The Hackathon King Who Wins Without Writing Code

Meet the Unconventional Hackathon King

About an hour into a meeting with the undisputed hackathon king of San Francisco, Rene Turcios, he casually asks if you'd like to smoke a joint. It's an offer that, while perhaps unexpected in a typical tech interview, perfectly encapsulates the man himself.

Turcios has cultivated a unique persona: a cannabis-loving, former professional Yu-Gi-Oh! player who supports his passion by reselling the wildly popular Labubu toys from his apartment in the Tenderloin. He does all this when he’s not dominating nearly every hackathon in the city.

Since 2023, the 29-year-old has attended over 200 of these high-pressure coding events, walking away with cash, software credits, and a formidable reputation. “I’m always hustling,” he says. But here's the most astonishing part of his story: he doesn’t know how to code.

The Secret Weapon: Vibe Coding

“Rene is the original vibe coder,” explains RJ Moscardon, a friend and fellow hacker who saw Turcios take second place at his very first event. “All the engineers with prestigious degrees scoffed at him at first. But now they’re all doing exactly the same thing.”

‘Vibe coding’ was a term famously coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy to describe the process of using AI to translate natural language prompts into functional software. The practice has exploded in popularity, with some startups building entire products this way and tech giants mandating the use of AI coding assistants.

Turcios was using this technique long before it had a formal name and was often looked down upon by traditional hackers for his reliance on AI. But as the saying goes, winning solves everything.

Despite wearing a t-shirt with lines of code, Turcios does not know how to code and has no plans to learn. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

From Circus Rings to Coding Competitions

Collin Lowenburg, an engineer and hackathon organizer, vividly remembers when Turcios first appeared on the scene. With his booming voice, outgoing personality, and emo-cyber-punk style, he was a stark contrast to the clean-cut, polo-wearing Stanford students. Instead of frantically typing code until the last second, he would finish his projects hours early by simply telling an AI what to build.

At his first hackathon, Turcios built a program that could convert any song into a lo-fi version by prompting ChatGPT in plain English. “I didn’t write a single line of code,” he says. When the organizers announced he had won second place, his celebratory scream echoed through the venue.

“Not a single person there knew who the fuck I was, but it was my turning point,” Turcios reflects. “I realized that I could compete with people who have degrees and fancy jobs.”

His background is as unconventional as his career. Turcios grew up with parents who worked in an international circus taming bears and lions. Instead of attending college, he followed his family’s roving roots to become a professional Yu-Gi-Oh! player, couchsurfing across the country to compete in high-tier events. He became so well-known that fans paid him to sign their cards.

After two years, he grew tired of the game and moved to San Francisco in 2019. He worked odd jobs before starting a metaverse infrastructure company in 2022, just as ChatGPT was released. To his dismay, the engineers he hired were completely resistant to using AI.

Turcios' Tenderloin apartment is stacked with crates of Labubus that he resells as a side gig. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

Hacking the Hackathon Meta

“My head engineer said, ‘If you ask me to use AI one more time, I’m gonna quit,’” Turcios recalls. He promptly folded the company and began attending hackathons to figure out the technology for himself. “I was so pissed,” he says. “Chips on shoulders put chips in your pocket — that’s a real, real phrase.”

This frustration reawakened the competitive spirit from his Yu-Gi-Oh! days. In the card game, Turcios had become an expert at identifying the most efficient tactics—the “meta”—to win. He vowed to do the same with Bay Area hackathons, attending them multiple times a week.

“He’s been to every hackathon,” says Lowenburg. “He started winning, and he just kept hacking his way to the top.”

Turcios often finds himself teaching trained software engineers how to vibe code more effectively. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

The Future is AI-Powered

Today, Turcios is known for his ability to build anything, fast. Businesses hire him for projects that would take software teams weeks, and he delivers in a matter of hours. He even runs workshops teaching non-technical groups and experienced software engineers how to effectively use AI for coding.

“Anyone can build anything they want,” Turcios said during our meeting. He has scaled back his hackathon schedule to focus on his own AI agents startup. This time, there are no engineers. He is a solo founder, and AI is his only coder.

To prove his point, he opened a coding platform and asked what he should build. The request: a resale site for his Labubu dolls. Fifteen minutes later, it was ready.