To play devil's advocate, "which data structures to use for esoteric string manipulation problems, etc" is the kind of thing that interests me (and presumably s

To play devil's advocate, "which data structures to use for esoteric string manipulation problems, etc" is the kind of thing that interests me (and presumably some others) a lot. If I wanted to go for a FAANG interview I'd love to brush up on the algorithms and data structures stuff that fascinated me in college and I haven't had much cause to think about since. There are certainly other things I'd rather be doing, but it wouldn't at all be a miserable chore like you're describing. So maybe they're looking for people who think about these problems more like I do (and I'm not by any means saying I'd pass the Google interview) and less like you do. They have the pick of the litter after all. On the other hand, there's the well-known story of the Harvard MBA answering Orkut support tickets so Google probably doesn't need that level of talent. But if they can get it, why not?