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| This is one of those questions where the trick is to come up with an easier answer than the one that's seemingly being called for. We'd say. "$10 per window." |
Want to work at Google? It's famously tough getting through the Google interview process. But now we can reveal just how strenuous are the mental acrobatics demanded from prospective employees. Job-seekers can expect to face open-ended riddles, seemingly impossible mathematical challenges and mind-boggling estimation puzzles.
Answer this question: #11. How much would you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?
The first step here is to estimate the population of Seattle. The U.S. Census recently put it at 594,000 (city limits) or 3.26 million (metro area). In a job interview, no one would fault you for saying Seattle has about a million people.
How many windows are there per Seattle resident? In Manhattan, young people count themselves lucky to have one window. Seattle is different; apartments are larger, and more people live in houses with panoramic windows overlooking evergreen forests. Many houses and townhouses are two story. A decent guess, favoring the convenient round number, is ten residential windows per Seattleite.
There are also windows at places of work, Starbucks, department stores, airports, concert halls, and so forth. This probably doesn't add all that much to the per capita total. The average cubicle has no windows. A big-box store has little surface area (and few windows) relative to its volume. The windows in public spaces like restaurants and airports are shared among the huge mass of people using them.
Don't forget windows in cars. (You might ask the interviewer whether to count them.) A car is going to have four windows at bare minimum, often twice that. But big 4x4s are driven by big families and don't add many windows per capita.
A reasonable guess is that windows outside the home account for another ten per person. This comes to twenty windows per Seattle resident. Assuming a population of a million, there are about twenty million windows to be cleaned.
How much should you charge to wash a window? With the windows in your home, it takes a few spritzes of Windex, a few paper towels, and a few seconds. Some of the windows in Seattle are huge, like those in the restaurant atop the Space Needle, and they're high up, requiring special crews, special equipment, high workers' comp rates, and considerable guts.
Someone knowing what he's doing could probably clean one side of a typical window a minute, given that most are small. That means cleaning "a window" (both sides) in two minutes. That comes to thirty windows an hour.
Say the average window washer makes $10 an hour. Throw in another $5 an hour for supplies and insurance. That's $15 for an hour's work, which cleans thirty windows. Cost per window: 50 cents. Twenty million windows times 50 cents is $10 million. This question is used at Amazon and Google. Just so you don't miss the joke, such as it is, Windows is another company's registered trademark.
The first step here is to estimate the population of Seattle. The U.S. Census recently put it at 594,000 (city limits) or 3.26 million (metro area). In a job interview, no one would fault you for saying Seattle has about a million people.
How many windows are there per Seattle resident? In Manhattan, young people count themselves lucky to have one window. Seattle is different; apartments are larger, and more people live in houses with panoramic windows overlooking evergreen forests. Many houses and townhouses are two story. A decent guess, favoring the convenient round number, is ten residential windows per Seattleite.
There are also windows at places of work, Starbucks, department stores, airports, concert halls, and so forth. This probably doesn't add all that much to the per capita total. The average cubicle has no windows. A big-box store has little surface area (and few windows) relative to its volume. The windows in public spaces like restaurants and airports are shared among the huge mass of people using them.
Don't forget windows in cars. (You might ask the interviewer whether to count them.) A car is going to have four windows at bare minimum, often twice that. But big 4x4s are driven by big families and don't add many windows per capita.
A reasonable guess is that windows outside the home account for another ten per person. This comes to twenty windows per Seattle resident. Assuming a population of a million, there are about twenty million windows to be cleaned.
How much should you charge to wash a window? With the windows in your home, it takes a few spritzes of Windex, a few paper towels, and a few seconds. Some of the windows in Seattle are huge, like those in the restaurant atop the Space Needle, and they're high up, requiring special crews, special equipment, high workers' comp rates, and considerable guts.
Someone knowing what he's doing could probably clean one side of a typical window a minute, given that most are small. That means cleaning "a window" (both sides) in two minutes. That comes to thirty windows an hour.
Say the average window washer makes $10 an hour. Throw in another $5 an hour for supplies and insurance. That's $15 for an hour's work, which cleans thirty windows. Cost per window: 50 cents. Twenty million windows times 50 cents is $10 million. This question is used at Amazon and Google. Just so you don't miss the joke, such as it is, Windows is another company's registered trademark.
Think your good enough? Other Google questions..
- 1. You are shrunk to the height of a 2p coin and thrown into a blender. Your mass is reduced so that your density is the same as usual. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?
- 2. There's a latency problem in South Africa. Diagnose it.
- 3. Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco.
- 4. Using only a four-minute hourglass and seven-minute hourglass, measure exactly nine minutes.
- 5. Imagine a country where all the parents want to have a boy. Every family keeps having children until they have a boy; then they stop. What is the proportion of boys to girls in this country?
- 6. Use a programming language to describe a chicken.
- 7. What is the most beautiful equation you have ever seen?
- 8. You want to make sure that Bob has your phone number. You can't ask him directly. Instead you have to write a message to him on a card and hand it to Eve, who will act as a go-between. Eve will give the card to Bob and he will hand his message to Eve, who will hand it to you. You don't want Eve to learn your phone number. What do you ask Bob?
- 9. A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?
- 10. If you had a stack of pennies as tall as the Empire State Building, could you fit them all in one room?
- 12. How much toilet paper would it take to cover the entire state?
- 13. How do you find the closest pair of stars in the sky?
- 14. Can you swim faster through water or syrup?
- 15. It is difficult to remember what you read, especially after many years. How would you address this?
- 16. You're in a car with a helium balloon tied to the floor. The windows are closed. When you step on the gas pedal, what happens to the balloon? Does it move forward, backwards, or stay put?
- 17. You have a choice of two wagers: One, you're given a basketball and have one chance to sink it for £1,000. Two, you have to make two out of three shots, for the same £1,000. Which do you prefer?
- 18. You have N companies and want to merge them into one big company. How many different ways are there to do it?
- 19. You've got an analogue watch with a second hand. How many times a day do all three of the watch's hands overlap?
- 20. You work in a 100-storey building and are given two identical eggs. You have to determine the highest floor from which an egg can be dropped without breaking. You are allowed to break both eggs in the process. How many drops would it take you to do it?
- 21. Add any standard arithmetic signs to this equation to make it true: 3 1 3 6 = 8
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