One thing that most people, including the OP, don't seem to understand is that the heavy process and rigid structuring of the FAANG interviews is to transform t

One thing that most people, including the OP, don't seem to understand is that the heavy process and rigid structuring of the FAANG interviews is to transform the "Optimal Stopping Problem" (aka the "Secretary Problem") from one of of ordinal evaluation to one of cardinal evaluation. Extracting a cardinal evaluation goes a long way towards solving the "Optimal Stopping Problem" more tractable and efficient.