My point is that there is little empirical basis for these criticisms. In the absence of this, what basis do I have to trust this author's intuition? His experience running enterprises like Google? His experience managing some of the brightest engineers in the world? Or his experience chasing an ephemeral position on Techmeme?

I think it's implied the article author has to deal with a much simpler analysis than whatever is needed to manage Google. It's therefore implied the article is based on faulty/incomplete information.

Agree vix.