

How much money could you make from £10? - bensummers
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8681118.stm

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gjm11
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> ; I got a couple of
unimportant details wrong.

~~~
jhancock
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
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
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.

------
tome
£10 more than you could make with £0.

~~~
tome
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.

