How to Pass an Interview, According to Ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

Nov. 7 -- Former Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer gives "Bloomberg Studio 1.0" host Emily Chang one of his brain teaser interview questions.

[karpediem]

Steve ballmer didn’t even know if his answer was high or low

[nyesExpress]

I'm quite impressed that Emily went for the binary search to find the number quickly. If she had a math/cs background, she would've cracked it.

[mportusable]

That Microsoft survived this guy is a testament at how incredibly strong the company is.

[salahomar]

She was very excited to play, she didn’t even realize what she said yeah to 😄

[honewhetstone]

Ballmer looked more conscious asking those questions than Emily answering them. Great interview.

[puryteevee]

no one gonna talk about how Emily Chang jusst performed a binary search???

[zanekaminski]

Interviewer didn't get it... the question is whether you would play the game, not what numbers you'd pick

[dannyboyz]

How to pass an interview: Understand the binary solution relevant to the trick question. Got it.

[Pasan]

In the current interview process in 2020, this would be considered to be a Easy level problem. It was certainly easier to get hired into big tech even a decade ago than it is now.

[AssolutoRacing]

0:59 At this point Ballmer surely thought that she failed the interview.

[BoundMusic]

How to pass any interview: be the one that offers value to the company, act and demand according to a person that actually brings value to the company. Understand that the company is worthless without people like you and without customers.

[AaronTsuii]

This video was a blast. I'm surprised he can actually say something remotely intelligent amongst all the screaming he's done on stage.

[Xalgucennia]

The guy who became a billionaire by being somebody's room mate

[itierney]

"How to Pass an Interview" by a guy who's had about 1 job, which he got sacked from.

[heman]

Literally this guy got the job because of his friend.

[iTubeU]

interviewer : answer this question and u r hired at microsoft
candidate : NO!
interviewer : hired !

[SoftwareEngenius]

If anyone knows anything about computer science this is rather straightforward. You use binary search, so log2(x), but you have that x = 100 so you can just calculate the worst case scenario that way ... log2(100) = 6.64 therefore implying you lose.

[chacmool]

Anyone with a tech, math background will intuitively and immediately reach for Probability in their mind. Any engineer fresh out of school should have said I am not playing.

[solodolotrevino]

“Do you want to play a game?”
“No sir I’m not here to play games I’m looking to feed my family”

Commenters: appreciate the serious analysis but this comment was made for *amusement* purposes only. No one would seriously verbalize this at a job interview. That’s why it’s a *joke*

[a_voice_in_the_wilderness]

We learned that Steve's number likely wasn't fixed at the start of the game. He simply said "hi" and "lo" in such a way as to force her make lots of guesses.