The conference room cleared and there was no talking, although the atmosphere did not dissipate. John propped himself against the glass wall with his arms folded as he tried to work out the mystery. Six weeks was not a luxury, it was a snare Timothy on the contrary wore his habitual faint smile which so irritated John.

"Why do you smile?" John snapped.

Timothy shrugged. "Since this is not about programming an application. This is the test of survival of the boss. He is heating us in the fire to see who breaks.”

John frowned. "And you reckon this is a game?

"Precisely", Timothy said. "And I am going to do it.”

They regarded the fact that MyBudget General Manager, Mr. Ahmed, had the reputation of having hard deadlines which were impossible to meet. There were also less security projects, to show fidelity and inventiveness. Fighting algorithm was merely car hiring algorithm

That evening, they were sitting in the office of John together with two engineers, Clara and Ibrahim who had just been in a different project. There were coffee cups all along the table John reached a notepad

"OK" he said. "Then we require an algorithm that would compute the rents on real-time demand. This translates to information gathering which services to offer, when users used them last, how other providers price them. However, we also must introduce promotions without losing income.”

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Clara scribbled on the whiteboard. "We can establish a dynamic price model If there is a sudden demand hike, then the rate increases. When demand drops we compensate with discounts provided this will not eat into our margin increases.”

What we can do is use machine learning to figure out demand and predict it before it occurs. Demand will increase on Friday night at the airports.

Slowly Timothy applauded. “Brilliant. What of the unspoken demand of the client?

John squinted. “Unspoken?”

"Yes, the small dark-skinned one, the one with the dark eyes", said Timothy, lowering his voice. "There is something that the boss hides".

"The client does not only desire good prices; he/she wants loyalty. A brand that prevents customers though it would run to Uber or Bolt.”

Clara pressed her lip right, a reward system? Does it have points on routine bids?

Or a non-discretely advertised feature that will reward customers taking non-peak bookings. A hidden discount producing mechanism. The spread demand approach allows letting demand spread out and avoid wasting cars and keeping clients satisfied that way.”

Soon everything became silent. They all saw one point in Timothy

Weeks flew off sleepless nights and countless quarrels. John and Timothy separated the engineers on assignments: John specialised in the core algorithm, hard data, machine learning forecasts. Timothy was on the front of the fidelity part of it- gamification, rewards, hidden discounts.

And fissures appeared.

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John later caught Timothy alone in the server room one night, trying something that he had not been sharing. What are you about? John demanded, stop, what? Stop, what?

Timothy made no reply. Structuring a simulation. "Everyone said that I had made a hundred and one list"

John stepped forward. "It is not in the plan."

"It is", Timothy said, still looking at the screen. "You just weren?t ready to hear it. Suppose the algorithm does not merely react to demand. It knows how to predict and practically control customer behaviour. It informs people on when and how to make a booking, how much to pay and even on which cars to make a booking. It is not intelligent pricing--it is manipulation.”

John leaped. “That’s dangerous. Suppose the client learns about it, earning the client dislike, putting the client and me at odds with a news story about it appearing in the newspapers, if the client learns about it, he will not like it, the client and me will be on different sides with a news story announcing this in the press, should the client learn about it."

Timothy at last smiled thinly, and turned. "Just as long as the client thinks that he or she is making profit, they are not going to mind how we made it."

John came to the realization that Timothy was not trying to pass the boss's test. He was constructing more than the assignment, something larger.

The time of meeting the deadline flew by sooner than anticipated On the last day, John and Timothy were in front of Mr. Ahmed. The engineers were sitting in the line of least resistance, at the back, exhausted.

The boss said, "show me what you got."

John was first in that, he presented a dynamic pricing model. He described the machine learning forecasts, how the system managed to offer an equal distribution of peak and off-peak hours and how it sustained revenue due to promotional offers. Mr. Ahmed nodded with approval

And Timothy came Forgotten, did Timothy come out His voice was easy, assertive. We went further, sir we have destroyed the weapons. Our model does not merely compute prices but does develop demand. We make sure that when the customers rent our cars, they do so because we provide hidden discounts, loyalty points and nudges. The rivals will not have a chance.”

And the eyes of Mr. Ahmed glimmered. And does it work?

Timothy punched one of the keys The projection was in the form of a simulation where the customer behavior would move like the pieces in a chessboard. The renting of cars was carried out without stress either during peak or off-peak hours. Profits soared. Loyalty to customers was maximized

Everybody fell quiet in the room.

At length Mr. Ahmed spoke. This is, gentlemen, unexpected. Your game is on the nail, John. Timothy, yours is a bold perhaps an over-bold statement. They are individually powerful but combined, they are unstoppable.

He relaxed in his arm chair. "You broke my test Not because you made an algorithm but because you presented to me two sides of the same coin. Stimulates Stability and vision. Risk logic. I wanted to check whether it would be possible to strike a balance.”

When John signed with relief. And Timothy only smiled, This was something he was aware he had had to bend the rules, but the gamble had worked out.

Leaving the room John commented admittedly, "One day your ambition will immolate this firm.”

Timothy smiled quite broadly Or it will give us legends.”

And for a change John did not know which was the worst.

I invite @josepha, @stef1 and @mikitaly to drop a very constructive comments on this post and also to participate in this contest.

❤️I hope you enjoyed very much by reading my post. Thank you so much for reading till the end❤️

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@adese

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