That's the first time I heard about someone rejecting the theoretical basis of compilers on a conspiratorial basis, are you sure that person was rejecting your suggestions out of literally disbelieving in the theory, and not, for example, doing it from the "this 10-line regex is better than any fancy parsing technique out there" angle?

It just seems weird to me for somebody to know what a "compiler" is yet refuse to believe the fundamentals. Compilers are pretty niche, there is no glory or mainstream pop science around them.