No one in the business is measuring his knowledge through his reputation directly, people admire him because he's smart, to the point, quick to admit he's wrong

No one in the business is measuring his knowledge through his reputation directly, people admire him because he's smart, to the point, quick to admit he's wrong, genuinely helps a lot of people and has in addition to SO wrote a very successful book and several useful libraries. That's hard to convey in the BBC though. That said, I do know some recruiters send cold-emails based on SO reputation - but that's just ridiculous on their end.