The thing is, I don't think he was really being self-deprecating at all. If he were being self-deprecating, then after admitting to being mediocre, he wouldn't have spent the rest of the opening paragraph name-dropping extremely successful people who he claims read all his articles.

There were some reasonable ideas in there, but I didn't notice anything that hasn't been said before by many other people, and they probably said it using far fewer words, far more clearly, and with far, far fewer references to themselves.

I wasn't a fan of the implicit sexism betrayed by comments like "enjoy the sunset with your wife on occasion" and the reference to asking every girl on the street, either. The only link between anyone female and success in that entire article is a picture of a photogenic young lady holding hands with Larry Page.