[disgruntledphd2]

Dunno, I got in relatively early without any leet-coding at all. To be fair though, I work in DS and was in the greater sales org, so there was more of a focus on what I could actually do.

That being said, I think that it was that they (used to) hire people with drive, give them autonomy and a choice of what to work on from the large set of hard problems, and watch the money roll in.