I didn't get the narrative that the article was idolizing the subject, but rather talking about what he and his company are doing, which includes being a patent troll among other things.
With the term "sweatshop" in the title, it doesn't seem like the intent is to idolize this guy. The guy's banked some serious bucks. Whether he's done that in a savory or unsavory way is left up to the reader to decide.
Also I find it amusing that it's the "patent troll" part that turned out to be repulsive to you, but not the part about paying remote devs much less money than local devs.