Speed kills

I had a freelance client recently who was all about speed. They’re a small team who are using AI tools to accelerate many different aspects of their work and take on competitors who are much bigger and more established. What they’re doing is very impressive, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s translated to the user experience of their product. (At the very least, I don’t think they would have been looking for outside help if they felt like they were killing it in that department.)

Being exposed to their way of working has made me think a lot speed, design, and business success in the age of AI. In particular, I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote from Colton Voege in his piece “No, AI is not Making Engineers 10x as Productive” (emphasis mine) :

“I think sometimes people lose the scale of just how big a 10x improvement is. 10x is the difference between your mini-van and a record setting supersonic land jet. Imagine trying to drive your 10 minute commute down your city streets in a car that goes 600mph. Will you get to the other side of town in one tenth the time? No, because even a single 60 second stoplight will eat up your entire time budget. F1 cars slow down to mini-van speeds in basic turns. It turns out that most of any activity is not spent going at top speed.”

I love the F1 car as an analogy for the myth of the 10x engineer. Even if we can dramatically accelerate parts of our work, there are still many important parts, the parts where we weigh alternatives and make tough decisions, that take time.

The thing about racing, though, is that in racing, speed is success. You win by getting to the finish line faster than anyone else. But that’s not how other sports work, and it’s not how business works either. Apple didn’t invent the first personal computer, or MP3 player, or smartphone, or smartwatch, or wireless earbuds. They took the time to make sure theirs were really great. Sometimes that meant seeing how customers reacted to a competitor’s product and taking a different approach. Sometimes that meant waiting until the technology was in place to deliver a more magical experience. Sometimes that meant taking the time to refine the details that other companies overlooked, or even just leaning on the brand reputation that they’d built up over the years. Whatever the case, they’re the business world’s most notable (but certainly not only) example of how being first-to-market can actually matter very little.

Similarly, there are all sorts of examples in the sports world of athletes who are considered among the best in their sport despite their speed.

Lionel Messi famously covers far less ground than other forwards, conserving his energy, anticipating the play, and working himself into dangerous positions where his many other skills can shine.

Nikola Jokic is a lumbering center who also happens to be one of the NBA’s best passers, using his vision to pick apart defenses and make the players around him better.

Diana Taurasi, arguably the greatest women’s basketball player of all time, is more known for her scoring touch, basketball IQ, and tenacity than her speed.

Alex Ovechkin scored 44 goals in the NHL last season (tied for third in the league) at the age of 39. While he can’t skate like he used to, he still has a lethal shot and a Messi-like ability to find holes in a defense.

In any team sport, you need players on your roster who offer more than just speed. And if you’re building a business, you should recognize that the game you’re playing is a lot more complicated than an F1 race.

In team sports, your ability to get from point A to B quickly only matters if point B is a place you want to be in the first place. And being in the right place only matters if you’re also there at the right time. And being in the right place at the right time only matters if you have the technique to convert. And putting points on the board only matters if you can also prevent your opponent from scoring on you.

Similarly, if you’re in the business of building a product, it’s not enough that you offer that product before your competitors. Being first doesn’t matter if what you offer isn’t something that customers want. And offering customers what they want doesn’t matter if what you’re offering doesn’t work well. And offering something useful that works well won’t be enough if your competitors can build something just as good. The most defensible product positions rely on network effects and other moats—things that are often built up over time.

But, let’s say I’m wrong, and that in this exact moment, the thing that matter the most to your business is speed. Let me pose two questions that I think are still getting lost in our intoxicating pursuit of speed.

1/
Suppose these tools do let you build 10x faster. Doesn’t that imply that you could also build 5x faster, but twice as good? If your organization is suddenly awash in development cycles, how many of those are you devoting to polishing things and paying off debt?

2/
Do your users want a product that changes at 10x the current rate? When was the last time a software product you use made an unwelcome change? (You probably don’t have to think back that far.) Is that an experience you want to have 10x as frequently? To take this one step further, think about all the software you use every day and sort it into buckets of “I wish this did more” or “I wish this worked better.” Now imagine your users doing the same. Which bucket are your users putting your product into?

When they signed up for your product, were they signing up for an F1 race?