How to Solve Google’s Crazy Open-Ended Interview Questions

The page says Google used open-ended interview questions to see how applicants reason through problems, not to get a single correct answer. It presents approximation as a way to break a problem into assumptions, boundary conditions, and manageable chunks, then check the result against reality.

Reading notes

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• Google’s interview questions are used to observe the applicant’s process and organization of thought.
• The page treats approximation as a legitimate method of critical thinking about numbers.
• Fermi problems rely on educated guesses, assumptions, and partitioning the problem into smaller parts.
• The piano tuner example uses yearly tuning, tuning time, work hours, and the number of pianos in Chicago to reach an estimate of 58 tuners.
• The Empire State Building example estimates height, footprint, volume, and material mix to reach about 750,000 tons.
• A shorter “cars” method gives a second estimate of about 400,000 tons.
• The two estimates are used as a sanity check against the official estimate of 365,000 tons.
• The page also links this kind of thinking to the “name as many uses” test.
• That test is described as a way to assess creativity and flexible thinking.
• The page says these skills can be taught and practiced from a young age.