The fail fast philosophy is dangerous in high-fixed-cost restaurant businesses.
Ron Shaich · Panera Founder Ron Shaich · Nov 11, 2025 · at 57:37
Panera founder Ron Shaich pushes back against the tech industry's 'move fast and fail' ethos, contrasting software economics with physical restaurant asset economics.
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“Go fast and fail. Makes sense in technology, where it's very much there, there's no fixed cost, and you can repair completely. I'm in a business, I call it fashion with fixed assets. It, you know, you build a restaurant, you're going to spend a million and a half, two million dollars, maybe more. You don't want to mess it up. Because fixing it is really difficult. So you want to get very clear what you're doing, what do you do first, second, third, and make sure you get it in the right order. So I am much more concerned about getting it right in a really serious way and understanding it and then taking the right steps from that than I am about getting out there and getting market share first because the cost of failure is so high.”
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