There are links between Renaissance humanism and what is now called "humanities". The Humanists weren't just about the re-naissance of Greek and Roman works, but also about creating new ones. A lot of humanists were poets, painters, and writers -- fields often lumped in with "humanities". There was also a rebirth of what the Greeks called philosophy, which also included subjects that we'd call sociology (laws, ethics, forms of government, etc.) Sociology is also treated as adjacent to humanities.
Techies do need to learn that the easily-measurable aspects of a technology are not the only important ones. We use tech because it appeals to us as humans, using the yardstick of our perceptions of things. Humanities are easily dissed because they're hard to measure objectively, but that doesn't mean they're unimportant. Indeed, they may be more important precisely because we haven't (yet) learned them well enough to be simple.
I suspect many would be happy to do pass fail.
I found it telling when the interview was touching Florence and The Medici, that renaissance humanism (with its all-important aspect of rediscovering, republishing, and preserving antique text material) wasn't connected to the humanities topic. Maybe it was more of a Venice thing, but I saw it as a lost opportunity to learn more of Andreessen's opinion on preservation of our digital heritage (or lack thereof) seeing as he developed Netscape from Mosaic etc.