Is it being non comp-sci that automatically invalidates proper usage of your actual name? Or is there another key by which their names are less worth?
They are also both fairly established in their respective fields - which - yes - isn’t hard comp-sci, but if you think tech companies should have purely comp sci board leads, I’d call that incredibly naive.
They were also presumably vetted by the other board members - unless you think they are serving a different purpose on the board (diversity targets?) - which if so - puts the comment from red flag into mysoginist territory.
Personally I don’t see anything in their CV’s that would disqualify them from executing their function on the board, and I wouldn’t call them incompetent in being able to assess whether a person lied or not (which even in your theory - Sam would’ve done). You don’t need to be an ML/AI expert for that.
The point was fairly clear even if he just uses their names, the usage of quotes if quite bizarre.
If he wanted to get that point across he should have called them “board members” which is a clear insinuation of puppetry.
Given the coherence of their post, I’d say they knew _exactly_ how they were using those quotes.