I think that shows that the author may be a poor interviewer (at least on a first glance). It is the job of the interviewer to make the interviewee to feel at

I think that shows that the author may be a poor interviewer (at least on a first glance). It is the job of the interviewer to make the interviewee to feel at ease, and relaxed as much as possible. Some people get very nervous in interviews, and panic a bit, and some of them can be very good engineers. It seems the author's "surgically honing", is more of a "look at me, I know more than you do", ego stroking type of thing. Since I do interview people often (not google, but another top company on the valley), I make sure to make people at ease. When I was younger and stupid, my first instinct was to find the interviewee weakness and 'hone' on them. Looking back, that was plain stupid. It helped me make myself feel good than actually do any good to the process. I gained later on some insight on my behavior once I was on the other side. Since then I made sure to be really really fair and unbiased on the questions I ask. You need to find both strengths and weaknesses of a candidate, but make sure not to trigger a panic induced 'coder's block'. Otherwise you failed as a interviewer.