[whoisburbansky]

It surprises me that more of the folks he interviewed didn't try to figure out the contours of the formal presentation of the problem by plugging in concrete examples; isn't that the default "brute force" attempt you'd expect from someone trying to work out problems like this? It's the same thing you'd expect from someone solving Leetcode problems; you don't attack the general case immediately unless you've memorized the problem before, you usually try to play around with concrete examples until you've got enough of a handle on it to try and code up something a little more general.

[solumos]

> I got a few vague and wordy excursions into things that are true and things that are false, but never the clear, straightforward answer. Not once.

Sounds like he made a point to shut down that line of reasoning.

[falseprofit]

What part of this quote gives you that impression?