The irony here is that the person was in many parts responsible for creating XPCOM at Mozilla which was a major reason for the bloat, jumped ship to Apple/Safar

The irony here is that the person was in many parts responsible for creating XPCOM at Mozilla which was a major reason for the bloat, jumped ship to Apple/Safari at the early stages. I remember a rigorous article where he dissected Mozilla vs Webkit and explained by why the latter was superior (= less abstractions and no XPCOM). I wouldn't be surprised if that article was the basis for the decision to not go with Mozilla at Apple. Nothing to be held against him for sure, if you have been in this business for this long you are sure to have created stuff that you realize was not optimal. Particularly over-abstractions. Also I would not be surprised if it is that person they are talking about in the mail conversation.