Ask HN: The unlimited resources interview question

I think this is asked to see if the applicant has dreams and ideas that go beyond the status quo. Can they "think big"?

Besides, someone with big goals needs the right motivation. How much more exciting is someone whose dream is to save the world climate because he loves polar bears than someone whose dream is to lie lazily on the beach and drink cocktails?

If I had that, I would resell the unlimited resources (say routers on ebay) and take a 10% cut. it we talk about CPUs and GPUs, I would simpl mine crypto

Given the unlimited budget, but given that companies only have a limited outlay, it would cause infinite harm to the company, while transferring me 10% of the company value in cash.

After that, I would create my company with this money, and hire this interviewer so he keeps silent.

I've never been crazy enough to ask this; but it's simple - Do you actually want to be doing this work, or do you do this work because you need to survive?

> Rule the world.

If you're in front of someone asking you this kind of questions, your chances to be hired are very low.

Some of them used graphology or astrology not very long ago. One day they may ask a DNA sample to check if it's "compatible".

Let them with their silly questions and focus yourself on serious peoples.

If the interviewer is a part of the company, it could indicate they are worried about the future of the company. A rephrased version to emphasis this is:

"What would you do if YOU were in charge?"

Their motivation in this case could be to see if you could save the future of the company.

I would answer reverse global warming and I suppose that would put me in the "idealist" box. :) A lot about interview is just straight up bullshit. Once an interviewer told me a story about a white South African motorcyclist hiking through Africa. He got into an accident outside a small village. The (supposedly black) villages didn't help him at all and instead they just looted his motorcycle and backpack for valuable items. Then after several hours with him laying there another (white) motorcyclist comes around and helps him to the hospital. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was obviously a test. Would I say something racist? Would I respond with "Oh, how awful!"? Would I show any emotion at all?

My old manager used this question in interviews and said he only once got what he considered the 'right' answer , and I know what he was looking for. He'd ask 'suppose you had unlimited resources and unlimited budget to figure out if a number was part of fibonacci sequence.'

Most people would hear fibonacci and get into some recursive programming technique - that was not the right answer. The right answer was since you had unlimited resources, etc, was just to store all the fibonacci numbers in a hash table or what not and perform a lookup to see if it existed. Answer was much simpler than what it appeared on its surface, though I'm not sure why you'd want to do it that way.

Not sure what that question really establishes about a programmer, to me it seems like the hypothetical invites the answer "I'd hire the best firm available to do it for me", but that doesn't seem correct either. Anyways, when those questions come up it seems like they want an algorithm, but in the case I cited, it was a trick. Not sure of any other examples to draw on though - curious if anyone has other examples.