George Hotz is a hot Internet celebrity that has basically accomplished nothing of value but has a large cult following. You can safely ignore.

(Famous for hacking the PS3–except he just took credit for a separate group’s work. And for making a self-driving car in his garage—except oh wait that didn’t happen either.)

You’re not wrong, but after all these years it’s fair to give benefit of the doubt - geohot may have grown as a person. The PS3 affair was incredibly disappointing.

Given the number of times he has been on the news for bombastic claims he doesn’t follow through on, I don’t think we need to guess. He hasn’t changed.

He was famous before the PS3 hack, he was the first person to unlock the original iPhone.

Yes, but it's worth mentioning that the break consisted of opening up the phone and soldering on a bypass for the carrier card locking logic. That certainly required some skills to do, but is not an attack Apple was defending against. This unlocking break didn't really lead to anything, and was unlike the later software unlocking methods that could be widely deployed.

Well he also found novel exploits in multiple later iPhone hardware/software models and implemented complete jailbreak applications.

What about comma.ai?

He promised Waymo.

What specifically is in comma.ai that makes it less technically impressive? Comma.ai looks like epic engineering to me. I haven't made any self driving cars.

Why do you think otherwise? Can you share specific details?

Comma.ai works really well. I use it every day in my car.

He took an “internship” at Twitter/X with the stated goal of removing the login wall, apparently failing to realize that the wall was a deliberate product decision, not a technical challenge. Now the X login wall is more intrusive than ever.