Sydney man dubbed the 'Annihilator' wins spreadsheet world championship
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
That Excel championship wrestling belt is really cool though.
I encourage anyone who enjoys problem solving and Excel to sign up for the upcoming 2024 competition. Who knows, maybe you'll get flown out to Las Vegas to compete in the finals next year?
In Ngai's favor, though, apparently somebody else came up with his moniker.
"For example, Ngai had to calculate the market value of a fleet of spaceships using real data from the video game Eve Online – with the action televised live on ESPN."
Final round was really about calculating stuff based on game economy. Challenge was created by top game guy. Which in some ways was surprising for finance guys.
I played Eve for a good while (more than a decade) and the complexities was one of the appealing aspects, but unfortunately at one point the time between my sessions increased more and more, and I fell behind the learning and time curve, and dropped out.
https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/information-is-power-exc...
As an Australian that has worked with American companies for a while, this is a behaviour I’ve had to overcome. If you tell an Australian you’re “not bad” at something then they’ll take that to mean that you’re actually quite good, whereas many Americans will understand it to mean that you’re not good.
Being overly self-congratulatory comes across as this sort of grotesque and unattractive quality. It is even true in the corporate environments I've worked at where you would normally otherwise expect it. Kiwis don't like it and I've seen many foreigners, especially the few Americans that have come over into management roles completely flounder and have almost everyone hate them because of it.
In Canada being modest is quite important… unless it’s a job interview (whether explicit or implicit), in which case it’s the “one time you should really brag about what you’re good at.”
You get some of that in the US too but there are also way more down-to-earth people there who actually want to help, and advice is actually helpful, rather than regurgitations of PG essays and Lean Startup.
Melbourne, on the other hand, is seen as Australia's Portland.
Me: English, living in Australia for >20 years
In general, I find Americans and Australians deemphasize positive things at about the same rate and in the same circumstances, though the exact phrasing used can differ (although "not too bad" is a case where the phrase is shared in both dialects).
However, Australians are more likely to also deemphasize negative things (e.g., "This weather is average" to mean it's bad) whereas Americans are more likely to use sarcasm for negative things (e.g., "This weather is great" to mean it's bad).
“That is remarkable” - It is horrifyingly bad
“Have you had your tea?” - Get out of my house
"Tea", meaning 'dinner', I presume.
It was once universal custom in Australia to offer either tea or a beer when someone arrived - rehydration in a hot country is a thing to do.
"Have you finished that drink yet" - depending on inflection it's either an offer of another or a strong cue to hit the road.
I haven't found that to be true. Tooting your own horn is generally looked upon as impolite in many circles. It's pretty common for someone who is outstanding at something to say "yeah, not bad".
And in a very meta way, it can be seen as a flex. Someone who is undeniably the best at something can say "yeah, I'm not bad" with a smirk to show that yeah, they know they are very good.
Now there are some circles in the US where bragging is common - banking, VC, hell even tech. But that's not America.
But rather than try to hype it up like fighting game tournaments, have it be somewhat milder in aesthetics and tone, for the type of crowd it might draw. Like "Best in Show" or "Great British Bake Off" or what have you.
Then I say dynamic commentary is still something you want - but talkative host asking a guy that is going to drop underground in seconds is not bes use of watch time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDGdPE_C9u8
The bit where Andrew Ngai's scores dont correctly update seems to be at about 24:00
Hope someone can make a highlights reel or something?
better in most ways than modern excel
modern excel is pretty terrible compared with excel after 2003
Of course, I would try to do it in Pandas and get crushed.
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/financial-mo...
i.e., I actually went through some historical modeloff questions years ago and could get them relatively easily but spending the same effort training but at my job/career is a way to make more money, on an expected value basis, than competing in any excel competition...
But it doesn't feel like it's a complete description of the puzzle, just the data format. Do the competitors have a list of questions?
"With entertainment in mind, the organisers shortened rounds to 30 minutes and livened up the cases. For example, Ngai had to calculate the market value of a fleet of spaceships using real data from the video game Eve Online – with the action televised live on ESPN."
Classic Tetris World Championships - https://www.youtube.com/@ClassicTetris
Webflow Speed Build Challenge - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9regpz3xvrs
That’s what happens where there are more TV minutes than sports minutes.
There’s a competition for everything now. What’s next?
Most Compelling Deck Championship?
edit; I’m convinced this is a just a massive MS excel advertisement. Smh
People go nuts over how many times a group of people can kick a ball into a net, why not spreadsheets?
Usually people try to avoid deck measuring contests.
If Microsoft was behind this, why would they hide their involvement? And if they were, why would that change anything about it?
I imagine a fornite competetion would be sponsored by epic.
Not quite the same but I've attended a few barcamp conferences that have had "PowerPoint kareoke" competitions - the goal is to present a random deck from SlideShare that you haven't seen before, and the most entertaining (by judges or by the crowd) wins. It's very funny.