Writing up a lengthy article about a person's accomplishments in a prestigious mainstream magazine, especially with a title calling them "mysterious," is definitely in the vein of hoisting the person up onto a pedestal.
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.