Jane Street–styleQuant ResearcherQuantitative ResearcherQuestion #422

A robot wakes up every morning and, with equal (1/4) probability, does one of the following: 1) self-destructs; 2) does nothing; 3) clones itself (resulting in 2 robots); or 4) clones itself twice (resulting in 3 robots). If you start with one robot on the first day, what is the probability that, eventually, you will have no robots remaining?

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