[agrippanux]

When interviewing execs who would be building new departments a few years ago, I would pose the question of "In the wake of Arab spring in Libya, the people decide that you are their next leader. What happens in your first 100 days?".

The answers ran the gamut from lazy to fantastic to terrifying. A lot of answers where generic "coalition building" variety. The better answers identified key areas to focus on like infrastructure, basic services, etc. The best answers had clear goals and possible government structures supporting accountability.

Bad answers had the exec consolidating power and crushing opposition. The worst answers had the exec killing people to achieve their goals. Not joking, I had several answers that where "I would find my rivals and kill them".

Overall I thought it was a good question as those who performed well on it and where hired built great sustainable orgs and those who did poorly where usually shown the door within a year. Those who did well where able to take a crazy situation, break it down into smaller problems, and then solve for them while those who did poorly where usually relying either escaping the problem via committees or flat out crushing opposition.

[corndoge]

>Bad answers had...

Asking a politically charged question on statecraft and judging the answer based on your own personal ideas about how to run a state strikes me as a bizarre way to conduct an interview, even for an exec.

>The worst answers had the exec killing people

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes?

[pembrook]

This is why we need less humans and more AI/ML in the candidate selection process.

The guy posing Arab Spring interview questions sounds just like those 65 year old talent scouts in MoneyBall skipping over a talented 3rd baseman because the kid “doesn’t have good legs.” Humans are immensely stupid and irrational when it comes to judging other humans.

[rimliu]

I wonder what makes you think AI/ML is better.

[Loughla]

My same question. If we make terribly biased decisions, why would something with those biases baked in make any better decisions?

Maybe because they're faster?

[MichaelDickens]

You train the AI based on outcomes, not based on humans' judgments of what they expect outcomes to be.

[johnhenry]

But if your training data is based on previous decisions made using human bias, you're in trouble.

[whatshisface]

ML can be used as an unbiased random number generator, unlike humans.

[kbenson]

If it's a random number generator, it's not ML. If it's unbiased, it's also not ML. ML is always biased based on the data you train it with, just as any student is biased based on the information they are educated with.

[whatshisface]

If you trained it on data that wasn't useful at all it would be an unbiased random number generator.

[crimsonalucard]

The overall goal of AI/ML is not to replace the candidate selection process but to replace the candidate.

[jazzyjackson]

what data would you train your machine with?

[rosege]

Its actually not such a stupid answer. Its completely inhumane etc but it worked well for Saddam Hussein (among others) who conducted a purge on taking office in 1979 and then never had his leadership questioned again.

[anarazel]

Because that's what you want in your organisation. The person best at being an unchallanged dictator.

[rosege]

Execpt the question isn't about an organization or company its about running a country and there are a lot of countries where democracy just does not seem to be suited/desired, unfortunately.

[quickthrower2]

That’s what makes the question hard. It’s what would you do in this politically dire situation to lead a country while at the same time impressing an interviewer so you can get a job.

[komali2]

Would you want to work for Saddam Hussein?

[rosege]

Of course not - but plenty did.

[komali2]

And now he's very, very, dead, earlier than he would have been naturally. On top of that, history will not remember him fondly.

Hardly a success story, in my opinion.

[rosege]

well he was the leader for 24 years and outlasted pretty much all democratic leaders from in his time. I'm not saying I recommend doing what he did and you are right history will definitely not remember him fondly along with many other cruel leaders. But his tactic was effective and I'd say you could argue that he would have been the leader much longer if he hadn't pissed the west off in 91 and if 9/11 hadn't happened.

[mxcrossb]

It would t surprise me if a lot of these stupid questions were actually useful because they indirectly measure something else. On that note, assigning lengthy interview projects is probably a good proxy for “won’t negotuate to hard on his salary”.

But as an employee, I’d sure prefer being treated like a human being...

[la_barba]

The OP mentioned that this interview questioned worked for them. So, at face value, seems to work?

The thing is all these weird interview strategies work at some level. Its very self-reinforcing. If a company kept hiring duds, they would change their interviewing style.. or simply go out of business after hiring enough dummies.

[majormajor]

> Asking a politically charged question on statecraft and judging the answer based on your own personal ideas about how to run a state strikes me as a bizarre way to conduct an interview, even for an exec.

Seems like exactly what you want so you don't get people who will be playing the opposite sort of political games than you want (whichever sort you may prefer).

