I don't know about that but I can report that Skeet went to Cambridge University, which tends to produce a chunk of the UK's governing elite.

The unfortunate thing is that in the UK, as elsewhere, programmers and technical people are generally regarded as socially inept boffins who don't quite "get" the way society works. Recognition of this goes back to C.P. Snow's Two Cultures from the 50s.

So being hailed by the BBC as the world's greatest programmer is a mixed honour. It comes with an implicit dose of condescension.