He also has an excellent ability to make the complex and abstract seem simple and obvious. His talks are not bullet points of "how to program good" that you're supposed to check off as you code - they're deeper-but-general ideas that are supposed to simmer and percolate.

All the smartest people I know (far smarter than me) are constantly impressed by his talks - and discussing with them often makes me realise I've missed some bigger-picture concepts.

So my conclusion (in lieu of a chat over a beer with the person to dig deeper) is to assume that superficial dismissal of his talks mostly demonstrate a superficial understanding of the content.