For sure, I'm not arguing that some whiteboard interview questions aren't crazy, i realize there are. But also I'm not sure how common it is to have interview

For sure, I'm not arguing that some whiteboard interview questions aren't crazy, i realize there are. But also I'm not sure how common it is to have interview questions such as "delete a node from a balanced tree" where they actually expect you to get that right vs just see if you get the basic idea. I've never run into it. Perhaps many people on hackernews work in silicon valley and that is more common there.