My guess is that he's referring to startups, not monstrous companies like Google.

I think the reason you whiteboard for google interviews because you will necessarily be a cog in a wheel, and the focus of the cog is to code.

At smaller companies / startups, you will potentially be expected to design, architect, gather requirements, code, etc.

I have worked at companies that don't expect candidates to code during interviews, and I have worked at companies that do. I was personally acquainted with programmers who couldn't write working code at the former, and I have never heard of a programmer who couldn't write working code at the latter. I'm sure this perfect correlation anecdote fails to generalize to all workplaces, but I would not accept a job at a company that hires by bs-session again.

See also: FizzBuzz

Sorry, I think google is incompetently run. That they whiteboard, and want prestigious degrees, and all that other BS is just a smell of their incompetence. (Their performance in key technical areas is the proof... but I understand to most readers here they are probably starry eyed about google, while I've competed with them and kicked their ass in the market.)

Google stopped caring about degrees a few years ago.

(Interviewing is still somewhat silly.)