[nostrademons]

He's hiring an exec who will presumably have to operate within his company. If the exec's thought process differs too much from his personal ideas, both the exec and the company are gonna have a bad time.

[wernsey]

A problem is that when you topple a dictator you need to first secure the levers of power lest you be toppled yourself.

Suppose your new country has a $1bil in its budget, then spending that billion on schools and hospitals and infrastructure for the people means that there is suddenly $1bil that is not being siphoned of by the corrupt old guard that might still hold levers of power.

If you give them nothing, then they will rebel against your rule. If you try to compromise and give them $500m, they will only be loyal until someone comes along and offer them $750m and then loyal only until someone else can give them $900m. So the game is stacked in such a way that the only way to stay in power is to siphon of the $1bil on corrupt cronies and spend nothing on the people.

That is why it makes sense to purge those old enemies, but that may be difficult in itself.

[jerf]

I have to admit I'd give a pretty Machievellian answer as well, on the assumption the question includes having to keep the position. In harsher political climes, you can't afford to put "building a strong society" on the top of your priority list. One of the ways strong societies become strong societies and stay strong societies is to make it possible to play a lot of politics as much less of a bloodsport, so things like "building a strong society" may reach as high as priority 4 or 5 for our politicians. It isn't perfect, but it's a lot better.

Of course, the fact that I wouldn't do any of this in real life is also why I'm never going to face this hypothetical.

I'm going to guess "Abdicate power as thoroughly and comprehensively as possible to whoever seems most likely to be next in line, so that nobody is ever tempted to come after me or mine, because I am not suited for such a role and I deeply know it" would probably not be considered a viable answer by the questioner....

[silversconfused]

Why not? It worked for George Washington.

[jerf]

"In the wake of Arab spring in Libya, the people decide that [George Washington is] their next leader." is not what happened. Libya is not the 18th century British colonies.

[charlesdm]

Perhaps I'm in the minority here, but I don't like this question because you know there is a politically correct answer and then an actual course of action people would take.

The proper answer is: introduce democratic government, clean up the country, introduce proper amenities (healthcare, etc) and spread the wealth for the benefit of the people.

Fact of the matter is: absolute power corrupts, and plenty of people would loot the oil money reserves for their own benefit if they had the chance. Just have a look at what happens in Russia.

[BurningFrog]

Your "proper answer" is what the US tried to do in Iraq, which is now considered the perhaps biggest mistake in US history.

[max76]

Iraq is in the running for the biggest mistake in US history? I have a one word rebuttal to that sentence. Slavery.

[semi-extrinsic]

I'm sure we can find a lot of things more horrible than Iraq. Like slavery as you say, or bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the war in Vietnam...

But what I think OP meant, is that the bad things which happened in Iraq were not the intended outcome of what the US did. Those other, more horrible things were intended consequences, not mistakes.

[BurningFrog]

I'll agree that slavery was worse than the invasion of Iraq, but I wouldn't call it a "mistake".

Not quite sure why. Some tries:

1. A mistake implies a single decision.

2. Slavery worked as intended, right? It was more evil than mistaken.

Either way, you sure derailed my derailing of the topic, so I'll stop here :)

[vcanales]

Calling slavery a mistake is very... mild. It should have its own category

[ummonk]

I think mistake implies good intentions.

[max76]

Also, it's very strange that you can imply The United States started a war with good intentions with a straight face.

[max76]

I always think of mistake as simply "to be wrong". Am I mistaken in my assumption?

[nostrademons]

Kind of, yes. If you're wrong intentionally, we have all sorts of other words for that, including trolling, propaganda, misdirection, incitement, lying, fraud, perjury, all of which have their own connotations for your intent. We wouldn't really call any of those situations a "mistake".

[Cyph0n]

Not only did we try, but we did it the wrong way imo. When you try to pull something this complex off and completely disregard the local culture, politics, and sectarian makeup, you introduce chaos. Did anyone learn from Sykes-Picot?

[vijaybritto]

Sorry but this is a very poor answer. Lack of understanding of the local culture is very evident. Every country in the world cannot have a system like the United states. Cleaning up the system without understanding it would be terrible. Just like Iraq!

[throwaway552231]

Has it ever worked in that order? It seems like most current democratic countries first cleaned up the country and then introduced a democratic government. I’m thinking of recent democratic countries in Asia, like South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore.

Or if they did start with a democratic government, to limit the voting to certain groups, like the US, Canada, and Australia did before universal suffrage.

