That's true, but the number of paperclips you'll produce if you only devote effort to things that directly produce paperclips is also very low.

It can be really difficult to strike that productive balance.

Somebody once said in light of this dilemma: Do things that don't scale.

This never meant: "It's fantastic if things don't scale". It means: "Trying to start by doing things that scale is probably bad". I mostly believe that.

I also believe that in order to bootstrap a viable system, start with system 1. The OP is partially sniping at people who creating all kinds of elaborate structures for systems 2-5, without attending to the first order of business, which is system 1. I've been guilty of this myself.

But it's easy to find dysfunctional organizations that focus almost exclusively on System 1, and it looks like grinding, hustle, "doing the thing", being stuck at CMM Level 1, and in my experience, it leads to burnout. So there has to be a balance.