Two can play:
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/ethereumproject/the_p_epsilon_attack/#comment-2028779600You're the captain of a pirate ship, and your crew gets to vote on how the gold is divided up. If fewer than half of the pirates agree with you, you die. How do you recommend apportioning the gold in such a way that you get a good share of the booty, but still survive?
Answer: You divide the booty evenly between the top 51% of the crew.
I read this puzzle as intending that only the captain can put a proposal to a vote (and he only gets one shot; presumably it's something like a perfect equal split among the crew if the captain gets voted down and killed*), in which case Google's original answer is right since each winning pirate does stand to lose if they vote no.
*Even if we instead assume that any pirate is allowed to make a counterproposal after the captain is dead, a pirate could just propose voting down the captain and the loot being divided among a different 51% set that includes him (the pirates in the overlap group should side with counterproposal, since they get slightly more loot without the captain around anymore). Of course then another pirate will do that with 52%, knowing his proposition will win. Then 53%, etc. until they end up at an even split among 100% of the crew as the winning proposition by vote count. So assuming the crew is rational they will vote yes if they luck out and make it into the 51%. So either way it seems Google has it right. The "no-voters don't get the loot" proviso is unnecessary, unless maybe we are not assuming rational pirates. (And in fact, this shows you can keep nearly
half the loot (assuming you have a decent-sized crew), giving 51% of the crew the other half plus a tiny bit more, which is a bit more than they get if they vote you down. So Google's answer is also too low.)
Too many ways to read it, though, so it's basically indeterminate/underspecified as far as I'm concerned. I think it's called an "IQ test" to obscure the real purpose, that it's way for them to see your thought process during an interview. It's perhaps intentional that everyone will add in their own assumptions, or maybe even harp on the need to specify assumptions, or about the how killing the captain or having 49% be jealous would leave them in worse shape. Each of these kinds of reactions gives useful information to the hirers.