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How Would You Move Mount Fuji?: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle -- How the World's Smartest Companies Select the Most Creative Thinkers Paperback – April 2, 2004
| William Poundstone (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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How Would You Move Mount Fuji? is an indispensable book for anyone in business. Managers seeking the most talented employees will learn to incorporate puzzle interviews in their search for the top candidates. Job seekers will discover how to tackle even the most brain-busting questions, and gain the advantage that could win the job of a lifetime. And anyone who has ever dreamed of going up against the best minds in business may discover that these puzzles are simply a lot of fun. Why are beer cans tapered on the end, anyway?
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateApril 2, 2004
- Dimensions5.5 x 1.25 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-100316778494
- ISBN-13978-0316778497
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About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
How Would You Move Mount Fuji?
By William PoundstoneBack Bay Books
Copyright © 2003 William PoundstoneAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-316-77849-4
Chapter One
The Impossible QuestionIn August 1957 William Shockley was recruiting staff for his PaloAlto, California, start-up, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory.Shockley had been part of the Bell Labs team that invented thetransistor. He had quit his job and come west to start his owncompany, telling people his goal was to make a million dollars.Everyone thought he was crazy. Shockley knew he wasn't. Unlike a lotof the people at Bell Labs, he knew the transistor was going to bebig.
Shockley had an idea about how to make transistors cheaply. He wasgoing to fabricate them out of silicon. He had come to this valley,south of San Francisco, to start production. He felt like he was onthe cusp of history, in the right place at the right time. All thathe needed was the right people. Shockley was leaving nothing tochance.
Today's interview was Jim Gibbons. He was a young guy, earlytwenties. He already had a Stanford Ph.D. He had studied atCambridge too - on a Fulbright scholarship he'd won. Gibbons wassitting in front of him right now, in Shockley's Quonset hut office.Shockley picked up his stopwatch.
There's a tennis tournament with one hundred twenty-seven players,Shockley began, in measured tones. You've got one hundred twenty-sixpeople paired off in sixty-three matches, plus one unpaired playeras a bye. In the next round, there are sixty-four players andthirty-two matches. How many matches, total, does it take todetermine a winner?
Shockley started the stopwatch. The hand had not gone far whenGibbons replied: One hundred twenty-six.
How did you do that? Shockley wanted to know. Have you heard thisbefore?
Gibbons explained simply that it takes one match to eliminate oneplayer. One hundred twenty-six players have to be eliminated toleave one winner. Therefore, there have to be 126 matches.
Shockley almost threw a tantrum. That was how he would have solvedthe problem, he told Gibbons. Gibbons had the distinct impressionthat Shockley did not care for other people using "his" method.
Shockley posed the next puzzle and clicked the stop-watch again.This one was harder for Gibbons. He thought a long time withoutanswering. He noticed that, with each passing second, the room'satmosphere grew less tense. Shockley, seething at the previousanswer, now relaxed like a man sinking into a hot bath. Finally,Shockley clicked off the stopwatch and said that Gibbons had alreadytaken twice the lab average time to answer the question. He reportedthis with charitable satisfaction. Gibbons was hired.
Find the Heavy Billiard Ball ...
Fast-forward forty years in time - only a few miles in space fromlong-since-defunct Shockley Semiconductor - to a much-changedSilicon Valley. Transistors etched onto silicon chips were as big asShockley imagined. Software was even bigger. Stanford was having acareer fair, and one of the most popular companies in attendance wasthe Microsoft Corporation. With the 1990s dot-com boom and bullmarket in full swing, Microsoft was famous as a place whereemployees of no particular distinction could make $1 million beforetheir thirtieth birthday. Grad student Gene McKenna signed up for aninterview with Microsoft's recruiter.
Suppose you had eight billiard balls, the recruiter began. One ofthem is slightly heavier, but the only way to tell is by putting iton a scale against the others. What's the fewest number of timesyou'd have to use the scale to find the heavier ball?
McKenna began reasoning aloud. Everything he said was sensible, butsomehow nothing seemed to impress the recruiter. With hinting andprodding, McKenna came up with a billiard-ball-weighing scheme thatwas marginally acceptable to the Microsoft guy. The answer was two.
