I cannot for the life of me figure out how people smart enough to work at a FAANG company would subject themselves to this kind of psychological dog and pony show. If I started a coding exercise in an interview, and the interviewer was sitting far away looking at a laptop screen and typing, I would literally just walk out of the building unprompted and go home. How are people able to twist their own self worth enough to actually feel _validated_ by that process? This seems like ritualistic fraternity hazing brought to bear on the professional workplace, with the stakes ratcheted up to 100.