Time spent working with stakeholders and building consensus takes away from the urgency and energy you can devote to good work
I don't see how I should square that statement with your next:
Don't work on software nobody cares about
How do you know what software people care about unless you spend time working with the stakeholders?
Think OKRs.
"Is the high level goal for this software critical."
If yes. Then, people will give the problem the full attention it deserves.
And once you have their full attention, you are more likely to get their cooperation to being actually productive.
If no.
You're going to have a bad time.
My experience is very similar to the article's. I just draw a very different set of conclusions.
For risk averse, cost constrained, low stakes projects.
Good engineering work is neither demanded or required..
My viewpoint is simple.
Don't work on software nobody cares about.
Work on software that's doing something genuinely important.
Then people will feel obliged to cut the meetings short and be more efficient.