> For some 10 years, I had recommended 100 mainland Chinese students to the department and all accepted by the department. I am always indebt to the trust of my judgements by the department. Only very few of them misbehaved, bit the hands which fed them, none of them intended to murder their parents/friends, almost all of them performed well and became well-liked.
( Interestingly, every summary of the case in media and Wiki stops listing the evidence against him at his secretly taped confession to a girlfriend - confession that included some things absolutely not confirmed. The most convincing evidence to my eyes is the victim’s DNA in the blood found under the carpet and elsewhere there it has survived cleaning efforts. This is not mentioned anywhere except in the court recordings: https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/article/file-attac... . Kinda sad what is convincing these days ).
It's tragic how the relationship dynamics between Moh and Zhang almost resulted in the total write-off of Zhang and a loss of genius/talent, with nothing left but bitterness and animosity.
I'm glad Zhang was able to find success despite his initial setbacks and from what it seems like in his recent interviews also let go of his bitterness/resentment (holding something like that in your heart can only ever hold you back). And though the power dynamics here were clearly unequal, I don't think it's fair to blame Moh entirely for what happened at Purdue.
I think it's important to remember Moh is also human with all the complexity that comes along with that. In reading his published statement, even though there is no direct apology to Zhang, I sense that he does genuinely regret how things turned out.
Perhaps one day, Zhang and Moh will be able to meet again and resolve/rekindle their relationship.
In the earlier version I saw (I guess it consists of the non-bold parts), he didn't mention as much negative stuff about Zhang. His claim that Zhang "want to be famous all the time" I regard with suspicion.
All of these guys are probably a hundred times smarter than me or most of the other code monkeys working for the FANGMAN, but they're all squabbling over little 5-figure scraps of grant money.
Zhang evidently doesn't care about money at all. The same is true for many professonal mathematicians. Caring about money makes it difficult (not impossible) to do anything deep.
No murderers, great success!