Google quietly retired one of its most notorious interview rituals after realising it did little more than flatter its own staff, according to the company's former head of human resources. The tech giant, long famed for asking brainteasers in job interviews at its California headquarters and beyond, once used a logic puzzle known as the 'prisoner hat' riddle and reportedly would not hire candidates who failed to crack it.
TikTok creator and maths educator Tanya Zakowich, who posts as @pinkpencilmath, resurfaced the riddle in a recent video, telling her followers it was a 'super classic' puzzle that used to feature in Google interviews. Her post revived an old debate about how Silicon Valley screens its talent and whether riddles ever truly predicted who would thrive inside the company.
