Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Wisenthal. Joe, have you
Speaker 1: ever watched something called Midnight Madness? I cannot say that
Speaker 1: raise the book, Okay, it's uh this movie from I
Speaker 1: think it came out in and it's about this group
Speaker 1: of college students and they go on an all night
Speaker 1: scavenger hunt slash puzzle solving competition and they go all
Speaker 1: around l A having these sort of wacky adventures while
Speaker 1: they compete to win the Ultimate Midnight Madness Prize that
Speaker 1: doesn't ring a bell. It doesn't ring a bell, but
Speaker 1: it sounds amazing because a and eighties movie be a
Speaker 1: scavenger hunt with a bunch of puzzles and sea going
Speaker 1: around l A, one of my favorite cities. So I
Speaker 1: feel like I have to watch this movie right away. Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'll give you a little bit of a preview.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to this reb large The Ultimate Game
Speaker 1: that requires sophisticated stratege and rigorous self control rib large dlss.
Speaker 1: I'm totally going to have that Midnight Madness song stuck
Speaker 1: in my head. Now I have to watch that movie. Now,
Speaker 1: you totally should okay, But there's a reason why I'm
Speaker 1: bringing it up because on this very special episode of
Speaker 1: the Odd Thoughts podcast, we are going to talk all
Speaker 1: about a variation of Midnight Madness, a very special variation.
Speaker 1: So are people actually doing scavenger hunts around l A? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: some people definitely are doing scavenger hunts around l A.
Speaker 1: But they're doing scavenger hunts across other US cities and
Speaker 1: for the first time ever, a scavenger hunt in London.
Speaker 1: So let me just back up for one second. Midnight
Speaker 1: Madness is the scavenger hunt slash puzzle solving competition that
Speaker 1: became a really big thing on Wall Street um just
Speaker 1: after the financial crisis. It was sponsored by a bunch
Speaker 1: of big banks, big financial institutions, and you had a
Speaker 1: lot of those financial institutions putting forth teams of you know,
Speaker 1: quants and traders, all competing in the name of charity
Speaker 1: to try to win this Midnight Madness event. Now, for
Speaker 1: many years it was held in New York, and in
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, for the first time ever, it was
Speaker 1: held in London. And Joe, I'm really happy to say
Speaker 1: I was able to compete in Midnight Madness and it
Speaker 1: was a very very cool experience. I am already so
Speaker 1: jealous and I haven't heard your description of it. It's
Speaker 1: killing me, all right, So I'm gonna tell you all
Speaker 1: about it. You will feel like you are there. But
Speaker 1: before we do that, have a listen to what Alicia
Speaker 1: Weasel had to say about it. He's the chief information
Speaker 1: officer over at Goldman Sachson. He's also a long time
Speaker 1: participant in Midnight Madness and also one of the first
Speaker 1: organizers of it. So I started I rebooted Midnight Madness
Speaker 1: UM in two thousand and twelve. And the important thing
Speaker 1: to realize is the movie Midnight Madness spawned an entire
Speaker 1: following of puzzle hunts, of which Midnight Madness New York
Speaker 1: was only one, and there were, um there are all
Speaker 1: sorts of things in the Bay Area. Various college campuses
Speaker 1: have them. M I t has a mystery hunt UM.
