Facebook may have most of the buzz and mindshare these days, but Google Inc. is still home to some of the hottest talent in Silicon Valley, as proved by the performance of one Petr Mitrichev at the inaugural Facebook Hacker Cup. Petr is currently the highest ranked Algorithmic Coder in the world, and just so happens to work at Google.
Petr wore his Google employee ID on his belt when he collected the cup, which is either a case of absent-mindedness, or comedy genius. The picture certainly seems to have Reddit amused, with one poster astutely commenting:
“Facebook must have been pissed off.”
The Hacker Cup came about as a response to the “hacker” culture prevalent at Facebook – not hacking in the Hackers sense, hacking in the “making things really fast” sense. Originally an online contest entered by around 12,000 entrants worldwide, after three rounds those original thousands were whittled down to just 25 elite coders, who congregated at Facebook’s Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters on Saturday to battle it out, challenged to solve three mathematical problems in just two hours.
Of the 25 finalists, a full five were from Google, and Mitrichev’s victory will no doubt be a slight embarrassment to the giant social network, especially in light of the recent spat between the two companies surrounding data privacy, and the continuing game of musical chairs going on between their respective workforces.
Google run their own version of the Hacker Cup, called Google Code Jam, which was also won by a Russian – Egor Kulikov.
Via The Register
