alt Hacker NewsNot defending the guy, but he's possibly on the autistic spectrum, given he grinds solo on his projects for decades and stuff.
He may perceive his own appetite for programming as being linked to some form of autism. Because, well, computers are not people, so it's nice to avoid people.
Given that there is a proven gender discrepancy in the distribution of autistic disorders, it's not completely absurd to imagine that men could biologically be more attracted to working with computers than women.
Without wanting to go too far out of my depth, I have read a few times now that a lot of the perceived growth in autism rates could be attributed to our society pushing people into adopting behaviors previously attributed to "actual" autism. Spending time on the computer as a kid (playing video games, etc.) is still mostly a boy activity, because of societal reasons, and can certainly lead to adopting these behaviors later in life in some cases (not making any value judgment here). I would be willing to bet that, had programming stayed a women-dominated position, we'd have more women than men on the spectrum today.