How Would You Move Mount Fuji?: Microsoft's Cult of the Puzzle : how the World's Smartest Companies Select the Most Creative Thinkers

Microsoft's interview process is a notoriously grueling sequence of brain-busting questions that separate the most creative thinkers from the merely brilliant. So effective is their technique that other leading corporations--from the high-tech industry to consulting and financial services--are modeling their own hiring practices on Bill Gates' unique approach. HOW WOULD YOU MOVE MOUNT FUJI? reveals for the first time more than 35 of Microsoft's puzzles and riddles, such as:
- Why does a mirror reverse right and left but not up and down?
- If you could eliminate one U.S. state, which would it be?
- How would you make an M&M?
- How many piano tuners are there in the world?
And, for the first time, this book supplies answers and approaches using creative analytical thinking that works. Anyone in business, and everyone who wants to be, will find here a valuable new approach to hiring, identifying talent in an organization, and getting the job of a lifetime.
- 140,000 people apply to Microsoft every year and Microsoft's bizarre interviews are widley discussed. Poundstone will tell us for the first time in print how to answer their questions.
- Poundstone's Big Secrets (6/95) series revealed pop-culture mysteries such as the formula for Coca-Cola and the secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken. The first installment alone has sold more than 600,000 copies in trade paper back and inspired two prime-time TV specials on ABC.
- Poundstone and his previous books have been embraced by the national media, featured everywhere from Letterman to Larry King.