He thinks it makes him look clever, or more likely subtlety wants people to think "wow, this guy thinks something is obvious when Matt Godbolt found it surprising".
This kind of question is entirely useless in an interview. It's just a random bit of trivia that either a potential hire happen to have come across, or happens to remember from math class.
This kind of question is entirely useless in an interview. It's just a random bit of trivia that either a potential hire happen to have come across, or happens to remember from math class.