"Now, imagine Microsoft wanted to get into the appliance business,"the recruiter then said. "Suppose we wanted to run a microwave ovenfrom the computer. What software would you write to do this?"
"Why would you want to do that?" asked McKenna. "I don't want to goto my refrigerator, get out some food, put it in the microwave, andthen run to my computer to start it!" "Well, the microwave couldstill have buttons on it too."
"So why do I want to run it from my computer?" "Well maybe you couldmake it programmable? For example, you could call your computer fromwork and have it start cooking your turkey." "But wouldn't myturkey," asked McKenna, "or any other food, go bad sitting in themicrowave while I'm at work? I could put a frozen turkey in, butthen it would drip water everywhere."
"What other options could the microwave have?" the recruiter asked.Pause. "For example, you could use the computer to download andexchange recipes." "You can do that now. Why does Microsoft want tobother with connecting the computer to the microwave?" "Well let'snot worry about that. Just assume that Microsoft has decided this.It's your job to think up uses for it." McKenna thought in silence.
"Now maybe the recipes could be very complex," the recruiter said."Like, 'Cook food at seven hundred watts for two minutes, then atthree hundred watts for two more minutes, but don't let thetemperature get above three hundred degrees.'"
"Well there is probably a small niche of people who would reallylove that, but most people can't program their VCR."
The Microsoft recruiter extended his hand. "Well, it was nice tomeet you, Gene. Good luck with your job search." "Yeah," saidMcKenna. "Thanks."
The Impossible Question
Logic puzzles, riddles, hypothetical questions, and trick questionshave a long tradition in computer-industry interviews. This is anexpression of the start-up mentality in which every employee isexpected to be a highly logical and motivated innovator, workingseventy-hour weeks if need be to ship a product. It reflects thebelief that the high-technology industries are different from theold economy: less stable, less certain, faster changing. Thehigh-technology employee must be able to question assumptions andsee things from novel perspectives. Puzzles and riddles (so theargument goes) test that ability.
In recent years, the chasm between high technology and old economyhas narrowed. The uncertainties of a wired, ever-shifting globalmarketplace are imposing a start-up mentality throughout thecorporate and professional world. That world is now adopting thepeculiar style of interviewing that was formerly associated withlean, hungry technology companies. Puzzle-laden job interviews haveinfiltrated the Fortune 500 and the rust belt; law firms, banks,consulting firms, and the insurance industry; airlines, media,advertising, and even the armed forces. Brainteaser interviewquestions are reported from Italy, Russia, and India. Like it ornot, puzzles and riddles are a hot new trend in hiring.
Fast-forward to the present - anywhere, almost any line of business.It's your next job interview. Be prepared to answer questions likethese:
How many piano tuners are there in the world? If the Star Trektransporter was for real, how would that affect the transportationindustry? Why does a mirror reverse right and left instead of up anddown? If you could remove any of the fifty U.S. states, which wouldit be? Why are beer cans tapered on the ends? How long would it taketo move Mount Fuji?
In the human resources trade, some of these riddles are privatelyknown as impossible questions. Interviewers ask these questions inthe earnest belief that they help gauge the intelligence,resourcefulness, or "outside-the-box thinking" needed to survive intoday's hypercompetitive business world. Job applicants answer thesequestions in the also-earnest belief that this is what it takes toget hired at the top companies these days. A lot of earnestbelieving is going on.
To an anthropologist studying the hiring rituals of the earlytwenty-first century, the strangest thing about these impossiblequestions would probably be this: No one knows the answer. I havespoken with interviewers who use these questions, and they haveenthusiastically assured me not only that they don't know the"correct answer" but that it makes no difference that they don'tknow the answer. I even spent an amusing couple of hours on theInternet trying to pull up "official" figures on the number of pianotuners in the world. Conclusion: There are no official figures.Piano-tuner organizations with impressive websites do not know howmany piano tuners there are in the world.
Every business day, people are hired, or not hired, based on howwell they answer these questions.
The impossible question is one phase of a broader phenomenon. Hiringinterviews are becoming more invasive, more exhaustive, moredeceptive, and meaner. The formerly straightforward courtship ritualbetween employer and employee has become more one-sided, a meat rackin which job candidates' mental processes are poked, prodded, andmercilessly evaluated. More and more, candidates are expected to"prove themselves" in job interviews. They must solve puzzles, avoidgetting faked out by trick questions, and perform under manufacturedstress.
