I've known Matt for so many years, and I've always appreciated how non-Google he acted in with the SEO community and searchies in general. He was/is a kindred spirit, a search nerd like us who truly relished exciting announcements like seeing humans move from 1-word queries to 3-word query averages (this was really a big deal back in the early 00s). He was as transparent as he could be, and he gave us a human face for the algorithm we loved/hated. He was supportive of our work at SEMPO as we grew awareness of the industry worldwide.
Because of Matt's work webmasters became smarter people and better webmasters, marketers remembered that the user comes first, and all sorts of hat-wearing SEOs found his integrity irresistible. I wish we could have cloned him before he left! But I wish him well in everything he does next.