Once upon a time, I had an employer who was looking for a machine learning expert. I mean, we had a brilliant mathematician who was breaking serious ground in the field, but we needed an expert, apparently. We were having trouble drawing experts out of Silicon Valley, and our resident genius said "Hey, I satisfy all of the requirements for this job you've posted, and I'm already doing the work. Can you promote me from this crap software-dev role you stuck me in?" and the company's response was "No, it clearly states in the posting that you'd need a PhD in machine learning." We promptly lost our genius. If only TPTB knew that it was a meritocracy!
In short: article's claims sound fishy; your lived experience may vary.
In short: article's claims sound fishy; your lived experience may vary.