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Steve Ballmer's net worth is 120 billion dollars, so, assuming each game takes 30 seconds, it would take you 1.6 million years to win it all.
And this, friends, is the perfect example of why the modern tech interview process is pure insanity.
is it? If I was forced to ask this question as an interviewer, and the candidate said, "actually, you're wrong, here's why" that's a very good signal. Do most people not do this? (typically there's discussion with all the interviewers and it isn't just "did the candidate get the question right or not). I personally think a lot of big tech interview questions are dumb but I think the process isn't as broken as I thoug…
And this, friends, is the perfect example of why the modern tech interview process is pure insanity.
And this, friends, is the perfect example of why the modern tech interview process is pure insanity.
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…
And this, friends, is the perfect example of why the modern tech interview process is pure insanity.
In this case, it would just be showing that you can reason about binary search and showing that the mean profit is 0.20 dollars
And this, friends, is the perfect example of why the modern tech interview process is pure insanity.
Ballmer's argument is essentially about tail risk. Expected value is absolutely not a good way to make bets if you value survival, because you only get one shot. Same reason you wouldn't go all in every time you get a poker hand that's "expected" to win. Because you'll (very probably) be bankrupt in a few hands.
Sure the mean is +$0.07 or whatever, but the spread on that surely goes over the 0 line. So there may well be marginally more chance of winning than losing, on average, but you're only gonna get one outcome. So if the goal is to play to win, or else, then you probably shouldn't unless you like owing Ballmer money.
What would be more interesting is to monte carlo simulate this strategy and look at the win/loss distribution. Presumably the choice is then not so clear cut.
If you're allowed to play the game a few trillion times or so, then by all means bleed him dry :P