It’s all about the context. That’s a list of things that VCs want to see - their business mode is all about funding companies that have a decent shot to make a TONNE of money, reasonably quickly, so they can have a huge exit in the funds timeframe. If you want VC money, it’s reasonable advice to follow. But if you just wanna build an open source passion project, or even a bootstrapped business, it doesn’t apply.

I actually don’t see a conflict between that advice, which is aimed at people trying to start VC funded businesses, and what Linus did, which was an open source passion project that grew into something more.