The Goldman Sachs riddle where eating the poison is right—with exactly 253 lions
aakashgupta · x · 2026-11-12
A walkthrough of a Goldman Sachs interview riddle: a poisoned steak puts any lion that eats it to sleep, and sleeping lions can be eaten. Working up from 1 lion via backward induction, odd counts make eating safe (the remainder is a stable standoff) while even counts deter anyone from moving—so with exactly 253 lions, eating the poison is the survival play. A classic teaching case in game theory.
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