Agreed. The tell is the word "annoying" in this sentence: "Nor does Hsieh’s time at Harvard prove to be particularly illuminating: he, like many annoying undergraduates there, tested out his entrepreneurial chops in his dorm room". Only a member of a competing subgroup would use the word "annoying" like that. I'm surprised an editor didn't catch it. It gives away that the subtext here is inter-elite competition (media vs. tech, arts vs. business). The article is a stroke against one elite group (Hsieh and tech entrepreneurs) by another (the author on behalf of his New Yorker audience). You could write the same thing in reverse, bashing the author and questioning how he got in at the New Yorker, the same way he questions how Hsieh got his seed money. It's a deliciously nasty takedown and a perfectly chosen topic: equal parts envy and schadenfreude, and risk-free because the dude can no longer defend himself.

Arguably kinder as the dead won't be terribly bothered by it

It's a hit piece aimed at the journalism, scholarship, and marketing that elevates the results of random number generators into life principles and universal truths. The people who wrote fawning pieces about Hsieh, SBF, or the invasion of Iraq are still telling you how to think.

Hsieh was just a tragic addict/mentally ill person, a dime a dozen, only interesting because he was wealthy. There's no need to take him down. He's down.

It is a book review, not a hit piece.

Only the living suffer, some because of myths about entrepreneurs.

Most of the time it's a combination of luck, money and connections. After that money and PE cushion their flaws and errors unless they botch it big time.

Showing how his life ended up could help others from going down this path.