It used to be that M.I.T was filled with code-breakers. Part of the movie A Beautiful Mind takes place there and in real life it’s always had close ties with the military and intelligence agencies. Tech companies also like to recruit there, and Google is no exception.
In search of some beautiful minds, Google has been putting up signs around the M.I.T campus with a code that say, “If you can figure this out, you may have a future with Google.” If they crack the code, which is a fairly simple substitution cipher (or not), it reveals a phone number where they can leave their contact information.
So far, no M.I.T. students have been able to crack the code, or at least they haven’t bothered to leave a voicemail. Maybe they need some help. The first person to crack the code gets a TechCrunch T-shirt, or maybe a job at Google if you call the number and leave your name.
We have a winner: Actually two, it was a team effort. Scott Kyle did the set-up and Hakan came up with the final answer: 617-639-0570. The number is a substitution cipher that you get by writing out 0-9 then A-Z, then using the keyword “JOBS” to shift the letters.
Interestingly, there is also a second solution (617-274-8660), which leads to another non-Google recruiting number. That one might just be a red herring, or a way to weed out the semi-smart folks who couldn’t come up with the harder solution.
