I may be wrong, but based on the matroid reference I believe the inspiration for the example is a Quanta article about June Huh, who solved the Rota conjecture.
All the details in the parables section are strictly apocryphal, though there are only a small number of Quanta articles that this story is generalizing from.
From what I know of June Huh in particular he is working on exactly what he wants to be working on.
I may be wrong, but based on the matroid reference I believe the inspiration for the example is a Quanta article about June Huh, who solved the Rota conjecture.
All the details in the parables section are strictly apocryphal, though there are only a small number of Quanta articles that this story is generalizing from.
From what I know of June Huh in particular he is working on exactly what he wants to be working on.