[olsonjeffery]

This seems to be the same for other uber-celebs who are posting on G+ (the only other person in his league of popularity who I read with any regularity would probably have to be Markus Perrson (aka @Notch), and it's the exact same thing for his posts.. although I also observe this on posts from Randall Munroe, Leo Laporte, etc).

When contrasted against twitter (which has the similar "pick who you want to follow" semantics), G+ has a more succinct ego-stroking mechanism for people who want to make their sycophancy more apparent (I kid, I kid.. sorta).

OTOH, I suppose, twitter has the retweet.