4 ms·

How much money could you make from £10?

24 points by bensummers 16y ago

tome 16y ago
£10 more than you could make with £0.
- tome 16y ago
  Although I've been downmodded because this comment looks facetious I actually mean it very seriously. I remember reading (probably on HN) about a business school where the students were given $10 and asked to make as much money as they could in one day. One group spent the $10 on e.g. lemonade and set up a lemonade stand and made e.g. $100. Another group realised that the $10 they had been given was a false constraint, and they should just set up a business to make money however they wanted. They could use their own funds, borrow from others, whatever. They realised the $10 was just a diversion. (cf exit and gjm11's top level comments on this story) Unless someone stands to make much less than 10 additional pounds with this £10, they could have made essentially the same amount without being given £10 to start with.
gjm11 16y ago
There was a video -- I think a TED talk, but I could be wrong -- linked from HN some time ago, demonstrating some clever (though perhaps evil) out-of-the-box thinking on this question. Someone was teaching a class of business students, and set them the challenge: you have $10 and 48 hours; make as much money as you can. Afterwards, each team got to stand up in front of everyone else and say what they did. The team that got the most money did so by completely ignoring the $10. They approached some local business and said "How much will you pay us for a 5-minute advertising slot in front of a roomful of future business leaders?". Then they used their presentation slot to plug that business, and collected a nice big pile of money for doing it. EDIT: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912105 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912105 ; I got a couple of unimportant details wrong.
- jhancock 16y ago
  I like this kids competition better. The Stanford competition was "won" by a team that cheated. They didn't just ignore the $10, they violated the time constraint. my comment from the Stanford thread: "From my perspective, they made nothing from their two hours. The money was made by the 3 minutes in class which was not part of their 2 hour earning time." Either the "winning" Stanford team used their two hours for lining up the ad sale or executing it: the two actions did not occur in the same two hour window. If they want to count the "lining up the deal" window, then they made nothing as there was no delivery of the ad in that time frame. If they want to count the execution of the ad, well, they wouldn't have had a paying advertiser.
exit 16y ago
the 10gbp seemed to play little to no role in most of their ventures. so what actually is the role of the "tenner"? is it some kind of misdirection?
- sjf 16y ago
  This is purely speculation, but I suspect the £10 could be a limit to prevent wealthy helicopter parents from giving their kids an advantage. Or as another poster pointed out, it may have a pyschological purpose. FWIW, when I did this in school in Ireland, there was no tenner.

24 points by bensummers 16y ago

tome 16y ago

£10 more than you could make with £0.

tome 16y ago
Although I've been downmodded because this comment looks facetious I actually mean it very seriously. I remember reading (probably on HN) about a business school where the students were given $10 and asked to make as much money as they could in one day. One group spent the $10 on e.g. lemonade and set up a lemonade stand and made e.g. $100. Another group realised that the $10 they had been given was a false constraint, and they should just set up a business to make money however they wanted. They could use their own funds, borrow from others, whatever. They realised the $10 was just a diversion. (cf exit and gjm11's top level comments on this story) Unless someone stands to make much less than 10 additional pounds with this £10, they could have made essentially the same amount without being given £10 to start with.

gjm11 16y ago

There was a video -- I think a TED talk, but I could be wrong -- linked from HN some time ago, demonstrating some clever (though perhaps evil) out-of-the-box thinking on this question. Someone was teaching a class of business students, and set them the challenge: you have $10 and 48 hours; make as much money as you can. Afterwards, each team got to stand up in front of everyone else and say what they did. The team that got the most money did so by completely ignoring the $10. They approached some local business and said "How much will you pay us for a 5-minute advertising slot in front of a roomful of future business leaders?". Then they used their presentation slot to plug that business, and collected a nice big pile of money for doing it. EDIT: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912105 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=912105 ; I got a couple of unimportant details wrong.

jhancock 16y ago
I like this kids competition better. The Stanford competition was "won" by a team that cheated. They didn't just ignore the $10, they violated the time constraint. my comment from the Stanford thread: "From my perspective, they made nothing from their two hours. The money was made by the 3 minutes in class which was not part of their 2 hour earning time." Either the "winning" Stanford team used their two hours for lining up the ad sale or executing it: the two actions did not occur in the same two hour window. If they want to count the "lining up the deal" window, then they made nothing as there was no delivery of the ad in that time frame. If they want to count the execution of the ad, well, they wouldn't have had a paying advertiser.

exit 16y ago

the 10gbp seemed to play little to no role in most of their ventures. so what actually is the role of the "tenner"? is it some kind of misdirection?

sjf 16y ago
This is purely speculation, but I suspect the £10 could be a limit to prevent wealthy helicopter parents from giving their kids an advantage. Or as another poster pointed out, it may have a pyschological purpose. FWIW, when I did this in school in Ireland, there was no tenner.