I've interviewed with Google twice, and both times I was so unhappy with the experiences I declined the offers. Many friends work at Google and are happy, so this seems like an instance of getting unlucky with the loops... but don't dismiss off the cuff.
The very first question I got in fall 2010 on a phone interview was "How many ping pong balls fit within a school bus?" The second question was "When would you use a virtual destructor in C++?" without C++ being on resume or confirming if I had any experience with it. I used C++ many years ago and could reason through, but I did walk away thinking how unfair the interviewer was. There were other small instances that led me to say no.
Then in fall 2011 at the Googleplex, my first question was "I'm XYZ and I worked on Google+. That's all you need to know about me. Why am I interviewing you?" It was pretty condescending, and if that was based on my resume then shame on me. If this had been at a bar I would have responded more colorfully, but during an interview all you can do is be polite and answer the question.
While I fully believe most of Google tries to be fair and reasonable during interviews, I've had two experiences where individuals were not. YMMV.
P.S. The bit-wise question sounds like the interviewer asking why UTF-8 is preferred over UTF-16 or something and how you would detect which encoding was used. Regardless of what language you know you should be able to answer this as it affects everyone on the web. At least, that's going to be my new question for interviewing people :)
I find questions like the ping pong ball question rather trying, but I guess there's a long precedent for it. My understanding is that you're supposed to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation that gets you within an order of magnitude or so of the correct answer.
One problem with questions like this is that unless you know that you're supposed to just do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, they can leave you completely flabbergasted, as the questions sound as if they are asking for an accurate answer, which you'd have no reasonable way of determining.
Also, for me, asking me to do any math at all while someone is staring over my shoulder, or what have you, is going to cause me to make mistakes like sqrt(36) == 9, and I have a degree from MIT. Consequently, I hate this style of interview with a passion.
Regarding your experience with the condescending interviewer: I had a similar experience in my last job-interviewing round, and got really pissed, but tried to stay polite and answer the question. This doesn't work though: I spent the whole time distracted, with my mind considering the paradox of a founder having such behavior, and that I'd be using the guy as a mentor. The result: I underperformed on the problem, and got walked out, leaving me feeling like the fool. My new rule (and this goes for general life too): I call people's bad behavior, but not in a judgmental way, but rather to avoid adding a negative dynamic as a kernel to the relationsihp (e.g., in a meeting, I speak up if someone could interpret something poorly, to clarify it, because otherwise some subset of the people will be passive agressive and fume and suffer a downward spiral, rather than speak up themselves). I would have felt so much better about myself if, during that interview, I had said, "You know, this isn't going to work; there is no point spending your time on me anymore." And then walked out.
Then in fall 2011 at the Googleplex, my first question was "I'm XYZ and I worked on Google+. That's all you need to know about me. Why am I interviewing you?"
Out of curiosity, did the interviewer ever explain this odd introduction, or what he/she was trying to get at?
The very first question I got in fall 2010 on a phone interview was "How many ping pong balls fit within a school bus?" The second question was "When would you use a virtual destructor in C++?" without C++ being on resume or confirming if I had any experience with it. I used C++ many years ago and could reason through, but I did walk away thinking how unfair the interviewer was. There were other small instances that led me to say no.
Then in fall 2011 at the Googleplex, my first question was "I'm XYZ and I worked on Google+. That's all you need to know about me. Why am I interviewing you?" It was pretty condescending, and if that was based on my resume then shame on me. If this had been at a bar I would have responded more colorfully, but during an interview all you can do is be polite and answer the question.
While I fully believe most of Google tries to be fair and reasonable during interviews, I've had two experiences where individuals were not. YMMV.
P.S. The bit-wise question sounds like the interviewer asking why UTF-8 is preferred over UTF-16 or something and how you would detect which encoding was used. Regardless of what language you know you should be able to answer this as it affects everyone on the web. At least, that's going to be my new question for interviewing people :)