Facebook recently hosted its 50th hackathon. It was the stuff of Silicon Valley lore: Employees from across the company took a break from their regular projects to develop mind-blowing ideas about artificial intelligence over an intense 24-hour period. Late-night thinkers enjoyed a 1AM meal to refuel.
Inevitably, not all of the final pitches were winners but, to Facebook, the potential for uncovering groundbreaking innovations is worth pulling a couple hundred engineers away from their everyday tasks. After all, its past hackathons have given rise to wildly popular features, such as its instant messaging feature Facebook Chat and Instagram’s time-lapse tool Hyperlapse.
