The problem with these HN discussions is that they attract the good apples from both sides while the bad apples won't ever read and correct their practices by participating in these threads. We kind of put ourselves in a rather positive filter bubble here and that can skew our reality a bit.
I wish I've met more interviewers like you during my nightmarish 4 months of job hunting that just finished 1-2 weeks ago.
I'm actually a little shocked that this person whose job it is to interview and hire people seems to say that all these basic things like setting up for the interview, reading over the person's resume, and so on are /chores/. I mean, maybe they're not the most fun things I agree, but the approach seems way off, as if they're just trying to get it over with and check the boxes. Then they talk about defusing stressful situations multiple times, why? I get the feeling that they're creating a stressful environment for both sides.
Then the coding while watching part. That sounds just awful, I'm sorry. While this is part of your job within normal hours, the candidate is likely taking time off or doing it after hours (unless they're unemployed, but still). I don't know how you're actually "giving hints", but this just sounds really uptight and stressful. I'd wager you're really taking people out of their environment and setting them up for failure by doing this. Why is it a problem that they google the answer to your question? That doesn't strike me as wrong at all. Sounds like a good developer and I could see this going into a very healthy discussion about how they'd solve problems perhaps that weren't so obvious from googling.
I don't mean anything against the parent. Just adding my $0.02.
I just said it is difficult to do all of these well within 2h limit. This was to contrast with other people balking at longer interviews.
Also, if I ask the candidate a question or give a coding problem to solve I expect them to be intelligent enough to understand I don't want them to google the solution. Everybody knows what the interview is and what it is for.
If I wanted them to google the solution I would ask to perform the task at home EXCEPT I find giving the task to be done in own time unfair and unethical practice.
It is unethical because by spending no effort at all I am motivating potential candidates to spend huge amount of their own time to polish the solution as much as possible.
It is unfair because it does not let me to get to know the candidate at all. It promotes candidates who are willing to waste huge amount of their time.