I think one issue is that interviews are often confused about whether they are checking credentials or checking for fit. That is, are they looking for people who will thrive in the environment, or are they checking that someone has the skills they say.
Google's interviews may well boil down to "prove you're smart enough to work here at this smart company with smart people like me. "
Other examples:
"Oversell yourself so you pressure yourself into high standards and thus end up working late often out of guilt"
"The job is easy but with a lot of specific untransferable domain knowleedge. Prove that you're a company man. "
"Most of us aren't sure what we are doing, but there's value in our companies general direction. Can you seek out help and thrive in such unknown conditions?"
These simplifications are actually for the most part "good" and is actually reflective of how the manager sees the world. Google is unique in that the direct manager doesn't have as much control, but the manager spirit is a belief in giving smart people freedom.
That gets you in, but your immediate manager may end up not believing in this. Michael O Churches story comes to mind. In some cases, the manager having no say in the process is bad as there isn't a good fit.
A manager who believes in treating people like slaves and people who want to be treated like slaves for a specified amount of money is actually a good fit. Someone who wants to be a cog but is given freedom is paralyzed by indecision and vice versa, the person is stifled.
It's hard to see this in the US because there's a strong bias for the free/smart paradigm and all companies have to outwardly present this shared value. In china though "i'm just a code monkey" is said a lot because despite having little to no say in hours worked or project assigned, software pays much mich hogher than other jobs. It's a deal they accept because there aren't any better ones. Or more specifically, because there are too many other people who will take the deal.
Only when a majority of people demand a base standard of life can you prevent a race to the bottom inflicted by employees themselves.
The key is to see through the game that companies arr required to play (at least in the us) and track down the exact team you want to be a part of, figure out the actual culture (having a taxonomy beforehand is useful) and then deciding if it's for you. (Given your BATNAs)
Because of this game, all marketing about being great places to work is BS because thats the ONLY thing they can say. I say mostly because the marketing is a result of a real cultural shift in realizing how to effectively manage knowledge workers.
So silicon valley does in fact have a more progressive attitude to management styles unlike the east coast which is more about play books, but it's fsr far less than what you would think. The majority of managers still subconsciously reject new team managment styles, and shitty interviews are a result of having preferred filters but NEEDING to dress them up in all sorts of covolution.