If he really did read the papers then it's clear he would not say this. The papers aren't an end. They describe incremental progress. Having just returned from NIPS where most of the researchers are saying "We don't know" all the time, it is ironic.

Precisely. We have some stuff that works and we don't know why.

People in their twenties wrote those papers.

The math in any of the paper's he's most likely referring to aren't some theoretical pde maths or abstract algebraic geometry stuff... it's pretty understandable if you can grasp a "graduate level" linear algebra course.

That's true. My point was to respond to the breathless reporting about that this guy has achieved so young. He's replicating the work of other mostly young people. Doing it the first time is the trick.

(I'm very familiar with this literature - see my username)