The Leader of the LeetCode Rebellion: An Interview with Roy Lee | Hacker News Reader

The Leader of the LeetCode Rebellion: An Interview with Roy Lee

thepennpost.com

70 pointsdistalx44 comments

I don't know what to make of this guy, I've seen him on X for a while; at first I just thought he was an obnoxious student and a crazy bridge-burner who was going to quickly regret his escapades.

I didn't follow him then but he kept coming up in my feed and there was something about his focus and message that seemed as amusing and sincere as it was egotistical and immature.

Now I'm still not convinced of his angelic qualities but more sympathetic to his mission and at least a little of his showboating seems courageous.

This guy must have some strong connections to get this sort of coverage out of an AI wrapper + a few gimmicky twitter posts

Does it take strong connections to end up in a student newspaper?

No, but he also ended up on Fireship, and he also shared his company has done 160K+ in sales in the past 4 weeks.

He went to Columbia and he seems kinda unhinged. The former is really all you need.

It's a small club, and the rest of us aren't in it.

he's a zfellows guy. the whole thing is likely some kind of plant/stunt

I mean he has admitted as much.

He parlayed his AI wrapper into fooling Amazon into a prized job offer by gaming an unpopular algorithmic interview technique.

It isn’t that he made AI wrapper, it’s that he pointed out the king has no clothes with it.

"If I cheat I can get high score" does not mean the king has no clothes.

Is it cheating if you use the same tools to solve a problem as you would in a job? "No calculators" is lame when the job entails using calculators.

Yes I think it is.

Math, which is more than arithmetic, is still important in the age of calculators.

Using a tool does not substitute for clear thinking and deep experience, which is what they're trying to test for.

Leet code interviews are passed by having invested time practicing at leetcode interviews.

They may but do not necessarily test for clear thinking and deep experience.

We're going to disagree on this, but I have had situations arise at least once every 6 months where someone at work, or I, had to decompose a problem or come up with some critical code in exactly the same way as a LC interview.

There is something very frustrating about living this experience and being surrounded by folks who refuse to admit it is real. Those same folks who couldn't help in those times.

It's fine, it's not always required for every job, but I sure as heck would appreciate working with folks who can describe set cover or what have you. I work where I work though. So, it's different all over. But to unilaterally say it's invalid is just plain wrong.

In what situation would you be decomposing a problem or coming up with critical code in the same way as a leetcode interview? Are you saying you have had to come up with solutions without access to additional resources like the internet?

Or the stakes were such that if the problem was not solved in a short period of time your job was truly at stake?

The end result of all this, they go back to in person interviews, at least for a "final" round.

Or some alternative, there is some trusted third party monitoring the candidate.

Or you just design an interview process that weeds out things that can be done with AI.

We have had people use AI in our interviews and fail miserably. We have always allowed people to search and use other resources during our interviews, and made the decision that using chat was fine as long as we could see what you were doing.

Only problem I see is this can also be gamed with "human" help. Say the candidate has an ear piece

If its for a high paying position I can see someone doing this for like ~$10k (contigent on them getting an offer) which is not bad for likely a few hours work.

The fact that it is possible to cheat means the king has no clothes.

I feel like covid started the remote work revolution and AI cheating is about to end it.

Or at least bring back on-site interviews.

On-site interviews are pretty clearly the antidote to this, but that costs money this quarter. In contrast, the cost of hiring a total fraud cannot be pinpointed to any one metric or line item.

Good interviews are the antidote to this. Outside of certain fields ability to do leet code puzzles does not correlate with job performance. An interview where you do some realistic work is the direction we should be moving. Build some small functionality that’s similar to what the company you’re interviewing for does. Let them use tools they enjoy, ai or not. If they fly through it expand the tasks. Talk about why the code they, or an ai wrote works. The tradeoffs in their designs. I’ve given hundreds of interviews without asking a single leet code style question and not regretted it.

I’m not sure why it matters, just give people problems to solve and let them use whatever tools are available

More importantly it can be blamed on the fraudster, and acountability for who missed the fraud is no longer traceable.

I don't understand why he (or anyone) thinks it's OK to say, cheat in an algorithmic interview, but that if you were somehow able to have an LLM secretly feed you optimal answers for any other part of the interview it's "wrong".

Why is it not OK to cheat on a system design interview? Why is it not OK to completely make up a story to make you look amazing when they ask about your background?

In the article he thinks companies should review past work and ask interviewees about that instead, but what would he say if there was an app for cheating that way?

Robin Hood is a thief and an anarchist. Why do we care about the story? It’s not what he stole, it’s who he stole from and why.

Exactly! Using the tool secretly totally misses the point of the interview. And now it's like, Hey look at my cheat tool! Feels more like a sales pitch than anything else.

> completely make up a story to make you look amazing when they ask about your background?

Everyone does this

IDK if this guy is the leader - these interview cheating tools have been around for at least a year at this point and some have been VC funded.

I really feel like this guy is paying for placement and articles about himself.

Just today, I've seen a twitter thread and this post. Searching for him also shows a Gizmodo article from today.

And it really seems to be a case of trying to stir controversy for engagement.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43497652 - And his own LinkedIn write up about it.

Yep, using the tool in secret broke the interview spirit for sure. And now it's just a way to promote his software, it seems.

I really want to be on this guys side, and when I read (or hear) interviews with him he comes off as thoughtful, introspective, and clear-eyed, while the reactions to him seem obviously out-sized, misguided, and frankly childish. I'm always left thinking: hell yeah dude, burn it down.

...but then I see the actual stuff he posts on X, his YouTube video, his overall "informal content", and it's blatantly antagonistic, performative, and basically edge-lord bs. I just can't help but think: this guy just needs to get bodied.

So while I agree with his "crusade", I also can't help but not trust a thing he says, and have to assume every justification he gives is made up after the fact. Am I off target here?

Some people need to realize we live in a society and society mostly functions by having people do the right thing when defecting is easier and more convenient. This person is one of them.

What makes these tactics the "right thing"? I as a prospective employee don't get to quiz the interviewer using the same tactics? I can ask questions, but how I do know they're knowledgeable and that I want to work for them? Or should I be thankful they're even talking to me? I think it's a terrible practice and that we can do better.

They have money / job to offer. You (presumably) do not. And generally, you are the one applying. So the power dynamic is mostly in the companies favor.

If you are so good and have options that you can turn down companies, just tell the company you refuse to do leetcode style, and see what happens.

For really good people, yes the tables can and do turn.

The company is not forcing you to interview for them. You can interview for a job that does not require you to solve a programming question, if that’s what you’d prefer. People who try to moralize their way out of lying are frankly despicable. Just own up that you’re a cheater and don’t care about honesty. It’s not a crusade; it’s self interest.

No, they're just contacting me daily on LinkedIn asking if I can be a founder, or interested in leading something I have zero interest in or experience. I'm telling people "not interested" several times a week, let alone taking a quiz. The irony is sales people make 2x-10x more than any engineer and they never get tested.

People will really come up with the flimsiest excuse for lying and think they’re acting with a deep sense of justice and retribution.

must say i wasnt impressed with the interview coder code nor its organization. skimmed another of his repos and it was basically a minimal chat app wrapping a dozen-ish prompts along the lines of "you are the user's horny anime wife. chat horny style to them. but not tooo horny."

My hero

middle finger army...

Thiel Fellowship incoming.

He already got $5.5m in funding

Reply on news.ycombinator.com