I thought this was only an old urban legend; some people actually use this technique? Especially in a trade supposed to be led by people trained in sciences?
It's OK! We can disguise it as the Secretary Problem and it'll be fine, we could even write a post on the company blog about it. /s
Given how often it's been mentioned here, it's likely that this is an urban legend that people are pretending to have first-hand knowledge of for karma. In a trade that's supposed to be led by people trained in sciences, no less!
(A more charitable interpretation would be that aforementioned CTO was making a joke that didn't land.)