I agree with the conclusions drawn in the article, but not the premise. Source code is definitely not worthless. Two examples:
1) using source code to find security exploits
2) competitive machine learning algorithms
In the second case, imagine if a competitor had access to algorithms used in marketing for bidding on ads. You know what features it uses, what default values it uses, how it works, etc. You could do some damage with that knowledge
Hah, nice try, but no. Arguing that something is a liability if it fell into the wrong hands does not mean it is worthless or worth less than zero. It simply means it is worth protecting.
1) using source code to find security exploits
2) competitive machine learning algorithms
In the second case, imagine if a competitor had access to algorithms used in marketing for bidding on ads. You know what features it uses, what default values it uses, how it works, etc. You could do some damage with that knowledge