Yeah, I believe he was one of the six people, with pseudonym John Dobbertin, that participated in zcash ''trusted setup'' ceremony.
He said nobody paid him to be a part of this ceremony, but they did pay other people to participate.... all this is a shitshow because they had to make one more ceremony two years later to upgrade, and they will probably have more ''upgrades'' in future
Now even if zcash is to become without this trusted setup they will always have this suspicious shady history and it's never going to be widely accepted.
Bitcoin on the other hand never did such shenanigans, so privacy changes would be easier for people to accept.