I don't understand why anyone takes this person seriously. He fell ass-backwards into a prominent company, got demoted after proving incapable of being the CTO,

I don't understand why anyone takes this person seriously. He fell ass-backwards into a prominent company, got demoted after proving incapable of being the CTO, and then seemingly got promptly off-boarded after the acquisition and now just has a developer relations job. Not to denigrate that role, but it doesn't exactly confer authority for this to be the trajectory of your career.