"Let's play a game of Russian roulette," begins one interview stuntthat is going the rounds at Wall Street investment banks. "You aretied to your chair and can't get up. Here's a gun. Here's the barrelof the gun, six chambers, all empty. Now watch me as I put twobullets in the gun. See how I put them in two adjacent chambers? Iclose the barrel and spin it. I put the gun to your head and pullthe trigger. Click. You're still alive. Lucky you! Now, before wediscuss your rsum, I'm going to pull the trigger one more time.Which would you prefer, that I spin the barrel first, or that I justpull the trigger?"
The good news is that the gun is imaginary. It's an "air gun," andthe interviewer makes the appropriate gestures of spinning thebarrel and pulling the trigger. The bad news is that your careerfuture is being decided by someone who plays with imaginary guns.
This question is a logic puzzle. It has a correct answer and theinterviewer knows what it is. You had better supply the right answerif you want the job. In the context of a job interview, solving apuzzle like this is probably as much about stress management asdeductive logic. The Russian roulette question exemplifies themind-set of these interviews - that people who can solve puzzlesunder stress make better employees than those who can't.
The popularity of today's stress - and puzzle-intensive interviewsis generally attributed to one of America's most successful andambivalently regarded corporations, Microsoft. The software giantreceives about twelve thousand rsums each month. That is amazingwhen you consider that the company has about fifty thousandemployees, and Microsoft's turnover rate has been pegged at about athird of the industry average. Microsoft has more cause to beselective than most companies. This is reflected in its interviewprocedure.
Without need of human intervention, each rsum received atMicrosoft is scanned for keywords and logged into a database.Promising rsums lead to a screening interview, usually by phone.Those who pass muster get a "fly back," a trip to Microsoft'sRedmond, Washington, headquarters for a full-day marathon offamously difficult interviews. "We look for original, creativethinkers," says a section of the Microsoft website that is directedto college-age applicants, "and our interview process is designed tofind those people." Six recent hires are pictured (three are women,three are black). "Your interview could include a technicaldiscussion of the projects you've worked on, an abstract designquestion, or general problem-solving puzzles or brainteasers. Thetypes of questions you'll be asked vary depending on the positionyou're looking for, but all are meant to investigate yourcapabilities and potential to grow. It's important for us to findout what you can do, not just what you've done." Another companypublication advises bluntly: "Get over your fear of trick questions.You will probably be asked one or two. They are not exactly fair,but they are usually asked to see how you handle a difficultsituation."
Riddles and Sphinxes
"Not exactly fair"? It's little wonder that some compare this styleof interviewing to fraternity hazing, brainwashing, or the thirddegree. As one job applicant put it, "You never know when they aregoing to bring out the guy in the chicken suit."
Another apt analogy is that familiar type of video game where youconfront a series of odd and hostile characters in a series ofconfined spaces, solving riddles to get from one space to the next.Not many make it to the highest levels; for most, after three orfour encounters, the game is over. As classicists point out, thosevideo games update the ancient Greek legend of Oedipus and thesphinx. The sphinx devoured anyone who couldn't answer her riddle:"What is it that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs atnoon, and three legs in the evening?"
Oedipus solved the riddle by answering "Man." A baby crawls on allfours, an adult walks on two legs, and the elderly use a cane as athird leg. It was, in other words, a trick question.
The sphinx tale puzzles people even today. Why didn't they justshoot it? is the reaction of most college students. The principalsource for the story, Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, is a realistic andpsychologically nuanced tragedy. There the man-eating she-monster isas out of place, one scholar noted, as Godzilla would be if he wereto lumber into the New York of Coppola's Godfather trilogy. Still,something about this crazy story strikes a chord. We all undergotests in life. Maybe we succeed where all others have failed - ormaybe not; at least, it's a common fantasy. There is somethingfamiliar in the banality of the riddle too, and in the weirdness ofits poser. They remind us that the tests of life are not alwaysreasonable and not always fair.
