1672. Richest Customer Wealth
easyGiven an m x n grid where accounts[i][j] is the money customer i has in bank j, return the wealth that the richest customer has. A clean primer on iterating 2D arrays and tracking a running maximum.
By Alex Chen, Founder, InterviewChamp.AI · Last verified
Problem
You are given an m x n integer grid accounts where accounts[i][j] is the amount of money the i-th customer has in the j-th bank. Return the wealth that the richest customer has. A customer's wealth is the amount of money they have in all their bank accounts. The richest customer is the one with the maximum wealth.
Constraints
m == accounts.lengthn == accounts[i].length1 <= m, n <= 501 <= accounts[i][j] <= 100
Examples
Example 1
accounts = [[1,2,3],[3,2,1]]6Explanation: Customer 1 has wealth = 1+2+3 = 6. Customer 2 has wealth = 3+2+1 = 6. Both customers are considered the richest with a wealth of 6.
Example 2
accounts = [[1,5],[7,3],[3,5]]10Explanation: Customer 2 has the maximum wealth = 7 + 3 = 10.
Example 3
accounts = [[2,8,7],[7,1,3],[1,9,5]]17Solve it now
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Hints
Progressive — try the first before opening the next.
Hint 1
Compute the sum of each row, then return the largest such sum.
Hint 2
You do not need an extra array — keep a single 'best so far' variable and update it as you iterate rows.
Hint 3
Early-exit micro-optimisations rarely matter at these constraints; clarity beats cleverness here.
Solution approach
Reveal approach
Iterate over each row of the grid. For each row, compute the sum of its entries (one inner loop), then compare that sum against a running maximum initialised to 0 (or -infinity). After visiting every row, the running maximum is the answer. Since both dimensions are bounded by 50, even the most straightforward double-loop runs comfortably within the limits. The point of the problem is to confirm you handle 2D iteration cleanly without off-by-one errors.
Complexity
- Time
- O(m * n)
- Space
- O(1)
Related patterns
- iteration
- matrix-traversal
Related problems
Asked at
Companies reported asking this problem (sourced from public Glassdoor, Blind, and Levels.fyi interview posts).
- Amazon
- Adobe
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