Behind the scenes with the weed-smoking, Labubu-loving, hackathon king of SF

About an hour into my meeting with Rene Turcios, the undisputed hackathon king of San Francisco asked if I wanted to smoke a joint with him.

I politely declined, but his offer hardly surprised me. Turcios has built a reputation as a cannabis-loving former professional Yu-Gi-Oh! player who resells Labubus out of his Tenderloin apartment when he’s not busy attending nearly every hackathon in the city.

Since 2023, Turcios, 29, has attended more than 200 events, where he’s won cash, software credits, and clout. “I’m always hustling,” he said.

The craziest part: He doesn’t know how to code.

“Rene is the original vibe-coder,” said RJ Moscardon, a friend and fellow hacker who watched Turcios win second place at his first-ever hackathon at the AGI House mansion in Hillsborough. “All the engineers with prestigious degrees scoffed at him at first. But now they’re all doing exactly the same thing.”