> The initial reason why we have Leetcode today is that Google originally determined through their interview research that the smartest candidates were the ones who were best at algorithms. ... It’s funny that people have lost that intent and are now creating derivatives around that, ie thinking code reviews are a good replacement.

Have you considered that what's actually happened is people are finally realizing that they don't want to optimize for the characteristics that Google is optimizing for?

Setting aside the question of whether "smart"s are something that can be sought out without a more specific definition, the average business doesn't need "smart" programmers. They need programmers who are predictable, who reliably produce good-enough software, who communicate well in speech and in writing and who work well on a team. Algorithmic ability provides essentially zero signal for these capabilities, so it's not so much that people have lost the intent that they're realizing that the process they cargo culted isn't appropriate for their hiring needs.