Well in an interview I guess something like "Of course we shouldn't allow C-strings in general outside of syscalls and argv, but for the purpose of the exercise...." And now you've shown that you know what you're talking about and that you won't be difficult to work with.

/* YOLO */

while (*to++ = *from++) ;

Thought the same. Reckless today, literally standard back then.

Hey, in 2026 strcpy is still part of the C standard library (much to the chagrin of anyone security conscious).