It seems very unlikely that Sundar Pichai is stupid. The man is the CEO of Google. He holds many academic degrees including a Masters of Science from Stanford. At Wharton, where Pichai got his MBA, he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar.

This pedigree, along with his accomplishments in 13 years at Google, makes it hard to believe Pichai’s critical thinking skills or reading comprehension are poor. But that’s the only conclusion one can reasonably draw from his explanation for why he fired an engineer whose manifesto on diversity became public this week.