Companies too realize that the process is a highly imperfect proxy for overall developer capability. But it's also infinitely better from the company's perspec

Companies too realize that the process is a highly imperfect proxy for overall developer capability. But it's also infinitely better from the company's perspective than having no data whatsoever on each candidate's current capabilities. Combine this with the fact that false negatives (good programmers who perform poorly on 45-minute blackboard programming tests) are not a measurable problem for a company, and you end up with what we now have.