"don't listen to your customers" means doing exactly the way you describe it in the second paragraph. It does not mean "don't pay attention to what your customers are doing".
Except I've had conversations where people don't do that. I've also seen blogs that say "build what you want, if it's great it will sell." That is BS.
It is very similar to the "Fail Fast" mantra. Yes, if you apply it correctly, you will build a better startup. If you apply it naively, you will do just that: fail quickly.
"Don't listen to your customers" seems to resonate with engineers in a weird way. I think it is a combination of ego and anti-social behavior.
