We had an interesting lecture this morning on overconfidence and decision making. Here's a quiz: guess the range that you can say, with 90% confidence, contains the correct value. So for example, if the question were "Parker's weight in kilograms," you could guess a range of 10 to 40, which means you are 90% confident that Parker weighs between 10 and 40 kilos. (You'd be right; he weighs 25 kilos.)
Here are the questions our prof hit us with today:
| Fact |
Units |
Low end? |
High end? |
| GE total revenues (2003) |
$ bn |
|
|
| Michael Eisner's salary (2003) |
$ |
|
|
| Microsoft employees worldwide (2004) |
thousands |
|
|
| Starbuck's stores worldwide (2004) |
stores |
|
|
| McKinsey Group annual revenue per consultant (2001) |
$ |
|
|
| United Auto Workers total membership, non retired (2004) |
thousands |
|
|
| Blockbuster share of U.S. video rentals (2003) |
% |
|
|
| Canadian citizens per donut shop (2001) |
people |
|
|
| Ameritrade total daily trades by members (2004) |
thousands |
|
|
| Berkshire-Hathaway cumulative returns (1999-2004) |
% |
|
|
Also guess how many of these you got right.
Answers tomorrow.