Speaker 1: So it's the phenomena of puzzle hunt I believe really
Speaker 1: took off with the Midnight Madness movie and in the
Speaker 1: nineties to college students at Columbia, Dan Michaelson and Matt
Speaker 1: labor Witz. Really, Matt label Witz was the prime mover
Speaker 1: along with Dan, they decided to host their own Midnight
Speaker 1: Madness in New York for their friends. They did it
Speaker 1: really on a shoe string budget. It was offered for
Speaker 1: free for their friends. I played all the way through
Speaker 1: the rest of the series, and then finally in I
Speaker 1: think it was two thousand and eight, Midnight Madness ten
Speaker 1: was the last of that series of the for free,
Speaker 1: just for fun um Midnight Madness is that Matt and
Speaker 1: Dan orchestrated. I missed it when it went away quite
Speaker 1: a lot. And in two thousand and twelve, there was
Speaker 1: a couple of things happening. I wanted to do something
Speaker 1: different for my fortieth birthday. I was looking for a
Speaker 1: way to fund raise for the nonprofit that I was
Speaker 1: involved with, and I was very much missing Midnight Madness
Speaker 1: in this incredible form of creative expression, and uh, I
Speaker 1: just decided to put them all together. So that was
Speaker 1: Alicia talking about how he started the current round of
Speaker 1: Midnight Madness, and I got to say, Joe, you know,
Speaker 1: you think all nights scavenger hunt, but this is a
Speaker 1: scavenger hunt on a whole another level. The amount of
Speaker 1: organization that has gone into these events is absolutely incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I have to imagine giving given the participants banks,
Speaker 1: as you said, traders and quads and the people who
Speaker 1: originated it, I'm guessing this is kind of a next
Speaker 1: level scavenger hunt in terms of the brain power required
Speaker 1: to succeed. Oh my gosh. Okay, so, first of all,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of physical energy involved because you are
Speaker 1: actually running around, in this case the city of London.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the amount of brain power that's needed to
Speaker 1: complete these puzzles is off the charts, I would say. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned that this was the first time
Speaker 1: it was happening in London. I was part of a
Speaker 1: Goldman Sacks team. We had about I think it was
Speaker 1: ten people in the end, eight girls, three guys, and
Speaker 1: we gathered one Saturday afternoon, around seven pm on Saturday
Speaker 1: in the city of London. Uh So we gather after
Speaker 1: all this preparation, and I really have to stress. We
Speaker 1: worked so hard to get ready for this event. Everyone
Speaker 1: on our team bought little scooters that we would be
Speaker 1: able to take around London. I know you love scooters, Joe.
Speaker 1: We had backpacks filled with supplies like energy bars, lots
Speaker 1: of Red Bull things that we thought might be useful
Speaker 1: on the evening and finally we all meet up at
Speaker 1: seven pm in the city of London a place called
Speaker 1: Banking Hall and um, we sit down, we meet each
Speaker 1: other for the first time ever. The team, my team
Speaker 1: was called the sec Bombs Joe and you can laugh
Speaker 1: at that if you want. Um, and we sit down
Speaker 1: and we listen to this guy get up on stage
Speaker 1: and he starts giving a speech. Holy word, we comuniver cure. Wait,
Speaker 1: so you had to cure baldness on your scavenger hunt. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we did. Actually we had to find a cure for baldness.
Speaker 1: And basically what it involved is you, Um, you had
Speaker 1: to solve a puzzle that would lead you onto another location,
Speaker 1: and then at that location you'd find another puzzle and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. And you were basically going
Speaker 1: around London collecting ingredients that would eventually become the basis
Speaker 1: for this cure for baldness. And you won Midnight Madness
Speaker 1: if you were able to deliver the cure to the
Speaker 1: President of the Royal Society and get a certificate before
Speaker 1: anyone else. Actually did that end cross the finish line.
Speaker 1: So that was the ultimate objective. So what are the rules?
Speaker 1: So I have to be honest, there aren't that many. Uh.
Speaker 1: The big one is no private form of motorized transport,
Speaker 1: so you can't hire your own cab or uber or
Speaker 1: take your own car and drive around London. You are, however,
Speaker 1: allowed to have non motorized transport, which is why we
Speaker 1: had little scooters and I think at some point another
Speaker 1: one of the teams had bikes. And then the other
Speaker 1: big rule is you're not allowed to tamper with any
Speaker 1: of the clues. So if you go into another location
Speaker 1: that has a big puzzle and you're the first team
Speaker 1: that makes it there, you're not allowed to start tampering
Speaker 1: with that puzzle and try to make sense. You can't
Speaker 1: wreck it for the people behind. Yeah, Although that said,
Speaker 1: what you can do is you can leave false clues
Speaker 1: for the other teams, which is something that did actually
Speaker 1: happen that evening. So it's complicated and it's involved, and
Speaker 1: it's started at seven pm and it goes all freaking night. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what did you do once you got the riddle? Okay?
