Maybe some people should just give up

So, before I get into this video, I just want to say that if you have like a really high opinion of me or you know me as the guy who just makes Elite Code videos and is always in a good mood, uh you might just want to click off this

video because I don't want to ruin your opinion of me. And I promise I'm not like as mad as I'm going to look. I just

get really passionate sometimes. And I

also want to say that of course we all know that the current job market for anybody in tech is pretty difficult, especially if you're entry level. So,

I'm definitely not denying that. But

with that said, there's been some things that have added up over the last week or last few months and maybe even last few years that have really kind of just

probably triggered me a bit. You guys

know I love you guys, but I I think there's some times where you just have to be honest, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to be honest.

to do. I'm just going to be honest.

Maybe you disagree with everything I'm going to say. So, I'm going to start with talking about leak code like I usually do, but there's a few layers to what I'm talking about. So, I've been

making leak code videos for almost like six years now. And when I look back on that, sometimes I think to myself, even though the videos helped a lot of people, in some ways, I kind of did just

raise the bar for the interview because now it's like easier to prepare and that kind of raises the bar. So, now people get asked harder questions. But the

reason I always thought that I was still doing a net positive was because in my videos, I don't really focus too much on just the algorithm that you're probably never going to end up using in your

life. I really always try to focus on

life. I really always try to focus on the thought process. Like how do you arrive at a solution? Like what kind of mathematical thinking methods can you use like proof by contradiction, going

through different discrete cases and using counter examples and things like that? Because when you know those

that? Because when you know those techniques and you really really know them, you realize that they can actually be applied in so many places and I think that's one of the reasons that even

though I would not consider myself a very talented developer, I think that's one of the main reasons I did pretty well while I was working at Google because everybody kind of starts off on the same level. You have to go through

the same learning curve because there's a lot of internal tools and things like that. Had I started at a company that

that. Had I started at a company that many people would consider to be easier or less prestigious than Google, maybe I would have actually done worse in that environment. But more recently, when it

environment. But more recently, when it comes to my videos and just maybe it's the younger generation or maybe it's just everybody, maybe it's Tik Tok

brain. I really don't know. But I'm

brain. I really don't know. But I'm

starting to feel like it's actually not having the effect that I always thought it was or that I wanted it to. And I

want to kind of tell you why I think that. So, uh, this video I made like 2

that. So, uh, this video I made like 2 days ago. It was going over a leak code

days ago. It was going over a leak code easy. And in the video I said that if

easy. And in the video I said that if you're if you're good at leak code, solving an easy problem like this probably isn't worth your time. In my

opinion, that's kind of just common sense. So, you should probably be

sense. So, you should probably be practicing more difficult problems. On the other side, if you're not so good at leak code, you shouldn't be practicing the daily leak code problems because

they're always of random difficulty and you're going to inevitably see problems that you have no business even attempting yet. So, I kind of spoke

attempting yet. So, I kind of spoke about why I think that's not like the best strategy. I got a comment and it

best strategy. I got a comment and it was the most highly rated comment and they said, "No, I like these videos because I'm not actively trying to grind leak code, but seeing your videos pop up

on my feed make me check them and watch leak code stuff for entertainment, which is nice. So, keep these videos coming. I

is nice. So, keep these videos coming. I

like them and I think many other folks do as well." So, he was very nice to me.

So, I'm not going to go too hard, but that might be one of the worst arguments that I've ever heard because even if you're just watching Leak Code for entertainment, which I hate to break it

to people, but you're probably not learning as much as you think. There's a

reason why it's easy to watch a video because nothing's actually going into your brain. And second of all, uh if you

your brain. And second of all, uh if you really like me and you like my videos, well, thank you. But I've made over 800 of them, guys. And I'm not even trying

to plug too hard uh because if you don't want to search for them on YouTube, if you don't want to search for Neat Code on YouTube, you can go to my site neat

code all. There's over 800 videos that

code all. There's over 800 videos that I've made to leak code problems. So, uh, if that's not enough, it's never going

to be enough because if you can go through 800 of them, well, either at that point, you should probably take the training wheels off and not rely on

video solutions anymore. And I'm telling you that because even though I make videos, I'm telling you at some point you don't need to rely on videos anymore. And so if 800 problems isn't

anymore. And so if 800 problems isn't enough to pass your interview, well, you can still practice more problems, but you probably don't need videos at that point, or hopefully you shouldn't. Like,

