> where people were trying to coast in on the reputation of their university or by getting an “internship” from their dad’s friend’s company

Critics of the tech interview are certainly not against the merit-based selection --- it's more like the 1.5x engineers fear that the standardised interviews are being abused to allow 1x engineers who are "just-in-for-the-money" to appear as 2x, making their lives harder.

Meanwhile, 10x engineers probably are not bothered by this at all since 2x isn't enough of a threat.