I didn't read it as a stab at nerds or young programmers but more like an advice that domain knowledge still is important beyond pure programming skills. Maybe the comment was formulated a littel bit over tthe top, but well, I'm doing that quite regularly.

I completely agree that the world is running on software right now, but the world isn't software ITSELF (well, not yet).

On the other hand, people being cracks in there field claiming that there field is the only one that counts are just arrogant. No mater if they a programmers, accountants, mech. engineers, doctors, car mechanics or what not. And yes, software written by people without the slightest idea of the purpose of said software tends to be not so good.