Yes, I think to a large degree being able to build hard technology is a matter of being extremely fluent with writing code and reasoning about data structures and algorithms, as I stated. Being able to solve this problem in 10 minutes seems like a hard-to-fake demonstration of such fluency. When I think about CS open problems and when I solve leetcode problems with algorithmic content to them like this one, it feels like I'm using the same part of my brain (or at least there is significant overlap).
If you don't agree with me that the fluency I described is a significant asset to advancing the state of the art in CS, what do you think a significant asset is?
If you don't agree with me that the fluency I described is a significant asset to advancing the state of the art in CS, what do you think a significant asset is?