Some good points here, but he should replace every instance of the word marketing with advertising because that's what he is really talking about. Back when google competited with many other search engines, the competition thought the best way to market search engines was with ads. Google was different, they understood the great soft engineering was and still is the best way to market a search engine.
Word of mouth happens when you understand people will talk about your software if you give them a real good reason to talk.