Disrespectful? So what -- Joel's comments sound accurate, particularly after reading the letter. The phrase "architecture astronaut" ran through my head over

Disrespectful? So what -- Joel's comments sound accurate, particularly after reading the letter. The phrase "architecture astronaut" ran through my head over and over while reading the email. Along with arrogant ass. In particular, this line: "I was a world class expert in graph theory, analysis of algorithms, sparse matrix algorithms for linear systems, numerical analysis, and non-linear multi-variate time series analyis before arriving at Microsoft to write language compilers." Any one of the set {graph theory, algorithm analysis, numerical analysis, linear systems, and non-linear multivariate ts} is a full PhD and a full life on its own. Nobody is an expert in all 5. Frankly, he sounds like the sort of person startups in particular should stay as far away from as humanly possible. I worked for someone like this at my last startup and he was a cancer. But he could hold endless meetings, drop jargon like a master, demean fellow employees, and act as a general barrier to accomplishing useful work.