lot 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:09.360 of hackathon projects don't like just skip over completely. Um, 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.880 that stuff can take eight of the time, so it's 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.639 just it's not no one's incentivice to do it. So 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.080 you've got a bunch of projects that aren't totally built 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:23.280 out and can't be used by the general population. Yeah, exactly. 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.640 And a lot of people told me because they're working 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.560 quickly and they just want stuff to work. The code 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:33.240 that they write is usually really really bad. Oh I see, 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.480 So they'll use like ten steps instead of one to 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:38.359 perform the same function, which usually means it's clunky and 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:41.560 breaks more easily. Yeah, not ideal. And the other weird 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.680 thing about hackathons is that the better the project does 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.639 with the judges, the less likely the makers are to 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:51.520 continue it after the hackathon. When you win that something, 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.400 it's it's like as if you you completed it, even 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.640 though you really didn't. That was Ebenezer Mamo. He won 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.440 a recent cal Hacks hackathon with a project a team 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:04.359 called test Lapathic. It basically allows you to control a 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.880 Tesla car with your mind. My god, that sounds very 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.800 cool and vaguely dangerous. So how exactly did you do that? Well, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.560 he and his team used an e G headset, you 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.760 know those mesh looking devices that you put over your head, 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.679 and it has maybe a couple dozen little metal disks 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.600 that attached, right, and they detect electrical activity in the brain. Yeah, exactly, Well, 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:29.080 they used that to map the brain activity to certain actions. 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.200 Then they used an analog signal to broadcast it to 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.199 an RC radio which controlled the motors in the Tesla 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.440 to make it stop or go, No wonder they won. 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.840 That sounds ingenious, but the creators didn't want to take 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.760 it to the next level. For us, it was for fun. 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:49.040 Um it's always for fun, and the secondary um purposes 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.320 to really showcase what the next generation of human computer 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.880 interfaces will look like. And for us, it's really all 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.320 about showing people that it's possible and that limits and exists. 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.960 It's this funny thing that while the students are pushing 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:05.280 the limits just for fun, they're being watched by all 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.119 those recruiters and mentors who are waiting for them to 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.240 grow up so they can hire them. So, Lazette, do 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.440 you think you saw the next Mark Zuckerberg or Evan 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.000 Spiegel at the Stanford hackath I don't know, Brad. I 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:20.880 met some pretty bright people who were really motivated, and 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.399 I also saw a couple of cool projects. It was 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:26.399 there anything there that you could see out in the 0:21:26.440 --> 0:21:29.960 real world. Well, I really liked this one robotic drink 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:32.280 mixer because I've got a penchant from Margarita to say 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:36.159 no more, I'll where can I buy one? It was 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:38.879 a fun experience, though, and I can see some of 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.119 these maybe going on or maybe it just stays in 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.680 the graveyard. Who knows, maybe they'll be resurrected from the grave. 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:47.359 I also loved Jeff's idea of taking something that was 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:51.520 very proprietary and Menford Snapchat and repurposing it for Facebook. 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:54.240 That seems like a future that we should have where 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:56.760 any device out there works on the different social networks 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:03.360 that we all use. So as the hackathon at Stanford 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:06.520 kicked down to the final minutes for people stressing out, well, 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.800 there were still that fun vibe and people still had 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:12.880 smiles on their faces, but you could definitely feel that 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.640 people were starting to get stressed. I mean, these are 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.720 very competitive people who had just spent the last thirty 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:20.879 five hours crunching on a project and they wanted to 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.399 be as good as possible. Hey guys, good morning. I 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:26.399 just want to let you know that you can want 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:28.920 your have to be judged. Please submit it on death 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.399 post by ted am for all the prizes and sponsor 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:35.760 prizes you want to be judged for. So what was 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:39.680 the actual finish, Like, you know, it was kind of anticlimactic. 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.119 I expected people to be high fiving and cheering, but 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.600 nobody did that. It was just kind of quiet and 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.480 even the winners of this hackathon, like Cliff, you know, 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:50.639 the guy that felt like a god when he coded, 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:54.440 he didn't even seem really fixated on it, And like 0:22:54.560 --> 0:23:10.760 Jeff said, it's really about the process of creation. And 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:14.280 that's it for this week's Decrypted. Thanks for listening. We'd 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:16.479 love to hear what you thought of this episode. Record 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.119 a voice message and send it to us at Decrypted 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:22.520 at Bloomberg dot net or I'm on Twitter at Lazette, 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:26.480 Underscore Chapman and I'm at brad Stone. If you haven't already, 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.159 please subscribe to our show on iTunes or wherever you 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:32.119 get your podcasts. While you're there, please leave us a 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:35.240 rating in the review. It really helps more listeners find 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:39.479 our show. This episode was produced by Pia Gtcari, Liz Smith, 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:42.919 and Magnus Hendrickson. A big thank you to Emily Busso, 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:46.199 who edited the Prince story I wrote about professional hackath honors. 0:23:46.359 --> 0:23:49.080 It's different than academic ones. You can find it at 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:53.280 Bloomberg dot com, Forward slash Tech. Alec McCabe is head 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:55.880 of Bloomberg Podcasts. We'll see you next week.