They wrote two apologies. Their first one was pretty terrible and did not show that they had actually processed why what they did was so offensive.
Their second apology was a bit better. But they claimed that their comment was "aimed to call attention to the male-dominated tech world through humor and intended to be inclusive."
Do they honestly expect us to believe that their comment was designed to be inclusive, so that's why they offered women serving male coders as a perk? (And this isn't just me reading into it. That's very literally what they said.)
I would have much more respect if they just came out and said that, in an attempt humor, they had made immature and sexist remarks and that they understand that their comment was harmful not only to women, but to non-straight men, and to hacker culture as a whole.
They're embarrassed, and rightfully so, but trying to BS around what they were doing doesn't help. Admit your faults directly and people will be much more forgiving.
If I were to theorize that this were a real interview question (which, again, it's not), then I think the first step is to ask a bunch of questions. Almost any solution to this problem will be making a bunch of assumptions, and you probably need to know what those are.
* Okay, your density is the same as it was before being shrunk. What else has changed about your body? Muscular strength? Brain capacity?
* Can you assume that this is an ideal world? For example, if the blades were perfectly balanced and there was no wind / air movement, you could stand in the middle.
* What are the dimensions?
* Is there anything in the blender?
... etc ...
The best solution would depend on which assumptions you make. Any of these could be reasonable answers with different assumptions:
* Jump (an ant or spider could... I think)
* Climb out / above the blades (it's possible the walls have grooves where you can fit your tiny little hands)
* Stand on top of the blades, at the immediate center
And as an ex-hiring committee member myself, I agree with everything Collin there said too. And it pains me that people write blogs / books promoting this brain teaser stuff. Such a disservice to candidates...
If you're finishing your junior year, then yes, that's true. But if you've only done one year of college, then you might have trouble finding a paid internship. Your best bet might be an unpaid internship at a start-up.
As a (female) software engineer at Google, I once staffed a booth at CES. CES doesn't, to my knowledge, have many booth babes, and there certainly weren't any at the Google booth. Despite this, I had a number of people DIRECTLY ask if I was a booth babe. And who knows how many more people just assumed I was and avoided talking to me entirely...
It wasn't a big deal. I mean, I'd seen this my whole life. And that's just the thing. It's every job, every conference, every meetup, every event, and every single conversation. It's constantly having to prove that you're technical.
And even once you've offered up a bunch of credentials, you still aren't perceived as being as technical as a man with the same credentials.
It's exhausting. And I'm so, so tired of it.
Changing how people think is hard; changing company policy is much easier. Ending "booth babes" is one of many steps to ending sexism, but every step counts.
@strlen Again, some of the questions are absolutely 100% FAKE.
So if some questions (like the "why are manhole covers round") are definitely fake, and others seem very weird (like the dead beef one), isn't is more likely that that question is fake too?
@andylei Yes, some do happen to be real. The point is that if several are definitely fake, why believe the rest?
For example, take this one: "A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?"
Come on, no one was asked that. If even if they were, the hiring committee would take one look and that and throw out the feedback.
As for some of the other questions, like "How much would you charge to wash all the windows in the Seattle?"
(1) This question seems fishy, just because it's about Seattle. Yes, Google has a Seattle office (where I worked), but it has very few PMs. It's far more likely that this question was asked at Microsoft.
(2) This question is actually very standard for consulting question. It's really a totally fair problem solving question, as the accuracy of your final answer doesn't matter.
The Business Insider article is designed to be link bait - reprinting fake questions and building off the "OMG IT'S GOOGLE" stuff. The legitimate questions on this list are actually totally normal for tech and consulting companies.
As a female coder, I'd rather not be offered as a perk to male coders. So, yeah, this is belittling.