I agree with you except for that last sentence—but in that anecdote he didn’t even know if the symbol he was pointing at was supposed to be a valve or a window.

I agree with you except for that last sentence—but in that anecdote he didn’t even know if the symbol he was pointing at was supposed to be a valve or a window. I think a much more likely explanation is just selection bias: if he’d asked “what happened if this valve gets stuck?” and they’d replied “oh, this pressure release over here will activate” the anecdote would have simply been too boring to make it into the book. Take the “best of” anecdotes from a busy lifetime and add a flair for storytelling and of course you’ll get an inflated view; the alternative would be a lot less likely to produce discussions on HN.