I find myself agreeing with the author, surprising myself. I guess I have for a while but never articulated it.
I used to be big on the "move fast and break things" mantra. The world was ossified, so the narrative went, full of incumbents fortifying their positions with regulatory capture, and we needed a disruption, a fire to burn the brush so fresh undergrowth could spring through. They broke things with the promise of a better world and now the things are all still broken. They never got around to the building a better world part. Turns out that undergrowth was parasitic vines waiting for an opportunity to strangle the forest.
I hold it true
whate’er befall
I feel it most
for sorrow’s sake
Tis better to
move fast and break
Than never to have
moved at all
…after Tennyson
I enjoyed the article but I think it’s a bit too provocative of the author to distill it all down to “move slow and fix things”.
If anything, the lean nature of a bootstrapped, slow growth, mom-and-pop software business puts even more emphasis on the ethos of moving fast (or quickly if you prefer): it’s always best to make progress, even if things break, as long as you fix anything you break along the way.
I think the author was talking "slow" in terms of making deliberate and calculated features with long term support in mind, preserving the cohesion and integrity of what you are building.
Compared to "fast" from big tech who have 10 divisions trying hectically to invent the next big thing that can make their bosses' stakeholders rich.
I don't mind making quick decisions, but the execution should be deliberate. One of the best things of working for myself is that all-hands meetings are pretty short. I have an idea, I ask a few friends about their opinion; then, I set to work - it's simple.
But what I don't do is wreak havoc along the way. For I know, that the time to fix what I might break never comes.
Moving fast works well if you don’t know exactly what you’d be doing tomorrow. It’s an effective strategy of experimentation, regardless of VC money supporting it.
What's the advantages of moving slow and fix things? The author mentioned he moved slow for his existing open source projects and non-profits over 15 years. Why not distil some lessons about what moving slow means and what life experiences he went through to put forth this perspective...
Half of it was just ranting about vc culture and Paul Graham...
The hustle culture the author mentions reminds me of my time in big tech. It was an endless search to unlock growth for the sake of career progression, monetary gain, corporate infighting, etc.
I believe there exists an alternate approach which appeals a lot more to me. That is a slower pace of fewer but more polished capabilities. Refining a tool instead of expanding it. Appreciating what’s there instead of chasing something that’s not.
Many products deserve to be “done”. But that’s rarely the case in high tech and I’m not sure most people could answer the 5 whys of why it’s not “done”.
More thoughtful design? Not incurring technical debt?
If it isn't broken don't fix it is not an inherently bad way of operating despite what Big Tech would have you believe. Move fast and break things has for at least the last decade been accompanied by the hidden rejoinder of "and I'll fix the problem I created by breaking things, but only sort of, in a way that financially benefits me and fucks everyone else".
I used to be big on the "move fast and break things" mantra. The world was ossified, so the narrative went, full of incumbents fortifying their positions with regulatory capture, and we needed a disruption, a fire to burn the brush so fresh undergrowth could spring through. They broke things with the promise of a better world and now the things are all still broken. They never got around to the building a better world part. Turns out that undergrowth was parasitic vines waiting for an opportunity to strangle the forest.