Career and Interests

[swami]

Vas was an MIT grad. That's not putting it lightly. M-I-T. The world's best technological institute. period.

I wonder why he would decline the job and do computer chess full time? Especially when everyone knows for fact that computer chess doesn't bring that much money.

Many other programmers have moved on with life. Fabien Letouzey. Ed Schroder. Chris Whittington. Anthony Cozzie. Alexander Naumov.

Someone said that he'd earn about as 3 times more from a day job as he would from computer chess. I don't know if that's true. I believe he would earn as 5 times as much than that.

(A) Is it perhaps because of his interest in computer chess to the point of solving chess?

(B) Is it that a day job demands a lot of responsibility and commitment and he wouldn't want mucho pressure of working in the office and that he values freedom more?
(IIRC Bruce Moreland said that he retired at 45 because he wouldn't want to die working in Microsoft, with such pressure, and moved on to doing self-business.)

(C) Is it that he believes that fame is more important than money. Doing computer chess and getting more recognized is smarter way than earning much money while being isolated and unrecognized?

(D) Is it that he has enough money and property and would rather spend his life doing what he likes doing best?

(E) Other

[swami]

That said, I highly respect Vas and don't like the way the personal attacks are being dished out at him. It's impressive that he has stayed calm, cool and full of humor as usual throughout this.

I was curious as to what made him do computer chess full time.

[Fguy64]

Other.

I don't know the man at all, so this is only a guess, but if he does decide to move on to something more lucrative down the road, then I suppose Rybka will certainly look good on his resume.

[swami]

Other.

I don't know the man at all, so this is only a guess, but if he does decide to move on to something more lucrative down the road, then I suppose Rybka will certainly look good on his resume.

Yes, I agree completely with you.

[Dann Corbit]

Vas was an MIT grad. That's not putting it lightly. M-I-T. The world's best technological institute. period.

I wonder why he would decline the job and do computer chess full time? Especially when everyone knows for fact that computer chess doesn't bring that much money.

Many other programmers have moved on with life. Fabien Letouzey. Ed Schroder. Chris Whittington. Anthony Cozzie. Alexander Naumov.

Someone said that he'd earn about as 3 times more from a day job as he would from computer chess. I don't know if that's true. I believe he would earn as 5 times as much than that.

(A) Is it perhaps because of his interest in computer chess to the point of solving chess?

(B) Is it that a day job demands a lot of responsibility and commitment and he wouldn't want mucho pressure of working in the office and that he values freedom more?
(IIRC Bruce Moreland said that he retired at 45 because he wouldn't want to die working in Microsoft, with such pressure, and moved on to doing self-business.)

(C) Is it that he believes that fame is more important than money. Doing computer chess and getting more recognized is smarter way than earning much money while being isolated and unrecognized?

(D) Is it that he has enough money and property and would rather spend his life doing what he likes doing best?

(E) Other

He answers posts at the Rybka site. Why not just ask him?

I guess that he can make far more money doing something else, but chess programming is fun for him. If you can make enough money to live well enough and have fun doing it also, what's wrong with that?

[swami]

I somehow doubt Option D is the case.

I know of many friends who have a large property and prefer not to work hard. They hardly have any interest in competition academic and high profile job wise.

Only people from average or above average economic background strive harder to land themselves up in institutes like MIT. They tend to be competitive.

I believe Option B is more likely true.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

Someone said that he'd earn about as 3 times more from a day job as he would from computer chess. I don't know if that's true. I believe he would earn as 5 times as much than that.

This assumption doesn't seem to have any kind of reasoning behind it.

There are limits to what you can earn as an employee, no matter how good you are, and there are limits to how much potential you can achieve if you work for a boss, but there are no limits to what you can earn and achieve if you're your own boss and run your own company.

Rybka has made in a very short while an enormous brand strength and has maintained it's large advantage for a substantial amount of time, as well as having a good distribution network with the two largest chess companies very actively promoting it. As a consequence, I am sure it sells orders of magnitude more than engines like Deep Sjeng, Fruit or Zappa have sold.

If you're still doubting, make an estimate how much copies Rybka sells, how much Vas earns from each copy, multiply by 5, and tell we which technical positions at which companies pays that kind of wage.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

FWIW, http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job ... Experience

Vas is 38, so he should have about 15 years of experience.

[swami]

Someone said that he'd earn about as 3 times more from a day job as he would from computer chess. I don't know if that's true. I believe he would earn as 5 times as much than that.

This assumption doesn't seem to have any kind of reasoning behind it.

There are limits to what you can earn as an employee, no matter how good you are, and there are limits to how much potential you can achieve if you work for a boss, but there are no limits to what you can earn and achieve if you're your own boss and run your own company.

Rybka has made in a very short while an enormous brand strength and has maintained it's large advantage for a substantial amount of time, as well as having a good distribution network with the two largest chess companies very actively promoting it. As a consequence, I am sure it sells orders of magnitude more than engines like Deep Sjeng, Fruit or Zappa have sold.

If you're still doubting, make an estimate how much copies Rybka sells, how much Vas earns from each copy, multiply by 5, and tell we which technical positions at which companies pays that kind of wage.

Alex Naumov said something to the effect that he earns like 1/10 of his salary from selling the chess engine.

I doubt if Rybka is really this popular. I don't think it would be as popular as chessmaster or Fritz yet. Google would obviously offer him more.

[swami]

FWIW, http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job ... Experience

Vas is 38, so he should have about 15 years of experience.

I believe that's for usual companies. Not a high profile ones.