Speaker 1: So we had our mission right. We had the President
Speaker 1: of the Royal Society say we need to find the
Speaker 1: cure for baldness, and we sat down with our first puzzle,
Speaker 1: where with all these other teams in this banking hall
Speaker 1: and we're trying to figure out what the next location
Speaker 1: of the evening is. The secret order of those request
Speaker 1: the pleasure of your company eleven pm E C three
Speaker 1: M full DT. Does that make any sense to you, Joe,
Speaker 1: I think I would just quit at this point. I've
Speaker 1: already so discouraged. I know, honestly, I would just be like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going home. Yeah. So, um, there
Speaker 1: were moments that evening where I was certainly tempted to quit.
Speaker 1: But let me try to explain to you how it works.
Speaker 1: So the first puzzle that we got was this sheet
Speaker 1: filled with these sort of mismatched words. Um, so it
Speaker 1: would say things like bacon baby too, Posh Spice. Eventually
Speaker 1: we figured out that those were the names of tube stations.
Speaker 1: So Posh Spice was Victoria Station in London. And if
Speaker 1: you matched all these things up on top of a
Speaker 1: tube map, eventually you would spell out certain letters. And
Speaker 1: the letters that you spelled out were National Car Park
Speaker 1: Great Eastern Streets, so it was NCPG E S. And
Speaker 1: that was the first clue to the first location of
Speaker 1: the evening. You see how involved this is, Joe. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I think even after you explained that to me,
Speaker 1: even I think I would just be so discouraged, uh
Speaker 1: that I would probably give up here. But okay, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't because it sounds fun. So what happened next? Al Right,
Speaker 1: So we're off on our little scooters to the National
Speaker 1: Car Park at Great Eastern Street. And remember this is
Speaker 1: an immersive scavenger hunt experience, so are all these actors
Speaker 1: who are hired to help you in uh in the evening.
Speaker 1: So when we arrived at this car park, we were
Speaker 1: greeted by a bunch of guys wearing ski masks and
Speaker 1: they take us up to the top of this big
Speaker 1: building to meet their boss. So you're looking for something
Speaker 1: that I had lots am all right, Okay, so I
Speaker 1: don't give my stuff to just anymore. You've got to
Speaker 1: show me that you're worth it. So I've sent you
Speaker 1: a few pozzitives. So, Joe, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: remember this, but at one point in the evening I
Speaker 1: sent you a picture of a giant chessboard. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember that. And while you were out and you're like, Joe,
Speaker 1: can you first of all is that there's probably cheating, right, No, actually,
Speaker 1: you're probably not supposed to phone a friend. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just want to say I was really
Speaker 1: disappointed that I couldn't help you that night, because I
Speaker 1: know you're like, oh, my friend, Joe, he would know
Speaker 1: this because it's a chessboard, and I normally i'd be like, yes,
Speaker 1: this is the one thing I can make a contribution
Speaker 1: and on. And even that photo of a chessboard that
Speaker 1: you sent me was completely no help or I had
Speaker 1: no insight at all into what it symbolized. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: gotta say I was disappointed, Joe, because you were my
Speaker 1: my first stop when it comes to all chess related questions,
Speaker 1: and I got no help from you. But that's okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: we figured it out eventually. So there's this big chessboard,
Speaker 1: and you have to figure out what the chessboard has
Speaker 1: to do with the goal of that particular activity. And
Speaker 1: the goal of that activity was you had to get
Speaker 1: through this room that was filled with laser beams to
Speaker 1: get to a safe that was on the wall so
Speaker 1: that you could open the safe and get the next clue.
