Some baseline level of knowledge is always needed. It may or may not be the case that you have enough knowledge needed, as a beginner, for any given project.

For a simple website, it may be possible to just poke around in a tutorial and glean everything you need. For a complex web service or server process, maybe not.

Why advocate for this "learn no more than is necessary" position? People learn in different ways; none of them are right. And you wouldn't say that about calculus, would you?

The enthusiasm for minimizing formal, up-front learning coming out of the Peter Thiel school of thought strikes me as very short-sighted and suitable only for relatively simple projects. It is a reflection of SVs obsession with short-term profits.