I think this is mostly a sign that he’s out of practice - he’s a former PhD student working on database tech, the man has spent plenty of time writing algorithms. I’m claiming that he’s under weighting the effects of practice on how well (specifically, how fast) candidates perform here. When people are coding at typing speed, it usually means they’re not really thinking at all - rather recalling a similar template from memory.

He even says "I could get it down with practice", it's quite astounding that he doesn't get the importance of preparing for this specific type of test. I've been doing competitive programming in highschool, was decently good at it (got to IOI, got some medals). First year in uni they wouldn't allow us to compete in ACM, by the second year I felt like I was competing with my hands tied due to the lack of practice. One year of pause is all it took.

There's _some_ truth in some things that he says though, even though HN doesn't appreciate it. Like, anecdotally, I have a friend who refused a Google offer (when Google was much smaller but still a big-ish name) and went for a startup because the interview problems at the startup were very difficult and he thought they were going to have interesting problems to solve. I took note of that and made sure my interviews were as difficult as the candidate could take it - like, go progressively harder until the candidate is stuck, then back off. This works fairly well especially with just-out-of-university hires, there's a certain type of people that notice it and like being challenged. And they're often very good employees. (of course, what the author suggests in the article is WAY over the top, I'd agree his process is broken).