Speaker 1: I'll let a member of my team, Natasha, explain exactly
Speaker 1: what she had to do once she got inside this room.
Speaker 1: It's not bracking. Okay, what do you what do you
Speaker 1: actually have to do? You have to basically you pretend
Speaker 1: it's a chess board and you have to place your
Speaker 1: feet very carefully. Okay I think, yeah exactly. And also
Speaker 1: I'm small, and they have you have laser beams on
Speaker 1: the wall, and you have two dock Oh god, so
Speaker 1: creep up until you get exactly right. So basically, you
Speaker 1: had to figure out that the chessboard contained the key
Speaker 1: to getting through this room. So if you followed the
Speaker 1: pattern that was on the chessboard, followed it exactly in
Speaker 1: this room, you could get through it without setting off
Speaker 1: any alarms or getting caught by laser beams. It kind
Speaker 1: of sounds like one of that scene in like Mission
Speaker 1: Impossible or something like that, where Tom Cruise is trying
Speaker 1: to perfectly get into a room and out without hitting
Speaker 1: off all kinds of sensors and alerts. Yeah, slightly less glamorous,
Speaker 1: I would say, but it did have an element of that.
Speaker 1: So look, eventually we find the next clue. But this
Speaker 1: is when we come to a key point in the evening.
Speaker 1: We have our next clue. Well, sorry, we have our
Speaker 1: next puzzle, which will lead to the next clue. But
Speaker 1: we also have this invitation to go to a secret
Speaker 1: party at a secret location. So what our team ends
Speaker 1: up doing is we split up. The main portion of
Speaker 1: the group goes off to pursue the next clue, and
Speaker 1: I go off to this uh special party with two
Speaker 1: of the members of my team, Laura and Natasha. Natasha
Speaker 1: was the one you just heard in that clip. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what was the hardest puzzle you had to do? Okay?
Speaker 1: I could choose any number of things, Joe, but I
Speaker 1: have to say the one that we got once we
Speaker 1: got to this secret party. The secret party was being
Speaker 1: held on a boat. Um, now we're leaving the pain
Speaker 1: and we do have to just go for a very quick,
Speaker 1: short safety announction. It's not too long interest you familiar wise,
Speaker 1: you WI would invest your traveling just to let you
Speaker 1: know there's this weird society doing a secret ceremony while
Speaker 1: we sort of sailed down on the River Thames to
Speaker 1: the next location. And as part of this activity, you
Speaker 1: get given a map of London of a particular part
Speaker 1: of London and a sheet, a leather sheet that had
Speaker 1: these little holes kind of cut into it, and eventually
Speaker 1: you had to figure out that the leather sheet was
Speaker 1: a constellation pattern that gave you the name of a
Speaker 1: constellation that gave you a hint to the next clue,
Speaker 1: and the hint to the next clue was a location
Speaker 1: on the map, and it actually led to three different
Speaker 1: locations in London. So we had to go to these
Speaker 1: three different locations, and then once we were there, we
Speaker 1: had to crack particular codes that were insanely difficult, and
Speaker 1: I think even now I am going to struggle to
Speaker 1: explain them to you. It's funny because everything you've explained
Speaker 1: so far, and this is you explaining it after the fact,
Speaker 1: has like made my brain hurt. So the thought of
Speaker 1: having to do any of these puzzles in real time,
Speaker 1: I just can't even imagine. Yeah, okay, so let me
Speaker 1: give you. I'll give you an example. So we're wandering
Speaker 1: around the south of London, and you know, by this time,
Speaker 1: it's about midnight, it's pitch dark, the pubs are closing,
Speaker 1: everyone except us is really drunk um, and we're finding
Speaker 1: these little shrines that the organizers of the event have
Speaker 1: built in these parks, and there are these mysterious guys
Speaker 1: standing in the parks next to the shrines. And when
Speaker 1: you look at the shrines, there are these little pyramids
Speaker 1: and they light up with lights, with these little dotted lights,
Speaker 1: and based on those dotted lights, you have to figure
Speaker 1: out what the lights are trying to tell you. And
Speaker 1: each shrine has a different name. So, for instance, um,
Speaker 1: there's one called the Shrine of Time. And eventually, if
Speaker 1: you think about it hard enough, you will figure out,
Speaker 1: although we didn't, you will figure out that the shrine
Speaker 1: kind of Time is a hint for a binary clock.
