Anyone who has been on both sides of the hiring table would find this account of things implausible. First of all, running someone through a full interview cyc

Anyone who has been on both sides of the hiring table would find this account of things implausible. First of all, running someone through a full interview cycle is hideously expensive. Just by his own account, it seems like some 10 man hours of Uber's time was spent solely to usher just one person through this cycle. Secondly, the results of work samples are rarely of much value. Outsiders are missing key information and perspectives that affect the viability of their work samples. Even if genuinely good work did come out of one of these samples, the initial conception of the idea is only a starting point and the least valuable component. How the idea is executed and refined is far more important and it's usually far more prudent to hire the person interviewing to work on it than to save the money of going through with the charade. What's a far more likely explanation is that Uber learned over the course of the interviewing process that their requirements had changed and retooled towards a new approach. This happens all the time and isn't especially nefarious. Yes, Uber should have been more proactive in notifying prospective candidates about this but companies seem almost universally bad at communicating effectively through the hiring loop.