The best way to get your point across is by starting with ad-hominem attacks to assert your superior intelligence.
> You don't get to play the "ad hominem" card while calling them names
The entire article explains it at length why there's the impression, it's not ad-hominem.
Not long after they designed and implemented protobuffers, they shared the ACM prize in computing, as well as many other similar honors. And the honors keep stacking up.
None of this means that protobufs are perfect (or even good), but it does mean they weren't amateurs when they did it.