The author seems to focus on the number of bodies/man-hours invested in each startup weekend. These are hardly the most important metrics to consider. One of

The author seems to focus on the number of bodies/man-hours invested in each startup weekend. These are hardly the most important metrics to consider. One of the main advantages that startup weekends have is that the groups present are self-selected. You couldn't randomly pick an equal number of people off the street and put them through the same program and expect to come up with the same results, because the self-selected group will have motivation that increases their productivity and success rate massively. And on a small scale, this is more likely to be a "successful/unsuccessful" binary scale, e.g. a startup whose founders are 20% as motivated will not create 20% as many jobs; it will in all likelihood create 0 jobs.