How Many Golf Balls Can You Fit Into An Airplane?

Have you ever been asked these kinds of interview questions during finance, consulting, product management, strategy, operations, or any other kinds of interviews?

Well the good news is that nobody knows the right answer, and the interviewer is only looking to see how you break down this problem to arrive at a reasonable answer, rather than the answer itself.

Let me start with a story. In 1961, Frank Drake was preparing for the first ever scientific meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence 👽 (SETI). However, how would scientists discuss something as vague as aliens when we didn't know of any, and had no clues or starting points?

That's when he formulated the Drake Equation, which is show below: