[iamflimflam1]

This is the correct answer. Microsoft used to ask things like "Why are manholes square" or "How many dentists are there in USA". For a while it got trendy to ask those sort of brainteasers in interviews (thankfully it didn't seem to stick).

It is very hard to change established processed - especially when the people doing the interviews have gone through the process.

They had to suffer, so why should the people after them get an easier ride?

[FirmwareBurner]

>They had to suffer, so why should the people after them get an easier ride?

People in the middle ages and WW1 had it pretty bad, why should people after them get an easier ride?

Because humanity progresses when we make things easier for the next generations instead to clinging to the 'crabs in a bucket' mentality of perpetuating the cycle of collective suffering and suckage.

[janosdebugs]

I hold a very controvertial take on the dentist question: this and similar questions select candidates who can come up with convincing lines that lack any basis in facts (i.e. bullshit). This seems to be a good foundation for a terrible engineering/company culture.