What he's referring to is subjective for sure, but for example, the Google Search page has lost a lot of UI-options for selecting different search limitations over the past few years.

One of the least subjectively dumb decisions that they pushed through, was to change the "+"-operator from making a word obligatory to searching for this word on Google+. This one, I suppose, would go under just straight-up arrogance.

In general, though, I would ascribe it to bigger companies having a higher percentage of graphics designers, as opposed to regular programmers working on the UI. And well, programmers will generally put more options and things into a UI than your average UI person. And if you like options and things, then the UI person's UI is subjectively worse.