A CEO joke

This joke below originally made fun of a certain Irishman who became the CEO of a large Asia-Pacific company. But I shall turn it into a generic CEO joke...

A large Asia-Pacific company advertised for a CEO. There was only one applicant. The board was not impressed with his CV but it decided to give him a test anyway.

The Maths Test

"Here is your first question," the Chairman said.  "Without using numbers, represent the number 9."

"Without numbers? That is easy," said the man, who proceeded to draw three trees. 

"What's this?" the Chairman asked.

"Have you ain't got no brains? Tree and tree plus tree makes 9," said the applicant smugly.

"Fair enough," said the Chairman, humouring him. "Here's your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99."

The man stared into space for a while, then picked up the picture that he had just drawn and made a smudge on each tree... "Here you go." 

The boss scratched his head and asked, "How on earth do you get all that to represent 99?"

"Each of the trees is dirty now. So, it's dirty tree, and dirty tree, plus dirty tree.  That makes 99."

The Chairman was now getting worried that he actually had to hire this man, so he said, "All right, one last question.  Same rules again, but represent the number 100."

The man stared into space once again. Then he picked up the picture and made a little mark at the base of each tree and said, "Here you go. One hundred."



The Chairman, perspiring, stared for a long time at the picture. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!"

The man leaned forward and pointed to the marks at the base of each tree and said firmly, "A little dog comes along and pooped by each tree. So now you got dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, which make ONE HUNDRED!"

He got the job! And the chairman quit the company.