In my humble opinion, Mike Acton's talks are the best introduction, although he doesn't use the term "first principles", and they seem - at the surface - to be about game engines, but they are generalizable to everything.
"waste" a lot of time reinventing wheels (the lower level the better, ultimate example would be writing your own OS) and other stuff that has no practical outcome for your immediate problems.
Data Oriented Design (2014):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0ItVEVjHc
Solving the Right Problems (2017):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B00hV3wmMY