The Question That Big Companies Like Apple And Facebook Ask At Interviews: 'Loaded Revolver'

 It's a known fact that job interviews are never easy. You're in competition with I don't know how many people. But imagine having an iterview not just for an average company but for world famous ones like Apple, Facebook or Amazon. Do you think they ask questions that any other company does or do you think they have their own way of choosing the right employee? Well, the answer is of course they have their own way. Let's see one of the questions they ask during these interviews.

Imagine you're being interviewed for one of the best companies in the world.

In order to be employed in such a company, you need to have knowledge and skills beyond the technical and analytical parts of the business.

Companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, etc. give hard time to the candidates with bizarre questions during recruitment.

The company's aim is to discover the struggle the canditate goes through to understand the question, how they listen to the questions that they've asked and observe how wide and unusual the canditates can think.

One of the questions they ask is the gun question.

The question is:

For some reason you're about to be killed by a murderer

The murderer puts two bullets in the revolver in a row.

He puts the gun on your head and fires but luckily you don't die.

Then he says ''I'll take another shot and if you don't die, you're free to go.''

Then he turns and asks you a question.

"Do you want me to pull the trigger again, or should I spin the chamber a second time before pulling the trigger?"

Yes, you're in his hands and asks you this question. Should he spin it or pull the trigger?

Yes, he should spin and pull the trigger.

No, he should pull the trigger without spinning.

It doesn't really matter.

What was your answer?

Did you say ''I'll take my chances, pull the trigger'' or ''give it another spin then pull the trigger.''

As you can imagine, chances of survival is based entirely on the concept of mathematical probability.

Let's look at the first probability. The one where you wanted him to spin first then pull the trigger.

Here are the probabililites:

A revolver takes 6 bullets and when you want him to spin and pull the trigger, then it's as if he never fired the gun the first time. So, you are more likely to die because he put two bullets in a row and that means 2/6 or 33%.

The second probability however is like this:

Because maximum 6 bullets can be put in a revolver, when one shot is fired and it's empty, the other bullet has a 1/4 chance of killing you, so your chances of dying are 25%.

In short, if you continued and took your chances and you wanted him to pull the trigger without spinning it again, you have made the right choice.

Because you've reduced your chances of dying by 8% ...