I’d also believe that he was able to ride his past reputation and his sponsor’s memory enough to get the commitment to ship Liquid Glass, but that gamble blew up once most reviews revolve around how they’ll probably make it less bad in an update. Apple values keeping users on current releases and this is the first one where so many experienced users and fans have been advising people to hold back. I think Dye knows he had enough capital to bull the release through but not to recover from making the story about the release about his shortcomings.