My interpretation is that pg is using these terms as two things that the public thinks are very different (a la The Two Cultures, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

My interpretation is that pg is using these terms as two things that the public thinks are very different (a la The Two Cultures, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures) but deep down are quite similar, two faces of a coin, if you will. This is because both are makers. The reason he uses a painter as opposed to a writer, etc. is that he has studied painting. "When I finished grad school in computer science I went to art school to study painting. A lot of people seemed surprised that someone interested in computers would also be interested in painting. They seemed to think that hacking and painting were very different kinds of work—that hacking was cold, precise, and methodical, and that painting was the frenzied expression of some primal urge." There are many jobs, some that pay quite well, that don't make things, I think your two examples fall into this general category.