By buildings small things, you will find ideas for bigger things that people actually need.

Yes, and by building small things, you can more easily try out different techniques and tools with less risk than doing the same with something big.

I think it's optimizing for learning versus revenue, which don't have to be mutually exclusive. Sometimes you need to start with one to get to the other.

When MicroSoft BASIC came out, you couldn't see Windows, Azure, or even Word. But there was a path to here from there.

So build small things to get to big things? (I guess you can decide at that point)? This maybe successful as a strategy to find "big" ideas ...