you guys know there was a time where there weren't late code videos or the ones that did exist, they were pretty bad. How do you think people like me and

bad. How do you think people like me and other people, some smarter than me, some less smarter than me, how do you think we did it, guys? There used to be a day

where chat GPT also didn't exist. You

know, people people did get through that. So, and I also want to recognize

that. So, and I also want to recognize that, you know, it is kind of easy when a video just pops up in your feed. Yeah,

you don't have to search for it, but if if that's the hurdle, if that's the hurdle, that's why you want me to keep making videos and take time out of my day to make those videos, well, I don't really feel like I'm having much of an

impact. I really don't. I feel like I'm

impact. I really don't. I feel like I'm just making it easier for people to be lazy, which is fine, I guess. But okay,

but this is just one comment. Not a big deal. And you know, I enjoy making these

deal. And you know, I enjoy making these videos. I enjoy pe teaching people how

videos. I enjoy pe teaching people how to think about these problems. I made another video today on this beautiful Saturday night. And I got another

Saturday night. And I got another comment that just, you know, it's just I just couldn't take it. Okay, I just could not take this comment. So, I'll

give you the background a little bit. I

won't go too much into the math, too much into the liquid explanation. If you

guys care, you can watch the video. But

basically, I was explaining why this solution was greedy and why you do certain math operations given that the remainder of the total number could be

either one or two. And so, very, very simple math, right? We're just dealing with ones and twos. So, elementary

school math and I didn't go quite as deep into the explanation as I could have. There were a couple things that I

have. There were a couple things that I maybe took for granted that to me felt a little bit like common sense and probably to most people did, but somebody did point it out and I thought

it was a reasonable question. So, the

question was somewhere here. Uh,

somebody didn't understand something.

Okay, fair enough. Maybe I could have explained it better. Sure. But there was this comment that just was a little bit too much to me. So this person asked,

"We did not consider the sum of three numbers having a remainder of one." And

he did not discuss this as well. Why did

he assume that? Why is it not possible to have three numbers having a remainder one and that sum being smaller than one number having remainder one or sum of

two numbers having remainder one? Why

can't we use three numbers? And so I I know everybody says that there's no such thing as a dumb question, but when I read this question, I just could not

believe somebody would ask this dumb question because not because you had the question because anytime you're, you know, listening to an explanation or going through some kind of argument,

this would happen to me a lot in math class. It would seem common sense, but I

class. It would seem common sense, but I would I would always think a little bit deeper like why is that the case? What's

the counter example? What's the proof?

Or at least what's the intuition of the proof? So the fact that somebody had

proof? So the fact that somebody had this question is actually a good thing.

But the reason but the fact they took the time the time the one minute or so that it takes to type this question

rather than just grabbing a piece of pen and paper and just doing the math themselves. I just can't take that.

themselves. I just can't take that.

something is wrong. And maybe it was always wrong. Maybe people have always

always wrong. Maybe people have always been like this. But honestly, I've started to notice this in recent years much more. I don't know if it's chat GBT

much more. I don't know if it's chat GBT or if it's grade inflation in schools, which has been going on for a long time now, but there's a reason why nobody

values college degrees anymore. Because

back in the day and probably before I was born, people who got college degrees, they were a lot smarter or at least higher percentage of of them were

a lot smarter than the people today.

It's just a fact. You can Google it. You

can chat GPT it. Grade inflation is a thing. Degrees are in many cases

thing. Degrees are in many cases meaningless. And so, but I'm going to

meaningless. And so, but I'm going to show you what this person could have done. the math that this person could

done. the math that this person could have done with within 60 seconds that would have showed them why they don't need to type out this question. And so

the fact that people aren't doing this, the fact that people are so lazy. So,

you know, I excuse people, not everybody, you know, intelligence is a real thing. Some people are a little bit

real thing. Some people are a little bit smarter than others. Some people have aptitudes for certain things. That's a

real thing. Okay? But you can't be dumb and lazy. You just can't. you just can't

and lazy. You just can't. you just can't afford to do that. Okay? And don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of difficult experiences. I've never had a single

experiences. I've never had a single mentor or person in my life to guide me through what I should, you know, what I should do, how I should do it, and things like that. So, maybe I don't have as much sympathy as I should for other

people. But, you know, you just can't be

people. But, you know, you just can't be this lazy. You just can't. Because if I

this lazy. You just can't. Because if I if I have to hold your hand every little step of the way, I'm not helping you guys. I'm really not. I can act like I'm

guys. I'm really not. I can act like I'm helping you guys. I can act like I'm your savior, but I'm not helping you.

