# Story 2: Are you lucky? The Bezos interview question - **Episode:** [190](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/190.md) (2025-04-22) - **Type:** news-roundup - **Tags:** luck, interview-questions, jeff-bezos, hiring - **Time:** 6:21–14:35 (start 381s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/190?t=381](https://truthliesandwork.com/190?t=381) --- [6:21] Al Elliott: Yeah. Sending, sending us, sending celebrities into space this week. They all seem to get a little bit overwhelmed when they came back to Earth after 18 minutes of being in the lower atmosphere. I think Katy Perry kissed the soil. She was like, oh my God, it's like, come on, love. It's not like you've been in space. Bit insensitive considering those people are in space for like 9 months. But anyway, that's enough. I kissed the earth and I liked it. That's a Katy Perry song. So Jeff Bezos, back to Jeff Bezos. He had an interview question when he was running the show at Amazon. Bit weird, but apparently brilliant according to psychology. Reading this in Inc. magazine, which would be my want? I will leave a link to that in the, in the show notes. So what is the question? The question is, are you a lucky person? Something which Taxi Driver, I think, first, first started back in about 1988. That's a weird reference for you. So the question is, are you a lucky person? That's it. It's not like brain teasers. It's not like, where do you see yourself in 5 years? It's just, do you consider yourself lucky? Now, you might be thinking Bezos was a bit woo back in the day, but actually there's some real smart thinking behind this [7:23] Leanne Elliott: Yeah [7:24] Al Elliott: Because first off, it's a brilliant test for humility. Because if someone says, yeah, I've been pretty lucky in life, they're essentially admitting not everything they've achieved is down to them being brilliant and superhuman and just all-round awesome. They recognise that some of it was being in the right place at the right time. Warren Buffett calls it winning the ovarian lottery, I think, which is a slightly weird way of putting it, but you know, the fellow's worth billions, so. I think we better let him have one, have that one. Secondly, there's this really interesting psychological experiment. Psychology. I should know how to say that word, Lee, shouldn't I? Psychology experiment where researchers gave people a newspaper and asked them to count the pictures in the newspaper. The clever ones, this is according to the study, the clever one finished in seconds because on page 2 there was a massive box saying, this paper has 43 images, you can stop reading now. So the people who spotted this They tended to be the ones who described themselves as lucky, whereas everyone else just carried on just counting all of the, all the pictures. We should definitely go and read the study because it's really interesting because I think that some people who they interviewed afterwards, they saw the box even though they weren't counting all the things and counted all the pictures and carried on. They saw the box but assumed it was a bit of a trick. So basically what we call luck is actually being alert to opportunities, which is obviously pretty handy in the business world really [8:41] Leanne Elliott: Yeah [8:42] Al Elliott: So those people who saw themselves as lucky saw the box saying, you can stop now, there's 43, wrote down 43, went and had a cup of tea and won. The last thing I suppose about this study which is worth pointing out was that people who think they're lucky tend to be optimistic. And optimists, according to some research from the University of Pennsylvania, actually end up with better financial health than pessimists. So next time you're interviewing someone, maybe chuck in this Bezos classic, see what happens. Lee, what are your thoughts? [9:07] Leanne Elliott: Don't— bad advice. Don't do what I just said [9:10] Al Elliott: Really? [9:11] Leanne Elliott: No, it's not. I mean, you shouldn't be including questions like this in your recruitment process. And, you know, because it— the whole point of asking a question is to, to assess somebody's suitability for a job or help you predict their future performance in a job. And that's going to be based on a job analysis. Um, so it's not exactly going to be linked to the job. You might want to include it in terms of kind of exploring personal attributes. And you're right, there is research that does show that optimism, which is a key part of our psychological capital along with hope, self-efficacy, and resilience, um, can predict better outcomes in terms of relationships, in terms of mental health potentially, in terms of work potentially. And all this is rooted in positive psychology, which yes, we— yes, Optimism and optimistic positive thinking is, is good for us and will probably help us succeed in all areas of our life, including