Yes, but in a way they are likely damaging the company they own a portion of. They may end up losing the talent that won the award. That company doesn't benefit much as a result, and Salesforce even less.

Possibly but that does nothing to assuage the concern that entries were only seriously considered if you had an inside connect at Salesforce, which is what it looks like when the winners have close ties to the contest holders and many entrants complain that their analytics show their app was never used.

Apps were built using salesforce platform. So the chance that salesforce would come out net negative out of this is not as high as you think.

Ya...just like the cops who are tasked with investigating themselves and always come up with a reason why it was okay to fatally shoot a 15 year old with a toy gun...ya...

The toy gun had been modified to look just like a real gun, that's actually a lot more understandable than the myriad issues with this Hackathon.