Speaker 1: This is what we thought anyway. And the code is
Speaker 1: spelled out binary letters basically UM or binary numbers, and eventually,
Speaker 1: if you figure out what those binary numbers are, you
Speaker 1: can get a special code word that will lead you
Speaker 1: to the next location. These puzzles, it just seems laughably hard,
Speaker 1: but I guess it speaks to how I mean, you
Speaker 1: guys figure them out, right, Like, that's the thing that
Speaker 1: blows my mind is that you guys did work this
Speaker 1: stuff out. So I have to say. There is something
Speaker 1: called game control which gives you hints. So throughout the
Speaker 1: entire evening you're talking to someone on a slack chat.
Speaker 1: The organizers, and they will give you timed hints, so
Speaker 1: you're never you're never going to get a hint before
Speaker 1: everyone else does. Um, but those hints basically help you
Speaker 1: throughout the evening. But I know the puzzles are really hard,
Speaker 1: so let me see if I can give you maybe
Speaker 1: a more simple example. Um. You know, after we figured
Speaker 1: out the Pyramids puzzles, we went on to Borrow Market.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been there, Joe? I think so, or
Speaker 1: maybe the last time we were in London together. You
Speaker 1: told me to go and I didn't. But it's pretty great, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's probably my favorite place in London, just because I
Speaker 1: like to eat. But anyway, at that time of night,
Speaker 1: it's completely empty except for these two apple sellers. These
Speaker 1: two guys are standing there with these big carts full
Speaker 1: of apples and they're talking about how we have to
Speaker 1: order the correct apple from them. This apple is not
Speaker 1: the variety that you see here. It is a variety,
Speaker 1: but it is not these varieties. Yeah, it just it
Speaker 1: is not a traditional varrity. It is that of spring apple.
Speaker 1: Can I just say, like I feel the English accent
Speaker 1: definitely makes that even more theatrical and uh, and it
Speaker 1: already sounds pretty great, but it's definitely great in the
Speaker 1: English accent. Yeah, we had some good accents in the evening. Um,
Speaker 1: so you know, the clues are all there. You've got
Speaker 1: these two apple sellers. They're standing in front of a
Speaker 1: bunch of different types of apples and they keep saying
Speaker 1: of spring. Right, why are they repeating of spring? So
Speaker 1: I'll tell you how it worked. Um. Eventually, you had
Speaker 1: to look at all the different types of apples these
Speaker 1: guys had, and you had to work out which of
Speaker 1: those apples were of spring. In other words, which of
Speaker 1: those apples were available during the spring. And then if
Speaker 1: you figured out the cross of those apples, you would
Speaker 1: get the name of the variety that you needed to
Speaker 1: order in order to get the next clue and the
Speaker 1: next ingredient to the cure for baldness. So, in this
Speaker 1: particular example, the spring apples were cocks Orange and Golden Delicious,
Speaker 1: and the offspring of those three apples the cross is
Speaker 1: something called a rubenette apple, which I have never heard
Speaker 1: of before. I know this is not really related to
Speaker 1: the episode that much, but I've heard there's some great
Speaker 1: apple varieties in the UK that we don't get here.
Speaker 1: It so now like the orange apple, I don't think
Speaker 1: is one that we have in the US, but I've
Speaker 1: heard it's really delicious. Okay, keep going. Okay, well I'll
Speaker 1: go to brow. I know that's not exactly relevant, but
Speaker 1: it was on my mind. All right. So after this, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we split up again. Uh, some of us
Speaker 1: found the location of an underground rave and we went there.
