My reaction was to the very first line of the piece.

"Swearing is a strong tool. It can be a particularly strong tool during presentations."

I get that Zach believes he is building a connection and empathy by using profanity. My argument is the same there as well. I personally believe that profanity doesn't work well as a tool for creating personal connections and empathy either.

There is a group of people that thinks: "Oh man! he used the f-word in his public talk. He's so passionate and edgy. I feel connected to his disregard for old-fashioned professionalism."

I would suspect the group of people that think along those lines is rather small. I would also suspect that even for those people that feel a connection, the net result of the use of that profanity in their overall take-away from the talk is a tiny positive.