And I've been very lucky over the last few years that I've been able to give back to many people through money, through donations, and even more

importantly through my time. And it's a very different feeling to teach somebody how to fish rather than just give them a fish. It's a completely different thing

fish. It's a completely different thing and it's much more impactful. So that's

what I would always prefer to do. I'd

rather create systemic changes. So, I'm

gonna walk you through the explanation.

Even though I know nobody cares, I'm gonna do it anyway because I care. Okay.

Actually, before I do the explanation really quickly, I want to go through my other couple anecdotes. So, I saw this post on Reddit and it got removed by the moderators for some reason. But

basically, this guy was just asking um for people who are struggling to get CS jobs, have you considered doing have you considered becoming an actuary? which

their job is like very math and statistics focused. I don't really know

statistics focused. I don't really know a ton about it, but he was making the argument because actuaries have a really low rate of unemployment right now. And

so for the people that just got into CS because they just wanted a job and they wanted to be paid reasonably well, you know, there are other alternatives that they could consider. And so, uh, the

comments were mostly reasonable, but they just gave me the impression of people that are just like I don't know how to describe it, but and I know a lot

of people from this generation, by the way, so I'm not trying to crap. I'm not

trying to be a boomer and just, you know, say that this new generation is cooked because I know some insanely smart, hardworking, and passionate

people that are very, very young, college age, or they just graduated, and they're way smarter than I am. So, it's

not like they don't exist, but the average has really come down. I see

these people say, "Well, that that's just a really hard field to get into."

And CS is popular because it's easier.

Even though everybody's complaining about how how hard it is to get a CS job, which is fair, right? There is a lot of competition. And it's really hard if even if you are really good, it's hard to prove that nowadays because the

funnel is just so damn big because there's a lot of, in my opinion, people that have no business even applying for jobs that are diluting that job pool.

It's very unfortunate, but there's people that are complaining about the fact that you have to take an exam to be an actuary to get your license. So, you

have to prove that you actually know what you're doing. The way they kind of describe it is you have to you have to be okay spending in the next 5 to 10 years of your postcol life studying. Oh,

god forbid you have to study for an exam to actually prove you know what you're doing. And I'm not saying it's easy to

doing. And I'm not saying it's easy to be an actuary, but like this whole attitude of people that are complaining about CS and tech jobs, but also saying,

well, the alternatives are just so hard.

I mean, what kind of bubble are we living in, guys? Like, this is the real world. Like, every job that exists,

world. Like, every job that exists, there's people doing it and doing it full-time. And, you know, once in a

full-time. And, you know, once in a while, you do have to recognize your privilege. I like to believe I worked

privilege. I like to believe I worked hard to get to where I am. But at the same time, like the amount of money that I was paid at Google was disproportionately higher than how hard

I had to work to get into Google and how hard I had to work at Google. You just

have to recognize the facts. Like, you

have to recognize how lucky you are sometimes. And I also saw this tweet

sometimes. And I also saw this tweet from Jonathan Blow. And Jonathan Blow is kind of an interesting guy. He can be kind of a dick sometimes and he's kind

of elitist. He uh he has some flaws, but

of elitist. He uh he has some flaws, but he's not always wrong. He's very smart and he's not always wrong. And he was responding to a comment where like

people have this sort of expectation that companies have an obligation to hire entry-level people and then train them and then hold their hand through every step of the way. And that's kind

of what he says. So like his quote is people have this weird entitled attitude. I don't know anything about

attitude. I don't know anything about games or programming or whatever. I

expect a company to hire me and train me up. No, that person needs to cover most

up. No, that person needs to cover most of the distance himself before he's in the territory where the company even can train him meaningfully for the particular job. And I don't want to get

particular job. And I don't want to get too caught up on like the specifics of this case, but it's more about the general attitude of a lot of people nowadays. And of course, training has

nowadays. And of course, training has always been a significant thing and probably even more so uh back in the day where colleges were even less like relevant and there were even less

resources online for like learning practical programming that you're going to use on the job and stuff like that.

