This comment holds more truth than is evident.

The fact is, people who hire you don't actually want you to be better than them. This, I think, contributes largely to the criticism culture of programming.

Of course, many interviewers have good intentions. Unfortunately, malign developers (dare I say, jealous?) are prone to setting a trend for the type of questions that are asked.

I think some times it can be your co-workers. Write a script for the service team to automate some manual task, talk to QA about something they always have to manually setup - skunk work projects are a great way of delighting your co-workers.

I agree. This applies to the startup world as well. Ask someone who isn't in your target audience for feedback, and they'll say X and Y is bad. Ask someone who actually needs it, and they'll say they love it.