Elon Musk may be worth the $56 billion payout he is asking for to lead Tesla into the future, or maybe not. Time will tell. But one thing is clear: No other business leader has yet captured quite so ...

This Olympiad-style exponential problem looks simple at first — until you try solving it. Test your skills and see if you can crack it before I walk through the clever solution step-by-step.

An optimization problem is one where you have to make the best decision (choose the best investments, minimize your company’s costs, find the class schedule with the fewest morning classes, or so on).