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Comment by Jalad | Hacker News Reader

Is this a perfect example of broken modern tech interviews?

Balmer's question seems fair for the complexity of the answer he was expecting.

As the interviewee you would presumably provide the (mathematically) wrong answer, but you'd show your thinking along the way, including a small demonstration of CS principles.

Keep in mind that Balmer had a long career, so if he ever asked this question, it was probably back in the 80s when no one expected you to come up with the complex solution outlined in the post.

If you did outline the correct answer, that would be amazing, and you'd be an instant hire. But the question doesn't fundamentally seem broken to me because either answer (taking the bet or not) needs to be well justified.

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The question seems like a mathematical one.

What you're saying sounds to me like "your answer doesn't need to be correct, it just needs to sound reasonable". What you're filtering on with this question is good bullshitters.

To me, the only reasonable to this question is "I don't know". I think even a mathematical genius like Terrence Tao would not be able to give you the answer to this on the spot. (Although I can also totally believe that he would instantly see this from some obscure theorem that only like 5 people on the planet know.)

No, it's about understanding what an interview is for. They're not trying to get the answer. They're trying to find out what you know, how you think and how you communicate.

Do you spot that it's different with one Vs many plays? Do you spot the binary search? Do you spot that an adversarial opponent can push things? Can you clearly communicate these?

If you just say "I don't know" and that's it you are showing you don't know how to communicate important information and miss soft skills about understanding the context of an interview.

If you say "I don't know" and talk through your thoughts then great. The point is talking things through, even if you have gotten the wrong answer.

Maybe you'd be able to say "and here's how I'd code a simulation to check"

That seems reasonable, and in that context I would think it's actually a good interview question.

But it seems that Steve Ballmer used this question as if it has a single right answer, and that answer is "no". Unless it's more about the question "do you want to play this game, right here, right now?", then it becomes more about heuristics and quick reasoning.

It's all about context I guess.

In fairness, if someone proposes a complex and contrived game which cannot be easily analysed but is potentially adversarial... you shouldn't play them.

Are you talking about Balmer's question or the aforementioned job being interviewed for?

> "I don't know"

Which is exactly the same as “no” in this situation. If you were capable of proving the opposite I assume he would have been willing to hear you out.

> not be able to give you the answer to this on the spot

Realizing the most obvious strategy would be suboptimal if the game is adversarial is the first step of the correct answer though. If you didn’t know what to do next obviously the correct answer is “no, because I don’t know”.

Someone who is trying to absolve himself from making any decision ls is presumably not the sort of a person they were looking for.

Also would Balmer have been hiring for engineers to begin with?

Seems so. The broken tech interview idea stems from the idea that interview questions that do not pertain to the job will lead to hiring the wrong people.

And, indeed, what Microsoft really needed in the 80s was people who truly understood memory management in C, not gamblers left to hack their way into something that kind of worked sometimes. Microsoft's need to correct that hiring mistake later set them back significantly. Had they asked about the intricacies of C as it directly pertained to the job instead of unrelated trivia, they would be in a much stronger position now.

> Had they asked about the intricacies of C

Presumably it wasn’t Ballmer who was asking questions like that?

If he was running the “business”, sales etc. part of the company.

All of the things you listed would have been less than worthless if they weren’t able to convince anyone to buy their products.

Thanks for playing along. This is a perfect example of why pointless trivia does well in an interview. It reveals the psuedo-intellectuals who will overanalyze the situation in an effort to try and sound intelligent. Exactly who you want to steer clear of.

The candidate you actually want to hire will respond with something to effect of "That's dumb. Let's instead talk about X, which will be a far more appealing topic to both of us."

Well.. most people generally don’t like working with annoying, self-entitled know-it-alls. So I guess the question serves its purpose if it filters such people out.

> effort to try and sound intelligent. Exactly who you want to steer clear of.

I wouldn’t be reading your comments if I wanted to stay clear of stuff like that, would I?

I think you're missing my point. The problem isn't the question - it's the fact that Balmer was objectively wrong about the answer - and he never changed that determination after having conversations about it however many times. ("I asked this question all the time.")

It doesn't matter that it was difficult to prove he was wrong. The issue is that it was impossible to prove he was right. And if anyone ever tried to bring that up to him, he never once heard them.

I believe an interviewer who is wrong and does not listen to you is a perfect example of the broken process. Especially given that he was an industry leader - in this interview he was providing a historical example of the process' merits - all while being entirely incorrect.

You are claiming things that are absent from and contradicted by the interview.

You need to explain what you think those things are.

I'd love to address your point, but unless you further articulate your position I won't be able. I see nothing in my statements that isn't directly said or implied from the linked video.

Yes because it is a question for a quant.

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