Are there any successful countries that haven’t “cleaned up” first but introduced universal democracy?

[lkbm]

Rulers derive power from other people. Your first job is to keep the people keeping you in power happy. Fail that, and you'll be replaced by someone else.

Democracy means shifting it from a small number of people keeping you in power to all of the people. It's not easy.

CGPGray did a great video on this model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs (Based on The Dictators Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith.

[ohaideredevs]

The reason Russia loved Putin is because he cleaned up low level violence and corruption. It's hard to have democracy when people are getting shot in the streets. This is something you completely fail to understand. Furthermore, it's hard to have a "democratic government" when everyone is poor. This is so glaringly obvious that it's painful reading your post.

[kevas]

What would your thoughts be if the interviewee, after that question being posed, asked for a 10 minute break (or thought session) to gather his thoughts about how he would act within 100 days?

- Would you discount the person for not being able to answer your question right there?

- Would you think that this is a person who doesn't like to make rash decision (or the opposite)?

- Would you be thinking that this person is wasting your time?

- Would you allow it or have 'em answer right then and there?

[DoofusOfDeath]

It's a neat idea for the interview, but it could have caused problems, at least in the U.S., regarding labor law:

Suppose the interviewee had answered, "I would work towards a proper implementation of Sharia law." or "I would start by building Christian churches and state-sponsored public preaching." or "I would start by replacing all mosques with science-and-technology museums."

At that point any candidate who wasn't hired could have a good starting point for a lawsuit based on hiring discrimination by protected class.

[zymhan]

Ehh, only if there was a demonstrable pattern. You can't just sue an employer for not getting a job because you mentioned your religion as the basis for something.

I mean in the US you can sue for whatever you want, but the likelihood of it happening or being an issue is quite small in this scenario.

[Afton]

Reminder that you want to avoid the suing not just for the risk of actual loss, but for the cost of defense.

[zymhan]

This is true. But in this specific case, it is unlikely a single person, especially one in the position of interviewing for a lower level job, would have enough money to rival the company in a lawsuit or cause them severe financial pain. Usually it's the opposite situation that is financially ruinous.

[Afton]

The point isn't that the lawsuit is going to ruin the company. It's that the lawsuit is going to cost the company money in almost every case where it happens, no matter how frivolous the lawsuit. The smart choice for the company is to limit risk factors for having to face a lawsuit.

[throwaway552231]

Do you mean it’s a bad answer because that behavior doesn’t fit the type of person you’re looking for?

I don’t know anything about Libya’s political and social situation. For example, how many people decided I was the leader? Is the military on my side? Is there an opposition with a tendency for violence? Have they attacked before?

There are too many unknowns for me to decide what is and isn’t a good answer. But definitely, the exec’s response would be good to identify culture fit.

[ummonk]

I mean the real answer should be "I'm not sure I want to join your company if it is in as bad a state as Libya in the wake of the Arab Spring".

[ohaideredevs]

>Bad answers had the exec consolidating power and crushing opposition. The worst answers had the exec killing people to achieve their goals. Not joking, I had several answers that where "I would find my rivals and kill them".

You cannot placate a place like Libya without violence. Thinking otherwise is first-world delusion. It's worse - it's the same line of thinking that plunged the country into chaos under the guise of liberating it from a dictator. That's not a defense of Gadafi - it's a reality of things going from bad to worse.

[thrwaway190516]

Unlike others relying, I think your interview question is good. Let's break down why.

In your phrasing you asked "what happens". Did any candidates you thought were good give the actual answer: a disaster for Libya, and the person is removed from power?

That is the actual answer.

Of course not. All of your "passing" answers to "what happens" includes building up infrastructure, basic services, etc.

In other words, what you really just asked didn't match your words. You really asked: "Convince me that you are qualified to lead Libya".

Unsurprisingly, the people who realized that this is what the question was, and gave you an objectively false answer, get a passing grade. Those who did not this, or who answered correctly as asked, fail.

Those who were understood what you really wanted, and who also successfully convinced you that they're qualified to lead Libya, "built great sustainable orgs" whereas "whose who did poorly where usually shown the door within a year".

You could have done just as well asking "The company has decided we are building a social network to compete with Facebook. We put you in charge. What happens?"

What actually happens of course is nothing good. It doesn't mean it's not a bad interview question, but a good answer is not the factually correct answer.

