"the amount of overhead and red tape (grant proposals, teaching, committee work, etc.) you have to do apart from the interesting technical work severely limits your ability to actually [have a practical impact via your research.]"
Teaching is part of the overhead if your goal is to do research, or in his case more precisely to build great systems. A lot of professors feel that way.
To Matt's credit, by all accounts he put plenty of effort into his classes and they were excellent, even though it wasn't what he really most wanted to do. But other professors who feel that way and, I suppose, have a weaker sense of duty end up as the bad teachers that students hate, because they just don't care.
"the amount of overhead and red tape (grant proposals, teaching, committee work, etc.) you have to do apart from the interesting technical work severely limits your ability to actually [have a practical impact via your research.]"
Teaching is part of the overhead if your goal is to do research, or in his case more precisely to build great systems. A lot of professors feel that way.
To Matt's credit, by all accounts he put plenty of effort into his classes and they were excellent, even though it wasn't what he really most wanted to do. But other professors who feel that way and, I suppose, have a weaker sense of duty end up as the bad teachers that students hate, because they just don't care.