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The original request was for $10,000 to cover their living expenses for 3 months. Now they have $170k, they really have no obligation to do anything with it other than support themselves for 3 months. So anything else is just gravy. Which is why it is so COMPLETELY ridiculous that they have been given so much money, especially given that they don't have a product or even a detailed design of a product. They just have a lot of good intentions.

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If it works, it won't seem ridiculous at all. I like the pluralism of this experiment. The odds are nothing will come of it, but that's what the odds nearly always are.

They seem to be focusing a lot on infrastructure and APIs, so even if nothing comes of this directly, their efforts can still be useful.

I would have preferred to give 17 teams $10k rather than gamble $170k on these guys. The whole situation is a mess.

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