Without knowing what kind of company you're working at, here's the way I'd answer the "the company has decided to pivot to building Facebook. You're in charge. What happens?" first based on what I'd actually tell you, then truthfully.

Answer you want to hear:

"Boy, agrippanux, this is a tough one. I hope I'd get some equity because as you know, social networks have a network effect where success means they blow big, and that's what we're going to do. agrippanux, I've long been interested in social networks so even though your company is not really in this space, I think I could really identify some of the areas people feel strongly about, including advertising, privacy, filter bubbles, and also social media addiction. We will end up having to tackle the network effect, so we will start by identifying niches where our company already has a really strong presence. agrippanux, we don't really do much direct technical support to customer's issues, so I would start by having our web page redirect seamlessly to our in-house Facebook competition that I'm building with the team you give me, as a kind of closed beta, so that we can get a steady stream of users asking us questions and getting used to the network. We can then stealthily work on the underlying technology, while testing it with a continuous stream of real user input. As a next step, we would license this answer solution to other companies. Companies will appreciate being able to have the narrative be on their pages, and by building up factual answers and technical support, we would end up building up an expectation of value and reliability - the opposite of "fake news" plaguing social media. Many early adopters are avid supports as well, and the next step will be allowing some members to answer other people's questions as well. The third stage will be introducing some company events such as pizza parties and this type of thing, in the biggest cities. This kind of approach will let companies capture their own audiences, promote those who support their products as online grassroots supporters, and be a clear alternative to the marketing mess on Facebook. Over time we are a viable social network built on the technical foundation that you have, agrippanux, in this very building at this very moment, and based on the good will and brand that your company has spent years building - and leverage that to be a successful full social network. That's why you've put me in charge of replicating a social network using our technologies and employees, and I am confident we can do it." (Then, after a beat, since your jaw just hit the floor at how awesome my answer was.) "Hey so do I get some equity if I help you take down Facebook or what?"

That's a great answer. It's not truthful though. Bam. I just got hired for whatever role you're actually interviewing me for.

Truthful answer:

"Whoever made this change in direction is an idiot. While it is nice for me to get the resources to roll out a social network 'to compete with Facebook', it's probably doomed to failure, and my top priority would be getting out of it alive. I'd probably spend a lot of marketing money getting a few million transient users who aren't actually engaged, and then jump ship to an actual social media company that knows what they're doing and has a mature product with a real value proposition. This company has no chance of creating a viable social network."

See? One of them is the truthful answer that ACTUALLY describes what really happens. Just as you asked. It's similar to exec consolidating power and crushing opposition. And one of them is the fake answer that answers the real question: "Convince me you're qualified to replicate Facebook under our company, using a few hundred thousand dollars." It's similar to the question "Convince me you're qualified to lead Libya."

An insane question. But perhaps a good question.

[busterarm]

> What actually happens of course is nothing good. It doesn't mean it's not a bad interview question, but a good answer is not the factually correct answer.

OP is hiring executives, not yes-men. You want people who give you the factually correct answer, because you want people who will behave ethically. Execs have to worry about regulation and corporate risk and you do not want liars in those positions.

That's why this is a terrible question.

[thrwaway190516]

most companies operate more along the model of:

"Execs have to worry about regulation, corporate risk, and managing perceptions both internally and externally. You do not want someone spouting the literal truth without a filter in those positions."

That's why it's a great question. It requires a filter.

[jarsin]

I would win over all my subordinates by giving them a massive raise in the form of tax cuts :)

[sonnyblarney]

I get what you are getting at, but this is a terrible question to ask.

Libya is also a very complicated place, and so it's difficult to answer without quite a lot of knowledge.

The question reeks of that ridiculous 'American can-do neo-colonialism can solve anything' kind of problem, and in that context is basically offensive.

Any answer, given by any candidate could only totally gloss over the most important in a ridiculous and igornat way.

"Bad answers had the exec consolidating power and crushing opposition." ?

This is exactly how pretty much all leaders in the the Middle East establish power. Do you think they are stupid? Or maybe that there is some kind of underlying systematic issue here?

Secondarily, is the ugly reality of the answers: you can't 'build infrastructure' while opponents are thwarting you at every turn. 'Killing your opponents' in such a situation may actually be a rational thing to do. Of course it sounds very outrageous to be talking about this in an interview, moreover, it's doubly shocking coming out of people without that kind of relevant (i.e. military) experience.

This question is just loaded with problems, I suggest you adapt it to some other more neutral context.