[polskibus]

Google made fact recollection less important than before. However, Google itself prefers people who do well on whiteboard interview, which could be solved perfectly by some Google searches! Memorization of historical facts is one thing, but training your memory for fast retrieval of facts and associations is still highly valued. Therefore it is still important to train your memory to the extreme. You'll do something better if you do it more than once.

[amelius]

> Google itself prefers people who do well on whiteboard interview, which could be solved perfectly by some Google searches!

I don't see the problem if these problems can also be solved without relying exclusively on knowledge.

As an outsider, I'd say that Google's hiring strategy is pretty successful.

[polskibus]

Good luck passing the interview without thorough CS education, of which a lot is achieved through memorization and memory training. Your interviewer would never be patient enough to wait for you to figure things out in a couple of months.