I'm just going to pick one person to reply to at random since there seem to be half a dozen comments misunderstanding the same thing...
Yes, a person with all of those things can answer this question. So can a person who doesn't, which is the point. Answering this question correctly cannot identify people with these highly desirable and uncommon skill sets, so the expected result of using it as your only interview test is to hire the most common subset of people that can pass it.
On further reflection, I have another objection to this interview approach. I would never work for this company because it fails my personal red-flag test of the hiring process: "Do I want to work with the worst imaginable person who could pass this interview?"
Answering this question correctly cannot identify people with these highly desirable and uncommon skill sets, so the expected result of using it as your only interview test is to hire the most common subset of people that can pass it.
While it's true that if you simply look at the question as having a "correct" or "incorrect" answer then you'd be right. But this question most certainly can help identify someone who has those traits if those are what you're looking for. It is true, that there is a subjective quality to this question and it's a requirement that the interviewer be a skilled judge (where a simple technical quiz can be graded with a rubric).
And if an interviewee can not manage to cover those strengths in a length, open-ended discussion about their best work, it seems unlikely that any other specific questions would be any better.
My main concern with a question like this is that by focusing on the best things a candidate has done, it's harder to get an idea of how they might deal with less optimal situations.
On further reflection, I have another objection to this interview approach. I would never work for this company because it fails my personal red-flag test of the hiring process: "Do I want to work with the worst imaginable person who could pass this interview?"
This is another fallacy, as interviews with the vast majority of companies don't do "pass/fail," they sort a list and take the best fit.
Without exception, my experience of hiring in small companies has been that there isn't a "list" of plausible candidates, there's a series of interviews that go on for months, rejecting hundreds of candidates, until you finally find a good one. So I don't really buy into the "sort a list" idea. Maybe the companies I've worked for have all been unusually picky about hiring, it's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to work for a company that wasn't rejecting at this rate.
Maybe the companies I've worked for have all been unusually picky about hiring
...Or their initial screening heuristics are unusually bad and have to interview tons of candidates. Or maybe their recruiting process is really good at generating a high volume of sub-par applicants. Rejecting a lot of candidates after subjecting them (and current employees) to grueling interviews doesn't mean they're making good hiring decisions.
Yes, a person with all of those things can answer this question. So can a person who doesn't, which is the point. Answering this question correctly cannot identify people with these highly desirable and uncommon skill sets, so the expected result of using it as your only interview test is to hire the most common subset of people that can pass it.
On further reflection, I have another objection to this interview approach. I would never work for this company because it fails my personal red-flag test of the hiring process: "Do I want to work with the worst imaginable person who could pass this interview?"