There are questions that are actually fun and I can sort of see them starting a conversation with the right kind of interviewer that tells both parties a lot about who they're dealing with. From the article:
> How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?
Basic economics estimating - probably not that useful and a bit dull, but hey why not. At least the problem has several angles to it that might be fun to explore.
> Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco
That's a nice one. Kind of open-ended, a lot of things to consider, a lot of ideas to be had.
> How many times a day does a clock’s hands overlap?
Why? What happens to the interview after you counted them (possibly on a whiteboard)? It's a dead end and the question is dull.
> A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?
Now this has the potential to be great or absolutely horrible, depending on the intent behind the question and the nature of the interviewer. If it's taken as a "fill in the blanks" kind of challenge it would be a fun way to explore the candidate's imagination. But I'm guessing it's not. It's probably one of those "clever" questions that have only one "right" answer that makes no real sense except creating a few moments of uncomfortable silence.
> You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so
> as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender.
> The blades will
Again, this could be a fun physics and chemistry question and I see a couple of possible solutions that might or might not work out - might be fun exploring them. But again, it
sounds more like a trick question with one standardized answer. Bad.
The problem with trick questions and standardized answers is that the nature of the question makes the candidate uneasy and even if they eventually figure it out, nobody will have learned anything during the process. It's more like a hazing, not a hiring interview.