robot-dreams's blog

How much is competitive programming worth to you?
By robot-dreams, history, 6 years ago, In English

I sometimes ask my friends, Would you rather be Red on Codeforces or have $$$10^6$$$ dollars? (Obviously, "Magic" doesn't count: you have to gain the skill level of Red as well.) They are usually able to answer instantly, but I won't say which answer they give :)

I'm curious how the Codeforces community feels about this topic. I know some things in life don't have monetary value, but I'd still like to get a rough estimate of how much competitive programming is worth to you.

So, I'd like to ask you the same question: Would you rather be Red or have $$$10^6$$$ dollars?

P.S. If you're already Red / Nutella, maybe you can answer instead: Would you trade all of your skill in competitive programming in exchange for $$$10^6$$$ dollars?

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Red and BEYOND!

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +126 Vote: I do not like it

Will make you a Nutella account for 10k dollars

Would you trade all of your skill in competitive programming in exchange for $$$10^{6}$$$ dollars?

YES. And the treshold is way lower.

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +15 Vote: I do not like it

    Can I get a discount if I am already close?

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      6 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +32 Vote: I do not like it

      Sure.

      Some experiments (DearMargaret) shows that one will need 8 contests to become Nutella. It looks like his/her level of skill is higher than mine, so let's say 10 contests. From your current rating I would say 2-3 contests, let's say 3 just to be sure. So, price for you is 10k / 10 * 3 = 3k.

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        6 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +24 Vote: I do not like it

        Great!

        Can I pay in jars of Ovomaltine Chocolate Spread? That stuff is much better than Nutella.

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +6 Vote: I do not like it

I'll rather have both :P

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +123 Vote: I do not like it

Your post reminds me of this article (in Korean)

translation (warning: dirty)
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6 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it -22 Vote: I do not like it

1 million dollars of course. Even if I was red color I still wouldn't have the mind to stay red. This isn't even close to being a dilemma unless you're like Jeff Bezos or something.

Ok, now I read the post again and I see it says having the skill level of red as well. I still take 1 million bucks. After all you can invest the 1m in stock or something which apparently has an average annual growth rate of 7% = 70k in passive income annually. Which is definitely worth more than any red coder's skill.

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +41 Vote: I do not like it

    "...70k in passive income annually. Which is definitely worth more than any red coder's skill."

    Is it? I see you're in the US; in the US, positions as software developers at Big Tech/Unicorns/Trading firms easily exceed 70K income annually. If someone magically gained the skill of a red coder, I would assume they gained the meta-skill of learning how to learn well, and if this is the case then learning a moderate amount of real world software development would not be too difficult, after which point one can land a job at one of these companies and make an amount that would certainly exceed $1MM in under a decade.

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      6 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +78 Vote: I do not like it

      That's true, but then you would actually need to do work.

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +30 Vote: I do not like it

    70k in passive income annually

    Easier said than done

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +19 Vote: I do not like it

Let's calculate: 1M dollars for ~60 years or your remaining life, 16.6K per year, 1.39K per month.

In Moscow, I think, this is just is enough to do whatever you want (rent a flat, don't work, go to vacations some times in a year), in other regions of Russia the required sum is even less.

Very easy choice.

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +21 Vote: I do not like it

    I know some people who says that earning less than 200k rubles (~3k dollars) a month leads to bad life. In Moscow.

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      6 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +19 Vote: I do not like it

      It is so if you have a family, a child. Or if you eat only in restaurants and use taxi instead of metro. I didn't consider that.

      But I also didn't consider that 1M$ would gain a huge profit being held in the bank.

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        6 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +10 Vote: I do not like it

        My family consists of six individuals including me, and my father has a stable salary about 1.1K and my mother doesn't work. Just travel to almost any third world country and you are going to know how 1M$ really costs to their residents.

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +10 Vote: I do not like it

What about finding the lowest amount of money that someone would reject in exchange of having the skill level of Red? As for me, someone from third world country, 1M$ is just too much to think about.

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +147 Vote: I do not like it

No.

For $$$2^{20}$$$ would though.

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +13 Vote: I do not like it

Good to know I'm not the only one asking such questions, although the one I asked was do you rather (have the skill to) be red or have a six pack. My friend said red, and it's the right answer if one is to weigh the amount of time you need to achieve each one.

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6 years ago, # |
← Rev. 2   Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

Make it $$$10^6$$$ V-Bucks and we have a winner.

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it -54 Vote: I do not like it

tourist is red and obviously has much more than 1e6 dollars.

I get a lot of inspiration from him, so I would prefer becoming red over having 1e6 dollars.

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +28 Vote: I do not like it

    How do you be sure? :(

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      6 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

      Oops sorry, I did a wrong calculation. It should be of the order of 1e5.

      Codejam Winner gets 15k USD

      Similarly many other competitions he won. But the count depicts it can exceed 1e6 as well

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        6 years ago, # ^ |
          Vote: I like it +51 Vote: I do not like it

        But there is difference in becoming a red and becoming a tourist.

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        6 years ago, # ^ |
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        It doesn't mean he still has this money

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6 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +5 Vote: I do not like it

No, obviously I wouldn't but I'll also not trade my CP skill(It's pretty low anyways) for 1M dollars. Because, the main fun part of CP is not being red but the process of becoming red. Does it make sense?

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +4 Vote: I do not like it

    no

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    6 years ago, # ^ |
      Vote: I like it +8 Vote: I do not like it

    so after you have reached red (so fun part is over) you might as well sell it for 1kk$?

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      6 years ago, # ^ |
        Vote: I like it 0 Vote: I do not like it

      I meant that the fun part is improving, not necessarily becoming red.

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