Hearing a traditional Odersky drone about how the latest language feature his lab has built into Scala just happens to be exactly the tool everyone has been missing from their AI agents somehow establishes a bridge across these crazy last few years.
I think it's less that Odersky sold out but rather that the original company vision wasn't economically viable and that business leadership has pivoted it away from him and his work. He's not even on the leadership page anymore.