Listen Labs' Viral Growth Hack: A Tale of AI Collaboration and Optimization

Listen Labs launched a viral marketing campaign with a cryptic billboard in San Francisco, leading to a complex optimization puzzle: simulating the entrance selection of Berlin's Berghain nightclub. This puzzle attracted 30,000 engineers, unexpectedly creating a massive distributed computing experiment. The author and his AI partner, Claude, participated, progressing from simple greedy algorithms to a Lagrangian multiplier-based RBCR algorithm, achieving impressive results. However, they also experienced the failure of deep learning models, ultimately learning that in problems with clear mathematical structure, simple principled algorithms often outperform complex machine learning models. The story showcases the immense potential of AI-assisted programming and the perfect blend of human insight and AI execution.