How to survive a job interview with Elon Musk | Hacker News Reader

How to survive a job interview with Elon Musk

mashable.com

7 pointssandeepmzr14 comments

Light on content but had a neat riddle (I actually "solved" or guessed it pats self on back)

"You're standing on the surface of the Earth," Musk begins, according to the book. "You walk one mile south, one mile west, and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?"

Answer in the article.

This riddle doesn't look hard at all (solved it nearly instantly after reading it), but I'm not sure I could provide an instant answer during such stressful conditions as mentioned in the article.

That's what I thought when I first read it (how easy) but then realized that under stress, expecting an impossible mind teaser, a nervous applicant might mess it up.

Depends if where you started is based on coordinates or a location on the ice, and how long it takes you to walk the distance.

I would do nearly anything to work for him in cali.

>Musk is known to work more than 20 hours a day

Sorry but no matter how high I value his contributions to technology do I believe statements like that. Just think about it. How would these 4 hours downtime be divided? One would think all goes towards sleep. But can you really close your laptop, instantly jump into bed and sleep? No showers? Brushing teeth? Eating something? And what about in the morning? Alarm clock goes of, jump out of bed and instantly open the laptop and start working?

Again, I like the guy enough but I wish they would stop to publish these obviously fake fluff factoids. You can still be a genius when working reasonable hours.

The first answer to the riddle is pretty obvious but I don't see how the second answer can be correct.

Near the South Pole, there are latitudes where the circumference is 1 mile, 1/2 mile, 1/3 mile... You are 1 mile north of those latitudes.

ok, so haversine distance is a thing on a sphere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-circle_distance

You are a bit over a mile from the south pole (how much a of bit requires math i don't feel like doing, but is very important) You walk towards the pole, turn and walk west in an exactly 1 mile circumference circle around the pole (this is why the "bit" was important) and you walk back north to where you started.

There is only one valid point on the northern hemisphere (the north pole) and a ring of points at the south pole.

found the math I need! https://www.astro.virginia.edu/class/whittle/astr553/Topic16...

C = R sin(r/R) R = radius of earth aprox( 3,959) C = 1 mile solution is r+1 distance from the south pole

Aren't there multiple rings for the South Pole solution? There's the solution where you head south, circle the pole once, and head back north; then there's also the one (starting slightly further south) where you head south, circle the pole twice and go back... and so on.

yep! I missed that, infinitely many concentric rings.

I would attempt to throw him off by asking "you mean true north, geographic north, or grid north?"

is geographic != true north? I think you missed out magnetic north, unless I have my definitions mixed up =]

Yes, that is the "throw off" part!

No dude, you are misunderstanding me, your definition is wrong, your label of geographic north == true north.

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