One point I wish the author would elaborate on is the value a company gets by acquihiring a great designer. I haven't used Summly so I cannot measure the talent of a designer Yahoo gets. But it would be wrong to ignore the design by focusing on technology advancement in "glue vs thought" argument.

How much would a company pay to acquihiring Jonathan Ive or Philippe Stark?

The author may be right to question the designer's talent or by googling "I use Summly", but it seems rather shallow analysis.