Speed
topic on 10 shows · 13 statements across 12 episodes · said 6 times in 3 episodes since 2016
Top Founders 5 
Acquired 1 
the Y Combinator Startup Podcast 
Founder's Journal 
the Knowledge Project 
Lenny's Podcast 
No Priors 
WTF is with Nikhil Kamath 
the a16z Podcast 
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Mentions by year, every show
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Top Founders 5Acquired 1
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2017 1 mention in 1 episode
2016 4 mentions in 1 episode
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
13 statements about Speed, every show
Gil: Investors are conflating market size with speed to scale
“And people Are, at least in my experience collectively, at least investing against the fact that they believe the speed is there, which is different from the market size. People are conflating the two things right now, in my opinion.”
Brichtova: Speed is an AI force multiplier only after meeting quality thresholds
“There has to be some quality bar because if it's just fast and the quality isn't there, then it also doesn't matter, right? Like you have to hit a quality bar and then speed becomes a force multiplier.”
Parrish: Reliability beats everything else in business, speed without predictability is useless
“In business, reliability beats everything else. Speed without predictability is useless.”
Srinivas: Speed is a startup's only defensible moat against AI incumbents
“And the only mode you have is speed. You have to innovate. You have to move faster than everybody else.”
Stebbings: Distribution is more important than speed for startups
“Distribution is more important than speed.”
Zhang: Startups must trade scope for speed to survive
“I am most willing to trade off scope, and that's because I believe that it is very, very important to get speed. Speed for any company, any product is what gets you your learnings, and if your speed at learning is slow, you are going to die or you're going to …”
Kevin Ryan: Speed is not the most important factor in product-market fit
“No, no, I don't think that speed is the most important thing. You do need to get out your product, you know, pretty quickly. But it has to be pretty good.”
Girouard: The Fastest Company in Any Market Invariably Wins
“All else being equal, the fastest company in any market will win. Speed is a defining characteristic, if not the defining characteristic, of the leader in virtually every industry you look at.”
Tisch: Early-stage speed advantage has been equalized across VC
“I think speed was an advantage before 2019 for early stage investors that has been sort of equalized by all firms across the entire spectrum.”
Mehta: Every 10% speed increase requires roughly 30% more motor power
“Every 10% speed increase, increases the motor power by roughly about 30%. Something like that, roughly.”
Ries: Writing bad code for speed backfires via future firefighting
“Compromising that in the name of going fast is stupid, right? Like write crappy code. You spend more time firefighting than you do writing code in the future. So a certain amount of craft is just about keeping your options open. And actually it's very much lik…”