That is what I meant. By mining in secret before publishing the genesis block, he could later post a longer blockchain and invalidate all transactions up to that point, even those in the second block.
It is equivalent to a 51% attack, but limited to the first few weeks or months. (An entity with 51% of the total hashrate could pull the same trick starting at any block, since it could grow an alternative blockhain from that block faster than the rest of the network, and then their doctored chain would prevail on the legitimate one.)
Without the headline in the genesis block, the other collaborators would have to trust him -- namely, that he cared more about an experiment (that he just started) than about a pizza. But the whole point of bitcoin is that one is supposed to trust the system without having to trust any authority, including Satoshi.
The problem in this statement is that you dare to dispute the godlike status of Satoshi.
How dare you.
And even if you were right, the earthlings community would figure a way around this problem if it would pop up.