D3: Geek Mastermind
UPDATE: 5.05 PM. The questions got harder–and as if he were the product of secretive experiment in genetic engineering, Mitch Kapor pulled into a convincing lead. The other geeks–even billg–fell uncomfortably silent as Mitch entered into an eerie trance. “What was the–” Walt would try and ask; and Mitch would answer calmly, “Oh that was the first IBM microprocessor, which had an extremely elegant engineering solution to the von Heltzman paradox.” Etc. Etc.
I am not making this up, I promise. Right now Walt Mossberg is running a kind of Mastermind, or Jeopardy, for geeks. The contestants include Bill Gates, Eric Schimdt, Ester Dyson, Mitch Kapor, Rob Glaser, and a newly svelte Stewart Alsop. But here’s the thing: even though the questions are stunningly hard, no one gets any of them wrong. They’re too smart. There’s some question right now about heuristic algorithms. Billg is pretending to think hard, but you can tell he knows the answer really.
Keep Reading
Most Popular
The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it
Exclusive conversations that take us behind the scenes of a cultural phenomenon.
How Rust went from a side project to the world’s most-loved programming language
For decades, coders wrote critical systems in C and C++. Now they turn to Rust.
Design thinking was supposed to fix the world. Where did it go wrong?
An approach that promised to democratize design may have done the opposite.
Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death
Can anti-aging breakthroughs add 10 healthy years to the human life span? The CEO of OpenAI is paying to find out.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.