A few days ago, the IT world was shaken by the news: a Pole, Przemek Dębiak (“Psyho”), defeated artificial intelligence and won the most prestigious heuristic competition in the world – AtCoder World Tour Finals 2025 (Heuristic Division).
In a competition based on strategy, creativity, and pure thinking – it wasn’t a language model, it wasn’t AI, it wasn’t code from a prompt that won. It was a human.
No ready-made solutions. No documentation. No support. It was just him, the problem, and 10 hours of pure intellectual effort.
OpenAI’s AI took 2nd place – with a 9.5% gap behind Przemek. Sam Altman himself wrote: “Good job, Psyho.”
This is not a post about coding. This is a post about the value of a human – when there’s a need to improvise, think outside the box, and go beyond the framework.
At itMatch, I often hear questions:
“Will AI replace us?”
“Is it still worth investing in people?”
“In 5 years, will recruitment still be needed?”
For me, the answer is obvious: yes, it’s worth it!
Because the best teams are still the ones where there is room for creativity, intuition, and reflection. Because there are people who can still do more than an algorithm.
Because a human is not just input and output.
Przemek, congratulations!
