Jane Street–styleTraderTradingQuestion #468

You have a truck that can carry up to 1,000 apples and must transport 3,000 apples from your farm to a market 1,000 miles away. The truck has a hole that causes it to irrecoverably drop 1 apple per mile traveled. You may drop apples off in secure boxes along the road to pick them up later, but the truck can still hold only 1,000 apples at a time. What strategy maximizes the number of apples delivered to market?

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