The context of that quote had nothing to do with what this article is about.

I really don't care, because it's important enough to repeat in any discussion about rebuilding the Web. Involve some real systems people. Design a real app platform, with multi-language support, especially compiled languages. Have a cohesive end to end development story.

If current web stacks aren't bloated and over-engineered, then I don't know what would qualify.

Imagine it would get even worse ;-)

It’d be nice if there was a possibility of real competition at the basic platform level. The browser model is so entrenched, yet it still amazes me that we’ve been stuck with it for two decades.

Life was done by amateurs - Charles Darwin