AI-powered
podcast player
Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features
The Red Balloon Challenge - What It Teach Us About Motivation and Social Networks
Darpa sponsored the red balloon challenge to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the birth of the internet. To test these strategies, darpa hid ten red weather balloons in mysterious locations around the continental united states. The first team to correctly locate each balloon would win forty thousand dollars. Pintland and his team came up with another strategy where they allocated four thousand dollars per balloon. They also promised one thousand dollars to the person who invited that balloon finder on to the team. In the end, their team had almost two million people helping them search for red balloons. This strategy allowed them to win the competition in just eight hours, 52 minutes and forty one seconds.