A counter argument would be that this ad probably wasn't for the kind of employee Einstein would make. Edison was probably hiring well read, smart folks for reg

A counter argument would be that this ad probably wasn't for the kind of employee Einstein would make. Edison was probably hiring well read, smart folks for regular jobs, not geniuses breaking new ground in narrow scientific domains. I doubt such geniuses were digging through job ads to apply to Edison's company in the first place. If they were in need of jobs, they would probably be recruited heavily directly from university departments. So yeah. This ad probably wasn't meant for Einstein. Which gives us no reason to think that "it's a bad ad because even Einstein couldn't solve it".