At the time, the ADA was harsh. He went to a lawyer when then sent a demand letter. This person was what some would call a 'professional plaintiff'. Laws in recent years have made that sort of thing more difficult, but the ADA still needs to be respected if you want to avoid headaches. Don't interview people in an non-accessible location.

But part of me does side with the guy. The startup wasn't wheelchair accessible. And they were small enough that making it accessible would have been very costly. Even if he had made it to the interview there was a good chance they might have passed him over because of his chair. That's the sort of discrimination that the ADA was meant to address. The startup should never have setup at that location.

Frankly, they had so many people crammed in that they were probably in violation of the fire code, another law that they don't teach you about at coding bootcamps.