work. But the problem is, and I think particularly with the, the example that you used about the box, so what they were saying is that lucky people found the box and then used that to finish the task quicker [10:26] Al Elliott: Yeah, yeah [10:28] Leanne Elliott: It's a bit, it's a bit, have we, if we, is that really the cause and effect going on here? I'm not sure in terms of linking that back to being lucky, because you also said, and I don't know whether this included the study or whether this is your just, your just little assessment of it, you said the intelligent people saw the box and then knew that that was the answer and they could finish the task. We know that general mental ability is the best predictor of future job performance. So it could just be that actually that exercise is identifying intelligence rather than somebody's perception of, of luck. The other problematic aspect of this question is that you are going to get people who aren't particularly lucky in terms of how they define that word, which might— they might look at it more as a privilege. I go, do you know what, I'm not particularly lucky actually. I was born into, you know, a tough background and school didn't always work out that well and blah blah blah. So am I lucky? No, but despite that, I've done X, Y, and Z. And that kind of shows what Adam Grant talks about in Hidden Potential, is that you're kind of measuring people from different start points. So if I graduate with a 2:1 from the University of Manchester, coming from a middle-class, two-parent family where I had a good education, some might say that was underperformance. Oh, it's okay, it's a 2:1, good. If somebody has come from a very poor background, haven't been encouraged in school, maybe got into trouble with the police in their early teens, managed to turn it around, go to university and get a 2:1 from Manchester University, they're probably showing a bit more resilience, a bit more, um, grit, whatever you want to call it, than I have, because they've achieved something that was even harder for them to achieve. So we're not comparing apples and apples, you know. Um, it's a lot more complicated. It massively oversimplifies. It can be an indicator of, of somebody's mindset. Yes. Should it be used to make hiring decisions? Absolutely freaking not. Um, and it's another example of one of these things from, you know, tech startup that gets drawn into by small businesses and they do it and it's hugely problematic for the talent they bring in and potentially the unlawful hiring practices they're engaging in. But that aside, it's a cute story, isn't it? [12:46] Al Elliott: Well, how about this one as a different idea? This is another idea, not nothing to do with this article. I read it a few, a few months ago. Um, so a recruitment manager takes all of the people who've applied and then just goes through and counts 1, 2, 3, 4, and puts the 5th in the bin. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5th in the bin because he doesn't like unlucky people, and they're unlucky if they were number 5 on the row. Is that a valid way of recruiting? [13:08] Leanne Elliott: It's just nonsense [13:09] Al Elliott: I did honestly read that. I think it was someone in GE or something saying, I don't like unlucky people, and if they're unlucky enough to be in the bin, then they're not good enough to work for me [13:19] Leanne Elliott: Alright, God complex [13:21] Al Elliott: Just a quick one [13:24] Leanne Elliott: I have the power [13:25] Al Elliott: It's a bit like the Gladiator, like, thumbs up. Yeah, they live. Am I not entertaining you? Anyway, just a quick one. Was that the quote? I haven't seen that film for years. Just a quick thought. If you do want to find out what's working right now in recruitment, then I have a very timely and essential resource for you. Our guest on Thursday is Nick Hubert, the sweaty startup guy. If you've not heard of him, you've probably seen him on Twitter. He's got like millions of people who follow him on Twitter, whatever. He's built businesses that do more than £30 million in annual revenue and he employs over 300 people. He's got a brand new book that I got a pre-release copy of, and it is brilliant. Rather than the same old, like, theory stuff, which I'm sorry, Leanne, but some of the stuff which I read just feels a bit theory heavy. Um, this one is really about how he properly built it, how he properly recruits great people, um, and exactly what he did to build his empire. Go and preorder his book, uh, Amazon, wherever you get your books. It's out next week. And tune in on Thursday because he's here and As you can probably tell, I'm fanboying a little bit because I've been following him for years. If you remember the Sweaty Startup from Reddit days, that's him. That's the guy [14:32] Leanne Elliott: I think that's enough fanboying for this week, Al. Shall we move on?