Actually, the author pretty much explicitly states that he's not one of those geniuses. "That still leaves open the possibility that I'm just freakin' brillian

Actually, the author pretty much explicitly states that he's not one of those geniuses. "That still leaves open the possibility that I'm just freakin' brilliant, I could have (and would have) produced the same results in any old programming language. But there is actual data to refute that theory." However, instead of invalidating his argument, he uses this to illustrate why Lisp is largely responsible for his success and why you don't have to be a genius to be attracted to Lisp or to benefit from using it.