It kinda sounds like he’s kidding, but no — that’s what it takes.
And because these exist in the front-end and open-source space, the ability for organizations to “make it” is tough. You likely need the VC (or a corporate overlord) to have the resources to do all this, but how do you make a business out of it that will satisfy VC?
The path is so much more straightforward for a back-end service. We’ve got your data and we do helpful stuff with it on our servers, so pay us.
There are exceptions. A JavaScript “framework” like Alpine.js only runs in the browser and has very little of Dave’s list but only tackles a small problem space. Vue is the real unicorn — loads of sponsorship, and user love to accomplish everything on the list and give it plenty of momentum. You can’t just make a new Vue, though. Like any successful anything, if the path to success were easy, simple, and obvious, everyone would do it.