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Elon Musk's favourite interview question stumps TikTok users - can YOU answer it?
How long ago has it been since the last time you had an interview? It could have been any interview. Maybe you got a little bored during retirement and suddenly decided to get a new job (yeah, right!). Maybe one of your grandkids had a school project that involved interviewing someone they see as one of their heroes. Perhaps you were just a random pedestrian who was accosted by survey takers on the street. But have you ever been asked a question that you had no idea how to answer?
After being reposted by a maths influencer, Elon Musk's go-to interview question — a tricky arithmetic puzzle with multiple answers — has confused TikTok. Tanya Zakowich, who goes by the Twitter handle @pinkpencilmath, stated in a now-viral video that the billionaire would ask candidates to solve this brainteaser during interviews at SpaceX before posing the issue to viewers.
The question goes: ‘You’re standing on the surface of the earth. You walk one mile south, one mile west, and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?’
People were quick to respond, and the answers were… well, miles apart.
Many people didn't know what to make of the riddle and felt it was a trick question. 'Exactly where you started on the surface of the Earth,' one user said.
'Bermuda Triangle! Stuff disappears there, so I figure all sense of direction was lost,' another joked.
'You ended up in [a] better situation than you were before since you took action,' wrote one TikTok user in an attempt to be philosophical, ‘You did not remain at your previous location.'
According to Ashlee Vance's 2015 authorised biography 'Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future,' the SpaceX founder and CEO personally interviewed nearly all of the space manufacturer's initial one thousand personnel in the early years, including janitors.
As the company grew, Musk, now 50, continued interviewing engineers and used his favourite riddle to test how prospective workers thought. Although there are several valid answers to the puzzle, the North Pole is the most prevalent. When the brainteaser was highlighted as the publication's 'Riddle of the Week' in 2017, Popular Mechanics explained the reasons.
Source: Daily Mail
So what’s the correct answer? According to the magazine, if you stand right on the north pole and go one mile south, then one mile west, then one mile north, you will return to the North Pole. Did you get it? A couple of TikTok users noodled it out:
‘You are at the most northern point of the earth because it doesn’t matter if you go west then east. If you go north, you will end up back where you start.’ one commenter said.
‘‘Yeah, north pole, if you go one mile south, one mile west one mile, then one mile up, it’s still the north pole.” one TikTok user said.
Candidates who name the North Pole, however, won't have much time to revel in their brilliance, because Musk is said to follow up by asking, 'Where else could it be?'
According to Vance's biography, the second answer is the South Pole, though it is given by fewer engineers. 'Imagine a circle with a one-mile circumference with the South Pole at its centre. If you were to start one mile north of this circle, you would travel one mile south, one mile west all the way around the circle, and then one mile north back to your starting point,’ Popular Mechanics explained.
Source: Daily Mail
‘There are a few solutions. One is the North Pole but also anywhere 1 mile north of a place close to the South Pole where you can walk in a west-east.’ another user added.
However, TikTok users who came up with more innovative solutions will be relieved to learn that in a hypothetical interview, Musk would not disqualify them for answering incorrectly. According to Vance's biography, the Tesla CEO is more interested in a person's approach to problem-solving than the answer itself.
Did that question stir up your mind? If we’re being honest, we don’t think we’ll be getting any job offers from SpaceX any time soon.
Do you have any more brainteasers to inflict on other members? Tell us all about them in the comments below!
