Theres a subplot in ‘Before the Storm’ having to deal with Grizzek and Saffy. Without being spoilery, I can say that they both studied Azerite quite a bit, and Gallywix* burned his bridges with them.
I was surprised to find that even knowing the major plot points of the book, that it was still a great read. There are a few lines of prose that echo things we hear in cinematics and (especially with hindsight) its interesting.
Anyway, for the curious, here’s what they said about Grizzek and the Horde when they first introduced his character (After some prose about how he led a different sort of life in Kazan, and didn’t really care for the autumnal colors of Azshara but then the goblins screwed the land up even more).
"And all those other races in the Horde; they just didn’t seem to understand the goblin mentality. The “deaders”, as he thought of the Forsaken, gave him the creeps, and the only thing they seemed to enjoy tinkering with was poisons. The orcs thought they were better then everyone else, “Original Horde” and all that claptrap. The tauren were too in love with the land to make any reasonable person comfortable, and the whole thing the trolls had going on with the loa scared the crap out of him. Pandaren were just too…well…nice. He’d met a blood elf or two he could share a beer with, but the race as a whole was way too pretty, and they liked pretty things, and goblins and thier culture most definitely did not qualify as pretty things.
"but the very worst part of joining the Horde was that the union had elevated Jastor Gallywix from a simple slimy trade prince to the powerful slimy leader of an entire Horde faction. And then one day, quite suddenly, as if a switched had been flipped, Grizzek had had enough.
"He had taken everything he owned–all of his laboratory knick-knacks, books filled with years of painstakingly detailed notes on experiments, and a small warehouse full of supplies–and moved here, to a deserted beach in Tanaris.
“Working alone in the sweltering sun, which turned his pale yellow-green skin to a rich forest-emerald hue, he had constructed a small, modest domicile and a not so small, not very modest laboratory. Grizzek found that he florished in solitude and sunlight. He rose in the late afternoon, went for a swim, and broke his fast, then headed in to work during the cooler evening and night hours. Over the years, he’d constructed a bristling defense system composed of robots, alarms, whistles, and other warning devices.”
Oh and also he likes Gazlowe and thinks he represents some of the best of what goblins can be like. He thinks about that way later.
*Edited to fix a name I got wrong