If you read the full post he’s making the exact same point as you: it’s common and normal to get a paper rejected even if you’re Terence Tao, so don’t treat a rejection like the end of the world.
I think it's important to post a follow-up comment clarifying that papers are reviewed following a double blind peer review process. So who the author is shouldn't be a factor.
Also, the author clarified that the paper was rejected on the grounds that the reviewer felt the topic wasn't a good fit for the journal. This has nothing to do with the quality of the paper, but uploading editorial guidelines on the subject. Trying to file a document in a wrong section and being gently nudged to file under another section hardly matches the definition of a rejection that leads authors to question their life choices.
Oh?
Perelman comes to mind (as the only person who has been eligible to claim one of the Millennium prizes), although he is no longer actively practicing math AFAIK. Of Abel prize winners, Wiles proved Fermat's last theorem, and Szemeredi has a number of number-theoretic and combinatorial contributions.
Recently deceased (past ~10 years) include figures such as John Nash, Grothendieck, and Conway.
Tao is definitely one of the most well-known mathematicians, and he's still got several more decades of accomplishments ahead of him, but I don't know that he rises to "greatest living mathematician" at this point.
That said, I do appreciate that he indicates that even his papers get rejected from time to time.
I didn't know :-)
> If you read the full post he’s making the exact same point as you
Oh yeah, that's because I did read the full post and was summarizing. I should have made this clear.