whats the difference w/r/t programming? in this case I'd argue the knowledge was the skill
It is very possible to be good at slinging code and bad at everything that is required to support deployed code.
Based on geohotz history, I wouldn’t be surprised if he falls in that bucket - hacking and algorithm skills are great but don’t lend themselves at all to building twitter. That’s why it is foolish to pretend like one guy is great or even good at everything.
The basic feature set he wanted to implement wouldn't have been very difficult for someone who is experienced with react, but I'm imagining there's lots of minor quirks with the "last mile" of details related to internationalization / localization and accessibility.