that was my first thought too. my second was a growing bemusement that, having realised that the purpose was not to win, he didn't then conclude that the point

that was my first thought too. my second was a growing bemusement that, having realised that the purpose was not to win, he didn't then conclude that the point was instead to get together with a lot of other hackers and build something. then it finally clicked that the key word in there (which i had skimmed over) was "startup" - they're definitely using the word hackathon in a different sense than the usual one.