Can you answer Elon Musk’s favorite interview question?

Elon Musk ‘s go-to interview query — a difficult math riddle with a number of solutions — has stumped TikTok after being shared by a math influencer. Tanya Zakowich, who is named @pinkpencilmath on the platform, defined in her now-viral video that the billionaire would ask candidates to unravel this brainteaser throughout interviews at SpaceX earlier than posing the query to viewers. 

‘You’re standing on the floor of the Earth. You stroll one mile south, one mile west, and one mile north. You find yourself precisely the place you began. The place are you?’ she requested.

Many individuals did not know what to make of the riddle and assumed it was a trick query once they shared their guesses. ‘Precisely the place you began on the floor of the Earth,’ one consumer stated. 

Whereas another person joked, ‘SpaceX at Tesla that is the place you’re.’ 

‘Bermuda Triangle! Stuff disappears there, so I determine all sense of route was misplaced,’ one other deduced.

One TikTok consumer shared a extra philosophical reply, writing, ‘You ended up in [a] higher place than you had been earlier than, since you took motion. You did not keep the place you had been.’ 

Zakowich by no means shared the reply to the riddle, however it’s extensively recognized after being featured in Ashlee Vance’s 2015 approved biography ‘Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Implausible Future.’ The SpaceX founder and CEO personally interviewed practically the entire house producer’s first one thousand employees within the early years, together with janitors, in accordance with the e book by way of CNBC.

Musk, now 50, continued to interview engineers as the corporate grew and used his favourite riddle to see how potential workers’ minds labored. There are a number of solutions to the riddle, however the first and commonest appropriate response is the North Pole. The reasoning was defined by Standard Mechanics when the brainteaser was featured because the publication’s ‘Riddle of the Week’ in 2017.

‘In case you are standing instantly on the north pole and also you stroll one mile south, then one mile west, then one mile north, you’ll arrive again on the North Pole,’ in accordance with the journal. Nevertheless, candidates who named the North Pole aren’t given a lot time to rejoice determining the riddle as a result of Musk will reportedly comply with up and ask, ‘The place else might it’s?’

The second reply is the South Pole, however fewer engineers give this reply, in accordance with Vance’s biography. ‘Think about a circle with a one-mile circumference that has the South Pole at its heart. For those who had been to start out one mile north of this circle, you’d journey one mile south, one mile west all the best way across the circle, after which one mile north again to your start line,’ Standard Mechanics defined. 

Most individuals who gave the proper reply on TikTok stated the North Pole, however there have been some who famous that the South Pole can also be appropriate.

‘There are just a few options,’ one individual famous. ‘One is the North Pole but in addition anyplace 1 mile north of a spot near the South Pole.’

Nevertheless, the TikTok customers who got here up with extra inventive options will probably be completely satisfied to know that Musk would not disqualify them for getting the reply unsuitable. Vance defined in his biography that the Tesla CEO cares extra concerning the individual’s strategy to problem-solving than the reply itself.