Speaker 1: At that point, it's almost dawn and you can hear
Speaker 1: all these birds singing, but we're still trying to get
Speaker 1: the missing ingredients to this cure for baldness. We have
Speaker 1: a couple at this point, but we're missing one. We're
Speaker 1: trying to track down one in particular, something called chlorophyll.
Speaker 1: So eventually we're at this club and you know, we
Speaker 1: solve a bunch of puzzles once again, and we get
Speaker 1: the chlorophyll. We find ourselves an uber and we call
Speaker 1: this number that we had figured out earlier in the evening,
Speaker 1: and then we hear this message. Right, so this was
Speaker 1: the very last thing we needed, Joe. It was something
Speaker 1: called Newton's flask. And once we had Newton's flask, we
Speaker 1: could put all the different ingredients for the cure for
Speaker 1: baldness inside of it, make the cure, and then hopefully
Speaker 1: win the entire event. Okay, so this is basically it.
Speaker 1: You're almost done with the scavenger hunt by this point,
Speaker 1: I thought, So, look at this point, it's six am,
Speaker 1: it's bright outside, and we're the only ones wandering around London.
Speaker 1: We're not even wandering around London. We're actually running across
Speaker 1: it because we're trying to get to our next location,
Speaker 1: which is something called the Royal Institute of Technology in
Speaker 1: central London. So we head over there, get to the
Speaker 1: Royal Institute, and this is what we hear, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: So I understand that you have been informed of the
Speaker 1: threats on the property, right. So well, it was sometime
Speaker 1: twenty hours of seven and eleven pm last night the
Speaker 1: flask officer Isaac Newton was taken. So that was a
Speaker 1: police officer, a fake police officer of course, explaining that
Speaker 1: someone had stolen the final thing that we needed to
Speaker 1: complete this scavenger hunt. So we had to find the
Speaker 1: stolen flask. So of course, of course it and there,
Speaker 1: because after wandering around for about nine hours six am
Speaker 1: in London, of course it would be too easy for
Speaker 1: it to just wrap up there quite obviously, And I
Speaker 1: have to say this was probably the low point of
Speaker 1: the evening for me, because well, I should say the
Speaker 1: low point of the morning for me, because we had
Speaker 1: about ten different puzzles all going on at the same
Speaker 1: time as we were trying to figure out who had
Speaker 1: stolen the flask and where they had actually put it.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to skip ahead a little bit because
Speaker 1: otherwise I think you would probably go crazy similar to
Speaker 1: what I did. And I'm going to say that we
Speaker 1: finally got the flask, we identified the right guys, solved
Speaker 1: lots of puzzles, legged it to the next location, had
Speaker 1: all the ingredients that we had correct collected throughout the evening,
Speaker 1: handed it over to a special chemist who put them
Speaker 1: all together, and finally, finally we had the cure for baldness.
Speaker 1: What time was this, I think that would have been
Speaker 1: around seven am, So at that point we've been going
Speaker 1: for twelve hours. Twelve hours. That is incredible. But you're
Speaker 1: finally done at this point. No, No, we weren't finished
Speaker 1: at this point. Remember, we had to deliver the cure
Speaker 1: for baldness to the President of the Royal Society, who
Speaker 1: you heard from at the very beginning of this episode,
Speaker 1: and he was in a secret location that, of course
Speaker 1: we had to decode, and our only clue to figuring
Speaker 1: it out was a key chain that had a bunch
Speaker 1: of little um do dads on it. So it had
Speaker 1: a cork, a plastic head of some sort, and a
Speaker 1: couple other things. It's it's so snake, okay. So if
Speaker 1: you had a little plastic snake on a key chain,
Speaker 1: where do you think that would lead to in London?
