A CEO’s brain teaser shared on Reddit has sent people’s heads spinning, with some voicing their outrage over the question.
Another day, another ‘brain-teaser’ that nobody asked for but we took part in it only to find ourselves frustrated by the law of mathematics and the countless squabbles in the comments that pursue.
Our host for such event is the CEO and president of Genesis Capital Group, an investment management firm, Dino Dionne – and while he may have enraged thousands online, there’s no refuting his success.
CEO and president of Genesis Capital Group Dino Dionne (LinkedIn/Dino Dionne)
So, maybe there is a method to his madness when he explained he provides interviewees with a ‘three-second’ quiz.
Taking to LinkedIn, he wrote: “I give this test to everyone I interview. If you want the #Job, you have three seconds to provide the correct answer.
“You’d be surprised to hear all the ridiculous excuses I’ve heard from people who either gave me the wrong answer, or couldn’t provide one!
“My six-year old solved in 30 seconds.”
The CEO claimed his six-year-old managed to complete the task (LinkedIn/Dino Dionne)
Accompanying his post is a picture of an equation titled ‘Only for Genius’, while the equation read: “3×3-3÷3+3.”
As is usually the case with many of these math problems, when it was shared to the Sub-Reddit ‘LinkedInLunatics’, users each got different answers.
I’ll be honest, I got five when I tried to ‘solve’ it – but there are no brackets so I did it in order, although other people suggested it was 11, while my boss answered one.
But the majority of people weren’t actually answering the question, instead they fumed at the CEO questioning their intelligence.
One wrote: “The correct answer is to end the interview and find a boss that isn’t a tool.”
Are you smarter than a CEO’s six-year-old? (Getty stock)
Another added: “This moron is the exact reason why Brackets/Parentheses were introduced in Maths.”
While a third raged: “Adds the ‘my 6 year old can solve it in 30 seconds’ as a kicker… but gives said child 10-times longer to solve the equation.“
Unfortunately, there was no definitive answer, but there’s a good chance it’s 11 because one guy showed his working out.
Taking to Reddit he posted: “He and other people keep saying the answer is 1, but I get 11 when following PEMDAS [Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, and Addition and Subtraction] (multiplication and division first as a single step, so it’s 3×3=9 and 3÷3=1, then addition and subtraction next as a single step, so it’s 9-1+3 = 11), and 5 when I go straight across (3×3=9, 9-3=6, 6÷3=2, and 2+3=5).”
What did you get?