Part of this was hubris. The thought of someone I considered less capable than myself accomplishing something I felt I could not damaged my ego. This was humbling.
Part of this was experience. The experience to know that attempting the hard or impossible is sometimes worth the effort, whether you succeed or not. This was educational.
Part of this was ambition. Ambition to do something new, to ignore the naysayers and noways when needed, and forge your own path, which I've always felt short on, but have steadily worked on over time. This is ongoing.
I do remember being about 19 and thinking I was the best programmer in the world. By about 22 I had rewritten as much of my old code as I possibly could because it was so horrible. Somewhere between there and now I've gotten a cynical bit of humility to tamper my ego. I think the cynical part is that my ambition has not lessened, just my belief that I can succeed.
One Steve Jobs philosophy is focus and say no. I'm guessing I could do better if I said no to all but a single project.
But also now that I am in my 30s, and they are as well, we frequently look back at that time and laugh about being that young. "Man, you were fun to work with, but also what were we thinking"
So I definitely wish Hotz all the luck. If nothing else, the more smart people working on the problem of self driving cars, the better.
My comment mostly stemmed from amusement of his quotes.