> Front-end is almost everything. There is 0 burden of proof that your project is actually functional or that it has any practical application. As long as it looks cool, investors and non-technical people will eat that up.
This is depressing, I'd expect people at these events to be more informed and less ignorant than the general public.
Investors want something to dream about.
Yes, the modern pointy-haired boss thinks he's the next Steve Jobs visionary and will pitch his shitty internal ERP automation tool project as "the next sleek iPhone-like UI".
(Wish I was joking.)
It's not new though. LLMs make it more pervasive, but hackathons have always naturally preferred shiny, cool-looking things. At least, in my experience.
This has been a lesson I learnt very early in my SWE career. This is nothing new sadly, but is a great lesson that not everything is technical expertise, but rather presentation and UI eye candy.