For a pro player who excels at cash games, when at the
wsop if they take flips or even marginally -EV situations early in a tournament, it could help improve their overall hourly rate. This is because after they bust out of the tournament, they get to go play some juicy cash games (where their hourly rate is probably higher than playing in a multi-day tournament anyways).
There's also a school of thought where having a larger stack early on allows you to make the most out of your
hands later. Compare player A who is quite tight. He'll hover around his starting stack for most of the first day of a major tournament, perhaps doubling up once or twice if they get a good run of cards. Going into day two they'll probably have around 60-120% of the average chipcount. Player B is loose and aggro. He'll bust out fairly often, but will often finish the first day with 100-300% of the average chipstack.
Now let's say player A and B are at the same table at the start of day 2, and there's also some donks with large stacks. Player A will keep playing his tight game and maybe double up from 15k to 30k chips. Player B will keep playing loose/aggro, and if a donk doubles him up, now he's gone from say 50k chips to 100k.
Now that I've written it, I think shawn deeb is probably talking about this second scenario. By taking some gambles (even somewhat bad ones) to get more chips early, it could pay big dividends in future hands just based on the fact that you'll have the other bad opponents covered more often. Playing loose/seemingly bad will also generate more action, which is where changing gears can come into play and be very profitable.