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DaniFong
Pfft, Russia doesn't always lead. :-p

Thanks for the results.

marvin
Hasn't China and Russia/Eastern Europe been winning competitions like these, in all fields (maths, physics, computer science) for ages? How come the winners stop performing when they grow up? Or is it just that it takes 30 years to evolve from "excellent at solving small tasks" to "excellent at solving real tasks"?

It seems to me like these countries (and China in particular) have a culture of overworking and overperforming, while most of the time managing to avoid making a significant impact on society as a whole. A young, ambitious Chinese student studies as hard as most start-up employees, while aiming for much smaller gains.

osipov
>to avoid making a significant impact on society as a whole

I would hardly call launching the first satellite into space, followed by the first man in space, followed by the first unmanned Moon landing, followed by the first space station a result without a significant impact on society. That's with respect to Russia.

Further, if you look at the list of Nobel prize winners, China and Russia are right up there, making huge, positive impact on the society.

neilc
With respect to Nobel laureates, the US has ~304, Russia has 22, and China has 5. In what sense are China and Russia "right up there", particularly on a per-capita basis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_country

osipov
also, can you define what do you mean by "excellent at solving real tasks"
ardit33
you forgot allmp3.com and other good and successful non-legal enterprises. Who said they stopped performing?
osipov
>and successful non-legal enterprises

...and without Russian mafia, where would the inspiration come from for Grand Theft Auto IV? :)

tfinniga
It looks to me like the best way for a talented cs guy in the US to get ahead is to found startups until he achieves commercial success.

Whereas the quickest way to get ahead in poor countries is to be noticed, get out of your country, and found a startup/join a company in a richer country. I know MS scouts these competitions for new hires. I'd imagine that for many this is their way out, so they're extremely motivated to win.

The smart people go where they can best leverage their talents.

kradic
The quickest way to get ahead in a lot of poor countries is to associate yourself with the crooks who are ruling it, and get a slice of the money they extract from it.
tfinniga
Interesting that storm and kraken are also both based in Russia.
eugenejen
It is not overworking or overperforming in my 0.02. An ambitious American/Western European/Japanese student would rather to spend their energy to deal with real world problems because in reality, he/she may be able to get much large rewards, in comparison to ACM's award and honor.

While an ambitious Eastern European/Chinese student, the reward from local economy is worthy far less than making a big name in ACM. The same monetary reward from ACM has much higher value in those countries. Besides, after winning the award. It becomes a good add-on on resumes for applications to graduate schools in U.S. or a job at Google/Microsoft/IBM.

I am always amazed that people forget how cheap it is when you are living outside U.S and Western Europe. And the same dollar can buy much more there.

When I think about my uncle in Taiwan who have been spending 20 years to build a company that acquires 20% market share of silicone in East Asia, and its market capital is only $200 million. Any ambitious American/European hacker can make 3 to 10 millions if he/she works on the right stuffs in 5 years. Then you will know how unworthy it is to spend time on ACM competition in US but in China and Russia.

osipov
That's a compelling narrative and I think there is some truth to that. However, I think there is a more simple explanation to the dominance of Russian schools. Check out this graph on percentage of population with at least a college degree: http://blogs.ft.com/crookblog/files/2008/03/kierkegaard.jpg (warning: squinting may be required :)

More educated people means more candidates to participate in ACM contents means higher chances of getting to the top spots.

eugenejen
I agree with what you said. And I also know from my school mates before in NYU that mathematical inclined Russians like to play all those interesting math quiz. Also in old Soviet times, engineers and scientists are treated better for their contributions to build socialist heaven :-)

But I know the tradition in family maybe more important to inspire offspring. Thinking about Robert Morris father was the author of crypt function in Unix, I guess he may learn from his father when he was a still kid to play those games :-)

DmitriLebedev
1) Many of them are training for contests, not for real-life tasks 2) They could make startups, but there is a huge bureaucracy. 3) Many have bad habbits (in wide sense) and passive approach to life and pessimism which are trained in early age. This goes back to soviet times when these life perceptions rooted themselves.
simplegeek
If they've good hackers in abundance then why there are no emerging startups? Don't they look at the business side of technology ;) Just curious? Can anyone share some insights about startup scene in Russia?
osipov
Many of them leave and create startups else where, for example Google or Parallels.

Then there are startups you probably know about, like Art Lebedev: http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus Most of their startups target the Russian market, for example, Google is in 2nd place among Russian search engines, trailing yandex.ru.

DmitriLebedev
Art Lebedev isn't a startup and has nothing to do with skilled programming. He's good at courtshiping rich companies instead.
mdemare
There's no friendly start-up culture in Russia, and it's hard to get visas for the US.
tomh
For the record there is an OpenCoffee club in Russia: http://opencoffee.ru/. There are no upcoming events probably because everyone is too busy to meet. :)

There are also a number of startup-style conferences in Moscow, the next one being RIT: Russian Internet Technologies: http://rit2008.ru/ (all in Russian, ha ha, because that's their core market)

MS and Intel are scouting Russian hackers and startups with the intent of supporting the startup culture as well: http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2008/03/14/043.html

lg
no investors. russia is like pg's example of pittsburgh in that essay about making a silicon valley. although, there are rich people in russia, but they don't know tech; they get rich from crime (drugs), oil, or knowing the right people in the kgb^H^Hremlin.
DocSavage
Doing well in the the ACM Programming competition requires training time IMHO. The best competitors will have strong programming skills and a deep knowledge base of problem patterns and the best way to solve them. I was on the Stanford B team back in the day ('80s), and I know that if I were a student now, I'd use my free time to build a product/company rather than spending much effort preparing for the ACM competition. While some student programmers aren't swayed by the tremendous capitalist forces, I'd be surprised if it didn't have an impact on which programmers made it through campus preliminaries. There's just so many opportunities competing for your time if you're a good young programmer nowadays.

As well as MIT and Stanford performed, I'd have to wonder about student programmers who skipped the competition because they have their sight set on bigger prizes. The same might be said, though, for the other universities even if they aren't entrepreneurial hotbeds.

ptn
This Sunday is the contest at my university, I'm participating with two other friends. I aim at solving at least three problems, though winning with any number is welcome too :-)