The problem is rewarding rote memorization in a whiteboard interview, at the expense of actual understanding, and ability to research the problem.
If the profession being discussed is "academic work in Computer Science", sure.
If it is "software development", those things absolutely are not really "table stakes".
If it is "software engineering", then I don't think there is broad consensus on what that profession even is, much less what table stakes in it are.
No, nor do I think he was he hired for the other thing I discussed, academic computer science. The post I was responding to made a general comment about "CS graduates" and "our profession"; I was responding to that. Whether that post itself was material to, or merely tangential to, the discussion of GvR's hiring at Microsoft is an argument that, while perhaps interesting to some, was not the focus or concern of my response.
I would have thought that if you actually needed people to perform under pressure, you would design your test explicitly around that, instead of using “comfort with the whiteboard” as a proxy...
Do you mean it should be used as an actual speed test?
Table stakes for what exactly?