Twelve Marbles, One Phone Round, and a Month-Later Rejection From Microsoft

A developer’s first-person account of failing a Microsoft internship interview turns on a single phone round and a 12-marbles brain teaser: he admitted he already knew the riddle and asked for another, and the unfamiliar one stumped him under pressure. About a month later, the rejection email arrived. The essay drew 151 points and 312 comments on Hacker News, most of them their own versions of the same story.