Tales of people proving their mettle by solving riddles exist incultures around the globe. The "ordeal by trick question" waspossibly raised to the highest art by the monks of Japanese Zen. Zenriddles are the antithesis of the Western logic puzzle, though onemight describe them as demanding an extreme sort of outside-the-boxthinking. A student of Zen demonstrates worthiness by giving asublimely illogical answer to an impossible question. Zen masterShuzan once held out his short staff and announced to a follower:"If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you donot call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wishto call this?" In traditional Zen teaching, the penalty for a pooranswer was a hard whack on the head with a short staff.
So Microsoft's "not exactly fair" questions are not exactly new. Thecompany has repackaged the old "ordeal by riddle" for our own time.
Continues...
Excerpted from How Would You Move Mount Fuji?by William Poundstone Copyright © 2003 by William Poundstone. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Little, Brown and Company (April 2, 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0316778494
- ISBN-13 : 978-0316778497
- Item Weight : 9.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1.25 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #229,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #91 in Job Interviewing (Books)
- #271 in Job Hunting (Books)
- #1,076 in Job Hunting & Career Guides
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

William Poundstone is the author of two previous Hill and Wang books: Fortune's Formula and Gaming the Vote.
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If you are reading the book for an interview in a time crunch, read Chapter 8 first. Poundstone discusses the generic puzzle solving technique and the mental preparation process you should follow after you hear or read the question. It worked well as I applied it to several puzzles in the book. Of course, lest you forget, as Poundstone put it, `For the purposes of a job interview, the reasoning is the "answer"`.'
The author extends a helping hand to provide solid advice to companies who consider these techniques for interviews. He reminds them what to conclude and what not to conclude based on the candidate's response, the best ways to utilize this technique in an interview and ways to win the race of seeking and securing the best talent. He particularly reminds them that while the answer to the puzzle may not be as expected, it is in their best interest to place great value in the reasoning and logical approach taken by the candidate. By the same token, if the candidate has heard of the puzzle and knows only the answer, there are ways to test further their real understanding and further measure their puzzle solving skills, as well as eliminating those who have memorized a few answers to popular puzzles.
There are some cases where there is no singular solution. For instance, in the types of questions where you are asked to design xyz, you can exercise more freedom and especially creativity, as long as you are aware of boundaries for acceptable responses. Therefore, if you are testing your reasoning abilities, do not read the answers until you have exhausted all your options.
Remember, whatever you take away or learn, always stay aligned to a perfectly logical being when you want to solve a puzzle.
I didn't find the puzzle questions or their solutions to be very interesting, except for how they make M&Ms, which I probably wouldn't have figured out.
I really liked the rest of the book more - the history behind it and all the little tidbits thrown in about Gates, Microsoft culture, and interviewing in general.
Reading this book won't get you through a Microsoft interview with flying colors. It will be obvious if you're regurgitating information or if you're thinking a problem through. Chances are they're not going to ask you anything in here since it's all common knowledge now.
If you've no experience working through word problems and logic puzzles, then by all means get the book to see the kind of stuff they might ask you, and what typical approaches to those types of problems can be. But think of this merely as a mental guide and not an answerbook.
The puzzles themselves were somewhat disappointing, some being somewhat odd (although one cannot fault the author for this, given he didn't choose the questions to ask), with most of the explanations being disappointing. The explanations were WAY too wordy, taking up maybe five times the space necessary. However, this is a relatively minor point, taking the book as a whole.
I would definitely recommend it, especially as an ebook, which it's inexpensive and I felt well worth the investment.
* Learn about more riddles and enjoy the challenge: This goal you will achieve, even though puzzles and answered are not organized to be useful as a reference
* Learn about the hiring practices in the most successful IT organizations: This you will achieve too, but it is not a recruiters handbook either
* I was curious how well that book would prepare an applicant who would try to memorize solutions to the puzzles: It will help you with that as well.
It does all of the above sufficiently well, so this was what I wanted. Overall, I felt it is an interesting read but not a classics which you come back to.
Whether you are interviewing or being interviewed, you won't regret your money on this a bit. In fact, some one walked of with my book, so, I invested in one more copy of this book, that every now and then, I refer to it.
Top reviews from other countries
I can't comment on the efficacy of this book yet for interview preparation.