But this attitude that like every little explanation, everything that you don't understand has to be spoonfed right to you is a huge problem. And it wasn't always like that. Even just five years

ago, I've noticed that there's been a dramatic shift in attitude. So, I had like a really long tweet about it where I agreed, and I'll just kind of quickly go through this. I basically agreed that his take was blunt, but true. I think

most, but not all, people trying to get an entry-le role have a lot of misconceptions of what they're even trying to accomplish. Most really don't want to take the initiative. They might

not like coding or they even hate it, which is fine. Like you don't have to love coding to do this job, but you have to at least take the initiative. And a

lot of people, they learn how to do random YouTube tutorial apps and try to check as many boxes on their resume as they can. They want somebody to tell

they can. They want somebody to tell them exactly what to do, exactly what to build. They have no original thoughts of

build. They have no original thoughts of their own. They assume that's what being

their own. They assume that's what being a developer is. They think once they get the job, somebody's just going to tell them everything. Oh, you don't know

them everything. Oh, you don't know something? Somebody's just going to

something? Somebody's just going to train you up. There's no there's no point where you're going to have to do something. There's no point we're going

something. There's no point we're going to hit a roadblock, not know what to do, and then still have to figure out a solution. That's never going to happen.

solution. That's never going to happen.

And so, like, they have this conception that they just need to be trained or go through the perfect training like university or a certification or a DSA sheet and then everything's going to take care of itself. And I'm not saying

those things are not useful or even not necessary sometimes, but it's not like the entire solution. And my conclusion, maybe it's a little bit corny, but I said learning things yourself is less

about the things that you actually learn, but more about the person that you become. That's what college was

you become. That's what college was supposed to be. College was supposed to be a place where you have to figure out your own solutions. You can't just chat GPT everything and whatnot. And that has

clearly over the last few years has clearly failed. People are not learning

clearly failed. People are not learning how to learn anymore. They're learning

how to watch YouTube videos and chat GPT things. And they're not even chatting

things. And they're not even chatting correctly. Like you can use chat GPT in

correctly. Like you can use chat GPT in a way where it'll teach you, but they're not doing that in many cases. And so why would anybody want to hire somebody like that? I wouldn't want to hire somebody

that? I wouldn't want to hire somebody like that, especially in today's age.

Like they're not going to help the team.

They're going to slow down the team so much. You have to understand that when

much. You have to understand that when you're an entry- level person, you don't want to slow down everybody else. You

don't want to have to go ask for everybody's opinion or ask a million questions. Okay, I think I'm done with

questions. Okay, I think I'm done with that. Now, let me just go through the

that. Now, let me just go through the rest of the explanation that I was talking about. So, just to give the

talking about. So, just to give the context of what I was even explaining in the video, I mentioned what I'm about to tell you in the video and then I'll answer that person's question in less

than 60 seconds. So, you have some total number. Let's call it X. If you mod it

number. Let's call it X. If you mod it by three, there's three different cases.

Either the remainder could be zero, one, or two. We don't care about the first

or two. We don't care about the first case, but looking at the other two cases, if it has a remainder of one or a remainder of two, we want to remove that

remainder of one or that remainder of two. And so this is what I basically

two. And so this is what I basically said in the video. I said if we're trying to remove a remainder of one, one

possibility would be to take the smallest number that we have which has a remainder of one. So let's say we just have all those numbers. We want to take the smallest of those and remove that

because what we're trying to do is we're trying to maximize this number and also make it divisible by three. Okay? So

it's kind of common sense, right? If you

want to maximize the number, you'll remove the smallest number from it to make it divisible by three to get the rid of the remainder. Okay? So that

makes sense. And if you wanted to get rid of the remainder of two, you would take the smallest number with a remainder of two and remove that. Okay?

So that makes sense. And then this is also what I said in the video. I said,

but there's a case where uh let's use like a concrete example. Let's say uh this first array looks something like this. Maybe we have a seven which has a

this. Maybe we have a seven which has a remainder uh when you mod it by three, it has a remainder of one. And then

maybe we have some other numbers. Let's

say 10 13 whatever. But the numbers with a remainder of two. Maybe the first one is just two that has a remainder of two.

And maybe the second one is also two.

So, what I said is, okay, if we're trying to get rid of this one, either we're going to take the smallest number with a remainder of 1, or we're going to

take the two smallest numbers with a remainder of two, because when you add those up, 2 + 2, you're going to get

four and that has a remainder of one.

