I think what he means is if you just stay withing doing simple CRUD. I think the vast majority of programmers do CRUD or slap GUIs on other people's code as a

I think what he means is if you just stay withing doing simple CRUD. I think the vast majority of programmers do CRUD or slap GUIs on other people's code as a way to start (I know there are exceptions, but they are exceptions). What differentiates those that grow from those that don't is whether they go deeper or just keep doing more CRUD and more GUIs on other people's deeper code.