His only evidence of this so-called erosion of status is that anecdotally some non-technical folks got management jobs in tech companies and some journalists were ignorant about programming.

I'm sorry but I don't consider this to be a very compelling argument.

With this level of evidence it would be just as easy to argue that programmers today are given a higher status, and not looked down upon as geeky, despite the fact that it's easier than ever to learn about and become a programmer.