[eranation]

> So I made a demo and started showing my co-workers what it was and realized that some of them had never seen the Game of Life before.

So let me get this straight, there are Google software engineers, that passed all the 3 month interview process which some considered the toughest in the world, and they never have heard of conway's game of life.

this makes me feel a little better about myself now.

[brown9-2]

As a small counterpoint, when I interviewed at Google, one of the interviewers asked me how I might design an app to play the Game of Life, starting with simple cases and scaling up to boards with millions and millions of cells (so it was secretly about designing a distributed computation system, I think).

[minwcnt5]

I would bet that 95% of Google SWEs have heard of the Game of Life, but you can be an exceptionally good software engineer without that knowledge. It's usually considered recreational mathematics, which is a small or non-existent part of most core university CS curriculums, and not everyone in the field explores such topics outside of their formal work or studies.

Also, their interview process is usually not 3 months. Most engineers have a 45-minute phone interview or two, followed by a day of onsite interviews lasting 4-5 hours.

[BHSPitMonkey]

It's possible that not all of the co-workers he showed were engineers.

[kamaal]

'Knowing' algorithms is hardly great.

Most of them who cleared it might be kind of guys who read interview questions on programming forums every day and master the art of gaming interviews.

[smackfu]

The only reason I've heard of it is that they had the Martin Gardner essay collections at my library growing up.

[avbor]

I find it interesting that your metric of smart is whether or not someone has knowledge of the Game of Life.

[gurkendoktor]

I think this is less about IQ and more about culture. (And probably not even about looking down on other people.)

[brown9-2]

The comment makes no mention of the word "smart", just that Google's interview process is long and hard.

[astral303]

It's hinted at by saying that the author feels better about himself now (implied superiority). Whether the particular trait that he feels superior about is "smart" is left up to your imagination!

I heard about the game of life, but I couldn't tell you the rules or describe it exactly. I never bothered to look into it. Judge away!

[im3w1l]

My interpretation would be that he saw Google-employees as omniscient demigods, and now has a more realistic view.

[jonmwords]

Hehehe