Many people can write brute force implementations. But while the meme is funny and great, it only shows a part of reality: sometimes you do have to optimize things. Just don't do it too early and only if there is a clear use case that requires the speed. Then you should be able to write fast code, or at least know which library to use that has a good implementation of the algorithm you need.

Some companies like GAFAM probably put too large focus onto algorithmic questions, but they can afford to lose otherwise good engineers who are bad at algorithmic questions. They need something to filter the masses of applicants they receive.