Speaker 1: I don't know London as well as you. So what's
Speaker 1: the answer to that. There's a place in Hyde Park
Speaker 1: called the Serpentine. It's basically a lake Serpentine snake. Get up?
Speaker 1: I h no? I mean yes, you after you explain
Speaker 1: it to me, but I'm pretty sure I would not
Speaker 1: have gotten it in uh in real time? So where
Speaker 1: are you in London at this point? And how far
Speaker 1: away is Hyde Park? So at this point we were
Speaker 1: close to Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park was far away
Speaker 1: to be honest, especially after a twelve hour evening, and
Speaker 1: we thought for sure they weren't actually going to send
Speaker 1: us there. But let me guess they did, right, So
Speaker 1: it turns out they would send us all the way
Speaker 1: to Hyde Park. Um, and at this point you know
Speaker 1: this is the this is the finish line, Joe. So
Speaker 1: we're all racing to get to this Hyde Park location,
Speaker 1: literally running around London trying to get here, and um,
Speaker 1: we finally finally arrived to Hyde Park, where our final
Speaker 1: challenge awaits us. There's always another one, right. We managed
Speaker 1: to find the president of the Royal Society, We hand
Speaker 1: him the cure for baldness, we get the certificate that
Speaker 1: we needed, but we still have to cross the actual
Speaker 1: finish line, which is close to the Serpentine Pavilion, and
Speaker 1: that is where we are met by a massive symphony orchestra.
Speaker 1: So what time is this that there's a massive symphony
Speaker 1: orchestra in the middle of Hyde Park? Because I just
Speaker 1: imagine that alone must have been quite the site. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So now it would have been around eight am, and
Speaker 1: there's all these uh joggers running around Hyde Park and
Speaker 1: then there's us and we're running around Hyde Park for
Speaker 1: very different reasons. I can only imagine that the reaction
Speaker 1: of the joggers huge symphony orchestra at eight in the morning.
Speaker 1: So we find the orchestra and the task that you
Speaker 1: need to complete in order to win Midnight Madness is
Speaker 1: you have to figure out how to duct the orchestra.
Speaker 1: So you need to figure out a piece of music
Speaker 1: and then figure out what key it's in and what
Speaker 1: musical solo should accompany it. And there's this big board
Speaker 1: with all these different options on it that you basically
Speaker 1: have to match. And then once you get the correct match,
Speaker 1: you go up to the orchestra and you see if
Speaker 1: it actually uh, if it actually works. Wait, did you
Speaker 1: actually get to conduct an orchestra? No, I'm the least
Speaker 1: musical person ever, so it wasn't me. But take a
Speaker 1: listen to what happened when our representative from our team
Speaker 1: actually got up and tried her hand at conducting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds great. It wasn't the right uh solution. So
Speaker 1: clearly we got it wrong the first time, but we
Speaker 1: got it right uh the second time. And that was
Speaker 1: the finish line for Midnight Madness, and I think we
Speaker 1: we ended up finishing around eight or nine in the morning.
Speaker 1: Across the finish line, lots of cheering, lots of happy faces.
Speaker 1: We were pretty exhausted at that point. Joe, I have
Speaker 1: no doubt that you're exhausted, because I'm not gonna lie,
Speaker 1: I am exhausted. I have a secondhand exhaustion right now
Speaker 1: from hearing you describe that whole thing. By the way,
Speaker 1: we didn't even talk about this. How many teams were
Speaker 1: there competing and how did your team do? Good? Question?
Speaker 1: So I think all in all there were probably about
Speaker 1: fifteen teams. Most of those were coming from Goldman also
Speaker 1: had a couple of teams I believe from gam and
Speaker 1: then we had one very special team. It was a
Speaker 1: crack team of university professors from places like Oxford and Cambridge.
Speaker 1: They weren't actually allowed to win. They were supposed to
Speaker 1: be a baseline against which you could judge your time.
