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?
Red and BEYOND!
Will make you a Nutella account for 10k dollarsYES. And the treshold is way lower.
Can I get a discount if I am already close?
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.
Great!
Can I pay in jars of Ovomaltine Chocolate Spread? That stuff is much better than Nutella.
I'll rather have both :P
Your post reminds me of this article (in Korean)
Pooping in Google Code Jam Onsite competition and be a champion VS Never invited to GCJ onsite ever.
If you choose first, you will poo in your seat after 1 hour of competition. The smell is really bad, and every contestant immediately knows that you pooed. But you want to solve problems, so you don't clean up, don't call staff, and stay like that for the rest of the time. You finally solve all problems right before the end of the contest. In the awarding ceremony, other contestant glares at you, probably trying to say "your smell was so bad so I couldn't concentrate on problems"
If you choose second, you will never ever go to GCJ onsite even if you are better than tourist.
The vote result was 5 vs 1. I won't tell which was which.
Do you have more posts like this? :) ko_osaga
don't leave him hanging ko_osaga, he's not done yet
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.
"...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 $1MM in under a decade.
That's true, but then you would actually need to do work.
Easier said than done
Let's calculate: 1M dollars for ~60 years or your remaining life, 16.6K per year, 1.39K per month.
In Moscow, I think, this is just is enough to do whatever you want (rent a flat, don't work, go to vacations some times in a year), in other regions of Russia the required sum is even less.
Very easy choice.
I know some people who says that earning less than 200k rubles (~3k dollars) a month leads to bad life. In Moscow.
It is so if you have a family, a child. Or if you eat only in restaurants and use taxi instead of metro. I didn't consider that.
But I also didn't consider that 1M$ would gain a huge profit being held in the bank.
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.
it's cuz the US currency is just so much better than all other currencies
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.
No.
For $$$2^{20}$$$ would though.
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.
Make it $$$10^6$$$ V-Bucks and we have a winner.
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.
How do you be sure? :(
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
But there is difference in becoming a red and becoming a tourist.
It doesn't mean he still has this money
I don't think it exceeds 1e6. In that case CPHoF's number is wrong by more than 100% which I don't believe can be true. But it can definitely be around or even a bit more than half of a million.
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?
no
so after you have reached red (so fun part is over) you might as well sell it for 1kk$?
I meant that the fun part is improving, not necessarily becoming red.
money