Elon Musk made his money from PayPal and now runs two of the most successful technology companies in the world.
It’s fair to say, he probably is handled his part of the job interviews.
But instead of the typical ‘where do you see yourself in five years’, SpaceX boss likes to throw in a curveball.
One of his favorite interview riddles was recently put to viewers on TikTok by math influencer Tanya Zakowich, who goes by the handle @pinkpencilmath.
The mind-bending question goes like this:
You are on the surface of the earth. You walk a mile to the south, a mile to the west and a mile to the north. You end exactly where you started. Where are you?
According to Zakowich, candidates who answer successfully don’t get much time to celebrate because they are immediately hit with a follow-up question:
‘Where else?’
Of course, the answer is simple if you know it. But if you don’t, it may take some lateral thinking to figure it out. Scroll to the bottom of the article if you want to know the answer.
While you may not know the answer right away in orbit at SpaceX, Musk has always put more emphasis on raw skills rather than qualifications or degrees.
The world’s richest man told car photo in 2014 that to work for Tesla, “it is not necessary at all to have a college degree or even high school.”
Instead, he looks for evidence of “exceptional ability” among the few who have ever made it to an interview with him.
“If there is a track record of exceptional performance, it is likely that it will continue to be so in the future,” he explained.
the billionaire told the World Government Summit in 2017 that he often asks each candidate the same kind of question: “Tell me about some of the most difficult problems you’ve worked on and how you solved them.”
The reason, he explained, is that “the people who really solved the problem know exactly how they solved it.”
“They know and can describe the small details.”
For someone with a technical background like Musk, this probably gives a much clearer indication of one’s potential than a well-written resume.
But throwing in a riddle can’t hurt either.
The answer to the riddle
If you stand on the surface of the earth and walk a mile to the south, a mile to the west, and a mile to the north, ending where you started, there are only two places you could be.
You are at the North Pole or at the South Pole.
Because, of course, because of the curvature of the Earth, you don’t walk on a 2D plane, but along a latitude that takes you back in a triangular shape to where you started.
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