Speaker 1: Now you asked me where we placed, so if you yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the big the big thing, right, um, if
Speaker 1: you strip out the university professors, we came in second,
Speaker 1: which was pretty amazing, I have to say. And we
Speaker 1: were actually the number one team from Goldman. And remember
Speaker 1: there were about eight different Goldmen teams, so being the
Speaker 1: first Goldman team is pretty much all that matters, right
Speaker 1: right of course, So there's one thing I found out
Speaker 1: about our team after we actually finished Midnight Madness, and
Speaker 1: it was a pretty special thing. Remember, there were eight
Speaker 1: different Goldman teams, and most of those teams, in fact,
Speaker 1: I think all of them except ours, had put themselves together,
Speaker 1: you know, they to each other. A lot of them
Speaker 1: were senior guys that came from a strats background or
Speaker 1: a quantitative background, and they put themselves together as a
Speaker 1: crack team. Our team was actually comprised of people at
Speaker 1: Goldman who didn't know each other. They were just volunteers
Speaker 1: who had put their hand up. And most of the
Speaker 1: people on our team were pretty young, pretty junior at Goldman.
Speaker 1: You know, we had um one woman who was basically
Speaker 1: straight out of university, lots of women who were in
Speaker 1: their mid twenties, I would say, whereas a lot of
Speaker 1: the other teams were much more senior than we were,
Speaker 1: and we beat them. That's pretty cool. Actually, all those
Speaker 1: genius quant people, huh, they're not. Like maybe they can
Speaker 1: do math and find correlations between between two different asset
Speaker 1: classes better than the rest of us can, but when
Speaker 1: it comes to puzzle solving, you're saying they're no better. Well,
Speaker 1: I think we had good strategy on the evening. I
Speaker 1: think we we did a really good job by bringing
Speaker 1: the scooters, which gave us a little bit of an
Speaker 1: edge when it came to running around London. But we're
Speaker 1: also very good about organizing ourselves because we split up
Speaker 1: very early on in the evening, which meant that we
Speaker 1: could solve multiple problems, multiple puzzles, all at once, so
Speaker 1: that that was probably our secret rather than any sort
Speaker 1: of quantitative edge, I have to say, So all that
Speaker 1: is allowed. Oh yeah, that's clever. Well, hey, congratulations, b
Speaker 1: are you going to do it again next year? And see?
Speaker 1: Can I come and join it? A thank you? Be
Speaker 1: absolutely and see, yes we should have an Odd Lots
Speaker 1: team for sure. I think you'd really enjoy it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm in and I think it speaks to one of
Speaker 1: the big themes that we always discussed on Odd Lots,
Speaker 1: which is some of the similarities between games and finance
Speaker 1: and trading, right, Joe, absolutely no. I Uh it's difficult
Speaker 1: and brain bending as this sounds, and like I said,
Speaker 1: it was almost painful to hear the clues even after
Speaker 1: you explained them anew the answer. I'm now so determined
Speaker 1: to do this next year. All right, you have to
Speaker 1: come next year, and uh, I should just remind everyone
Speaker 1: you know, this is a really fun experience, but ultimately
Speaker 1: it's done in the name of charity and my team,
Speaker 1: the sec Bombs. We are still in fundraising mode, so
Speaker 1: you know, if you like charity and if you like
Speaker 1: odd Lots, then you can head over to raise your
Speaker 1: Hands dot org dot uk forward Slash Fundraisers, Forward Slash
Speaker 1: sec Bombs and you can contribute to the money that
Speaker 1: we were raising in the name of Midnight Madness. That's
Speaker 1: awesome and Tracy, congratulations. Thanks Joe. All right, well, this
Speaker 1: has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast, one
Speaker 1: of the more exhausting episodes. I would say, I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wise in Fall. You can follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at the Stalwork and you should follow our producer
Speaker 1: tofor Foreheads at Foreheads t as well as The Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Head a podcast brancesco Levie at The Brancester today. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.