Avoid things that cost you right now and have only a small chance of providing a return later - I would argue that, despite hindsight being 20/20, both projects

Avoid things that cost you right now and have only a small chance of providing a return later - I would argue that, despite hindsight being 20/20, both projects had a small chance of success. Sure, they did get notoriety for them, and that was good. Oh, and Linus got money from Red Hat and VA Linux because they were grateful. I'd argue that they weren't optimizing for personal growth there, either.