More importantly, excellent software engineers know the difference between real hard-to-duplicate innovation vs. easy-to-duplicate so-called "innovation".
I have talked to a number of people in the University of Washington's graduate program for statistics (typically rated #1/#2 in the world) and the consensus is that people almost always overestimate how well they understand statistics.
It is probably just rhetoric, but I don't like he claims that he still doesn't know anything about statistics. Should we be educated by someone who has confidence that he can demonstrate his knowledge? I expect just more confusion with that start.
Good article but that enormous sidebar is obnoxious...