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If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

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Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#131

Post by dkarl »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #116
dkarl wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making and selling restaurant reservations doesn't strike you as dishonest? It's an honor system. What's to stop me from making reservations at ten different restaurants for my blind date tonight, and deciding at the last minute which one will make the best impression on my date? The system relies on honesty. It only works because few people are willing to abuse it, and those who do so only do it in a small way. This…

The system relies on honesty. I'm not so sure that it does. It relies on filling the tables at the restaurants . The restaurants don't care if the people who come to fill your table aren't the same ones that originally booked the reservation. Nor do they care if a certain number of reservations are no-shows, if the number of no-shows is smaller than the number of people waiting at the door. As I said above, you obvio…

Restaurants do care if they deny reservations to non-paying customers and then have empty tables because your business didn't sell as much as usual. They also care about alienating customers who are told, "We don't have any free reservations available, but some are available for an extra charge." Very likely, if they found out what you were doing, they would put you out of business whether you were hurting them or not, just to prevent their patrons from ever facing that choice.

Like I said, the greatest proof that restaurants don't want their patrons paying for reservations is that they don't do it. They already have what they need: a way of recording reservations and a maitre d' with knowledge of their business and a triple-digit IQ. They know there's demand: many people already try to get a table on a busy night by slipping the maitre d' some cash. If they wanted in on it, they'd already be in on it, and you'd be stuck trying to convince a restaurant to hand over control of a simple, vital, near-zero-cost part of their business to a third party for no gain. I maintain that you could only survive as a parasite by avoiding notice and/or paying off the right people.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#132

Post by tjr »

Tichy wrote: post #121
Kadin wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is offering to check someone's tire pressure and then inflate it for a nominal fee, or a donation, "dishonest"? The first scenario is one a lot of Jiffy Lube-type garages and auto parts stores like Pep Boys do all the time (although typically with more than just tire pressure, e.g. transmission fluid). The latter -- asking for donations and letting people pay what they want -- is something the Boy Scouts…

Because the equipment presumably cost more than 5$.

And so would the clothes they are ostensibly wearing.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#133

Post by aplusbi »

jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #99
aplusbi wrote: post #98

Sell frozen orange juice futures.

Actually oranges and extremely cold winters heavily impact businesses. Jamba juice 2 years ago stopped carrying fresh squeezed OJ and smoothies with orange juice in them were 25 cents more.

I was making an obscure movie reference.*

*Trading Places

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#134

Post by pcarmichael »

mrduncan wrote: post #17

Here is a link to the original Stanford podcast where this video is from: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2219 I really recommend the whole series also, they have had some excellent guests. http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html Edit: Grammar

Agree 100%. It's a great series with many good talks. One of my all-time favorites is from Tom Kelley (IDEO) on being an innovator for life: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2054

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#135

Post by protomyth »

raganwald wrote: post #104
seldo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make valid points. My problem is less the specifics of the individual teams' solutions -- I don't dispute they were very clever and creative solutions -- but rather the impression that the greatest reward went to those who went furthest outside of the rules. Team 1 were arguably entirely within the rules and made $200, Team 2 went a little outside (unless they were handed the envelope at 6pm) and made a little mo…

Fundamentally, you're not rewarding creativity at money-making, you're rewarding creativity at rule-breaking. And there's your insight. If what you want is money, and lots of it, finding creative ways to game the system is how it's done. I am not lauding that, just pointing it out.

Maybe on Wall Street, but elsewhere you make a lot of money by creating something people really want, but not generally what they wanted.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#136

Post by jacobolus »

wizard_2 wrote: post #103
seldo wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the lesson I really want people who are thinking of working on Wall Street to learn is that they should be trying to cheat the system.

With wall street as with most things, there is no "outside the system" everything is the system even if other people don't recognize it. I'll argue outside the rules is still inside the system, and that not all rules are created equal. On another note, Breaking rules isn't what caused the recent wall street collapse it was a lack of looking ahead at consequences of actions.

Sure, and it's why we need to have both regulation on the front-end, and courts on the back end, to discourage attempts to "game" the "system", so that people's actions which benefit themselves are also beneficial to the society at large.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#137

Post by mariorz »

mp3jeep01 wrote: post #113
Tichy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And I don't seem to recall anything in the "constraints" about not being allowed to beg or borrow anything, nor any rules about not being allowed to use stuff you already own." What if "stuff you already own" includes a bank account with 2 million bucks in it? I also thought the solution was a bit dishonest, but then the whole thing should not be taken that serious from the start. The reservations solution seems eve…

As far as a restaurant is concerned, why would they really care? It might annoy customers, but as long as the tables are still filling up, I feel the restaurant is more than happy, because they're still making the best of their available resources (tables and wait-staff). It's a valid point how the artificial constraints are the envelope and the time, because the way she listed the rules was, clock starts when you op…

>As far as a restaurant is concerned, why would they really care? It might annoy customers, but as long as the tables are still filling up, I feel the restaurant is more than happy, because they're still making the best of their available resources (tables and wait-staff).

It's scalping. It raises the cost of a dinner in the restaurant without additional gains for them. Obviously restaurants would not go this.

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#138

Post by teeja »

seldo wrote: post #51
nkurz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She teaches a class at Stanford and offers each team $5 of 'funding' in an envelope. She tells them that once they open the envelope, they have 2 hours to make as much money as they can. She cites three teams' approaches: 1) First team opens a free stand that offers to check peoples bike tire pressure for free, then charges $1 to inflate if necessary. This team changes midstream to accepting donations instead of char…

See, the problem here is that she hands out two artificial constraints, and then praises the teams who ignore the constraints. 1. Used a device to measure the tire pressure and materials to build the booth and signs. Did they cost less than $5? Maybe. Did it take less than 2 hours to create the booth, the signs, and perform the services? Unlikely. 2. Well done on finding something you can acquire for free and then se…

"she hands out two artificial constraints"

But that's very important. People are constantly working under ... and handing out ... artificial constraints. Getting outside the box is one of the most important lessons. Who could possibly want to communicate but be limited to only 140 characters?

The US spent a million dollars to develop a pen that could write in no-gravity. The Russians used a pencil.

"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally."

Re: If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible?

#140

Post by Tichy »

tjr wrote: post #132
Tichy wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the equipment presumably cost more than 5$.

And so would the clothes they are ostensibly wearing.

Hm, to set up the experiment properly could become an entertaining experience :-)

Edit: really, though, what is the actual experiment here? If all external aids are allowed, the only lesson left seems to be to think outside of the box.

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