I wasn't making fun of him. I genuinely thought he was joking.
Can you explain why this concept is difficult for you to believe?
Because this is Hacker News and there's so few superstar supercomputer architects (Seymour Cray, Steve Chen, Daniel Hillis) that it should be possible to recite their life stories off the top of one's head.
I've never heard of Steve Chen or Daniel Hills and I've been involved for about 15 years.
It's absurd to expect everyone here to hold the same knowledge of the world as you.