And so, like I said, we're trying to take the smallest one. So either this is going to be smaller or that's going to be smaller. In this case, this one is

be smaller. In this case, this one is smaller. And so this person said, okay,

smaller. And so this person said, okay, well, why isn't there a case where there's three numbers that sum up to

have a remainder of one? And why can't we remove that? Like, how come I didn't even mention that case? Well, given that I did all of this work for them, I would

hope that somebody would be able to answer their own question because we're only thinking in terms of remainders because if you take seven, seven could

be considered this number. It could be considered 3 + 3 uh + 1. And we're not considering the threes. We're only cons we're trying to get rid of the remainder

one. So obviously these wouldn't help

one. So obviously these wouldn't help us. Okay, it's just a little bit of

us. Okay, it's just a little bit of basic math, but okay, I did explain that. So now I would hope somebody could

that. So now I would hope somebody could do the rest of the work, which is just this, which is just to say, okay, well,

which cases could we take three numbers and sum them up to have a remainder of one? Which three numbers could we do?

one? Which three numbers could we do?

Well, if you take 1 + 1 + 1, which is basically to say if you took three numbers with a remainder of 1, obviously that's going to have a remainder of

zero. So that can't be it. If you take 2

zero. So that can't be it. If you take 2 + 2 + 2, same thing, going to have a remainder of zero. Okay. The other case

is you take 2 + 1 + 1 which is the only case where you would end up with a remainder of one. Okay. So if we did

this just to put it into general terms that would be taking the smallest number with a remainder of one, the second

smallest number with a remainder of one, and then the smallest number with a remainder of two. And so the person who

left the comment is asking me why this is never like why why don't we ever consider this? Well, what were the first

consider this? Well, what were the first two cases that I talked about? The first

two cases were this. It was just this, right? It was just take the smallest

right? It was just take the smallest number with a remainder of one. And the

other case was take 2 1 + 2 two. So

that's this. So the person is asking me why don't we ever consider this case?

Can somebody just look at this and tell me why we don't consider this case? We

already considered these two. When given

that these are all positive, which I mentioned in the video, when would we ever say that this is smaller than that?

When would we ever say that? We

wouldn't. And so whether you want to do it with a general formula using variables or you want to do it with concrete numbers, it's a question that

answers itself. You just have to just

answers itself. You just have to just have to go through an example. And so I don't know who to blame. I don't know if it's the teachers fault nowadays.

Teachers aren't teaching this. But

frankly, nobody ever taught it. Teachers

didn't used to teach this. So don't like don't try to make too many excuses because I mean yeah, you can look at the leak code editorial which had I mean these are just useless. These are beyond useless. And honestly this is even worse

useless. And honestly this is even worse than I thought. Like this is this is awful. So, okay, you you can make

awful. So, okay, you you can make excuses and say, "Well, the editorial didn't explain it." And you can go to the solutions and say, "Well, these people aren't really explaining it

either." And that's fair because if you

either." And that's fair because if you go through I I think this example, this person did a similar solution. And uh

somebody left a comment saying that the guy's original explanation, none of the original numbers fulfilled the above criteria. So, I guess you meant

criteria. So, I guess you meant something else in your explanation. So

this person who had a correct solution explained it wrong. That's what things were like five or six years ago. And

still it's still enough to understand if you put in a little bit of effort. And

that's what nobody does anymore. And so

now I have to ask myself, did I ever even teach anybody how to fish? Maybe I

didn't. Maybe I just gave a bunch of people fishes and when when they run out of those fish, they're just going to starve to death. Maybe that's what I did. And that possibility, that's

did. And that possibility, that's honestly probably the reason why this is so triggering to me. I guess and I know probably nobody cares at this point anyway, but I still feel obligated to mention that even though I kind of did

like the formal explanation of this, not quite a proof, the the common sense explanation of this is even more simple because like we want the minimum number with a remainder of one. We want to

remove that. So either we can create

remove that. So either we can create that using a number with a remainder of one and this would be the smallest way to do that or we could do that using a number with a remainder of two. This

would be the smallest way to do that. So

of course any third way is always going to be larger than these two because we already found the two smallest ways. So

that's why I think it was just common sense. This is why I think that some

sense. This is why I think that some people who don't even quite know what they're getting into, maybe they would be better off just, you know, understanding that if they're not going

to be willing to put in the effort that I'm talking about. I think they might be better off giving up because this is kind of the bare minimum. I don't know if some of you have never had jobs

before, but even at McDonald's, they don't hold your hand this much. They

don't explain every tiny little thing to