Blind 75
The original curated list that changed LeetCode prep forever.
Introduction
In 2018, a Facebook engineer named Yangshun Tay analyzed hundreds of common interview questions and realized they all boiled down to a core set of patterns. He curated a list of exactly 75 LeetCode questions that cover almost every fundamental pattern you need to know.
This list became known as the Blind 75.
Why the Blind 75?
Before the Blind 75, candidates would sort LeetCode by "Most Frequent" and just try to memorize solutions. This was incredibly inefficient.
The Blind 75 changed the paradigm from memorizing questions to learning patterns. If you truly understand the 75 questions on this list, you are equipped to solve hundreds of other unseen questions.
The Breakdown
The Blind 75 is heavily weighted towards the most common interview topics: - Arrays & Hashing: (Two Sum, Valid Anagram, Contains Duplicate) - Two Pointers & Sliding Window: (Valid Palindrome, Best Time to Buy/Sell Stock) - Linked Lists: (Reverse Linked List, Merge Two Sorted Lists) - Trees: (Maximum Depth, Invert Binary Tree) - Dynamic Programming: (Climbing Stairs, Coin Change) - Graphs: (Number of Islands, Clone Graph)
Should you use it today?
Yes and No.
The Blind 75 is still a fantastic starting point. However, interview difficulty has increased since 2018. Some modern patterns (like Monotonic Stacks and advanced Backtracking) are underrepresented in the original 75.
Because of this, the community has largely moved on to expanded lists like the NeetCode 150 or the Grind 75.
Key Takeaways
- The Blind 75 is the original curated list of pattern-based LeetCode questions.
- It is the absolute bare minimum you should complete before attempting a FAANG interview.
- For modern prep, you should strongly consider upgrading to the NeetCode 150.