In fact, I would see Google hiring the leaders of open source projects in order to influence the direction the project takes as a problem. Sponsoring an open source project is brilliant, and Google are great at that, but buying influence over it is completely different and (potentially) an issue that would lead to people forking the project.
While I understand that interviews are sometimes necessary to evaluate a candidate, it seems completely out of touch for Google to pass on an applicant with such an impressive background.
Not only that, but heaven knows that it takes a lot of dedication and leadership to lead an open source project from ideation to wide-spread use. If I were a startup founder, I would kill to get someone like him on my team.
To be honest, it kind of makes me wonder about the kind of code Google has, if this is a measure of a good coder. Are low level algorithms haphazardly re-implemented in python everywhere there is a need for one?
I've seen lots of code like that before. I was very unimpressed.
I think people were making fun of Google, because it is a caricature of their whole interview process.
If a large number of your engineers is using Homebrew, having its developer is an asset for many different reasons (e.g. influencing the focus of the project, getting formulae in that interest you, or simply improving a tool that is important to your productivity). But no, they reject him because he cannot invert a binary tree.
It's like throwing one of the better offenders out of your soccer team, because he cannot substitute as a goalkeeper.