I was in university when I first heard the word 'hackathon'. The CS club had reserved a student lounge on campus for 24 hours and donated a bunch of snacks and

I was in university when I first heard the word 'hackathon'. The CS club had reserved a student lounge on campus for 24 hours and donated a bunch of snacks and drinks. I don't think I made it through the whole 24 hours, but I sure loved the spirit and sense of community that event had. No prizes, no corporate sponsors. Just building cool stuff. By the end of my time at university, they had already become a for-profit idea mill for big companies. Those things never felt quite right to me. And then, a few years later, I was involved in planning and running a few of those corporate hackathons. Even helped run one at YC a few years ago. I don't think I would ever go to a hackathon with a corporate sponsor again. After seeing it from the inside, I realize how true the old saying is: "If you're not paying for it you are the product." I've thought about trying to run a hackathon that gets back to the roots of what I remember about hackathons. Just a bunch of people hacking away on a project for an unbearably long time, with whatever snacks and drinks I could afford to provide. I don't think hacker culture is dead. I think there are a lot of folks out there, like me, who remember the hackathons of 2008 - 2010 and would like to re-live it. I guess I should stop thinking about it and just do it! What about you? Is that something you'd go to?