I think the strategy of "monolith first" isn't a poor one, but it is a little humorous to see someone who makes part of their living helping companies break apart their monoliths advocate it.
I guess. My partner is currently starting a mushroom farm. She hopes one day it will be big enough to make use of a very large facility. Right now it isn't, though. Do you find the same humor in her real estate broker guiding her towards smaller properties initially even though if her business successfully grows the broker will make part of their living helping her move into a bigger location?
I get what you mean by saying it's humorous, but I think it's important that nobody easily dismiss what he says because of who he is.
A lot of what he's arguing against is cargo cult programming, and I think it's fair for anyone to argue against that. If your only explanation for why you chose one architecture or design pattern over the others (especially if that option introduces a lot of additional drawbacks) is "because that's just what you do", you need to stop and objectively evaluate what you're doing.
