Context is important here I think. This is part of a series of posts containing career advice for mathematicians at various stages ([1]), and not life advice in general. So I don't believe Tao was addressing cases like Torvalds etc.
This post appears in the "Graduate level" section. At this point many open problems become accessible, while at the same time many grad students (emerging from being a big fish in a little pond) are looking to make a name for themselves. So a common trap is for people at this point to obsess over famous problems, to the exclusion of tackling less exciting but more tractable problems, and Tao is warning against this.
This post appears in the "Graduate level" section. At this point many open problems become accessible, while at the same time many grad students (emerging from being a big fish in a little pond) are looking to make a name for themselves. So a common trap is for people at this point to obsess over famous problems, to the exclusion of tackling less exciting but more tractable problems, and Tao is warning against this.
[1] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/