Max Howell created a distro, not a compiler, so that's not relevant to parent's comment. Howell said that he couldn't do core computer science things (like compilers, and NOT whiteboard trivia), that he was better at cobbling together scripts that solve user problems well. Maybe Google was wrong to pass him over, but if they were it wasn't because "they didn't care that he could write a compiler".
As Howell wrote: "I am often a dick, I am often difficult, I often don’t know computer science, but. BUT. I make really good things, maybe they aren't perfect, but people really like them".
My feeling is that your reply is excessively focused on the specific example of a compiler from the parent comment. Replies don't need to be specifically focused on compiler projects to be relevant to the general comment about how a side project like a compiler project could get someone hired.
My belief, which it seems you do not share, is that a project like homebrew is perfectly analogous to a project like a self-made compiler. They illustrate broader scale systems thinking, although the specific computer science fundamentals will be different for each of those two problems, the a system like homebrew likely also has to have more focus on deployment, user interface, and project management tasks (which, I would argue, makes it more relevant for most hiring situations).
I can't comment on whether Howell's self-deprecation was meant to be tongue-in-cheek criticism of Google or if he sincerely meant it, and of course those interpersonal reasons could have been at fault for a failed interview (although it doesn't seem that anyone disputes that it was actually just a straightforward result of some binary tree trivia).
No, the point is that compilers are a different sort of beast.
Writing a C compiler is not like other side-projects. It explicitly exercises a whole bunch of basic Computer Science skills, so if you can write a compiler, you obviously got a good grasp on those.
So, no, a project like homebrew is not perfectly analogous to a compiler. The hardest CS problem in there in my opinion is the dependency resolution, which can be a bitch, but it just doesn't have the breadth of problems that a compiler has.
As Howell wrote: "I am often a dick, I am often difficult, I often don’t know computer science, but. BUT. I make really good things, maybe they aren't perfect, but people really like them".