The Religion of Speed • Hacker News Board

Re: The Religion of Speed

#21

Post by derefr » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:33 AM UTC

The religion of speed is the religion of VC investment backing, because VCs have set time horizons for delivering returns to their own investors. You can only get their interest if you can make them believe you can deliver 10x growth on their schedule.

Committing to that schedule — and really believing in that commitment — is what turns someone into the sort of person who sets arbitrary project timelines that disregard technical practicality, and then kills projects when they fail per those arbitrary timelines.

Re: The Religion of Speed

#22

Post by Barrin92 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:56 AM UTC

"The better work is usually calmer than people expect. It still moves[...] It does not worship motion for its own sake."

There's two architects, Reiser and Umemoto who wrote a book called The Atlas of Novel Tectonics about maybe 20 years ago and a sentence that always stuck with me was "in a moving world the nomad is the one standing still".

The whole cult of speed irony, like digital nomads who only ever seem to camp out in Starbucks, is that they're the most homogenous, like-minded, incapable of independent thought people you will ever meet. They'll tell you they've done 50 things and stayed in 50 countries and somehow seem less travelled than someone who just stood still. Same with the whole productivity software velocity, ship this or that crowd. They always have 20 projects but seemingly never actually do anything, or do the same thing everyone else does.

Re: The Religion of Speed

#23

Post by dartharva » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC

> It’s treated like proof of seriousness. If you’re moving fast, you’re ambitious. If you’re cautious, you’re scared. If you ask to slow down and think, you’re blocking momentum. If you point out that the current plan has all the structural integrity of wet cardboard, you’re being negative.

For a significant portion of corpo office work, this actually holds. Not all work critically needs perfection, most just needs to be done. The trick is to be able to discern immediately which work does not fall into that category and actually needs to be done slowly and carefully.

Re: The Religion of Speed

#24

Post by kfarr » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:10 AM UTC

el_io wrote: post #16

orionblastar wrote: post #3

We did a paper airplane test in 5th grade. We split into teams and made them like McDonnell Douglas, etc. First, we saw how many airplanes we could make and then how far they flew. Everyone was rushing to get the planes made, but I took my time and measured them to make sure every fold was done right. My planes flew the farthest, and our team won the government contract. The moral of the story was that haste makes wa…

Your team won government contract for paper planes?

They measured really really well

Re: The Religion of Speed

#25

Post by aryehof » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC

hateful wrote: post #17

I realized early on that sometimes management thinks that if you don't look stressed than your not taking it seriously enough. Phrases like "I don't feel that you have a sense of urgency" really messed with my head back then.

Real management is about making decisions, most typically about how to apply limited resources amongst competing options.

But a lot of Managers (and the managed) think it is about managing people. Their real role is “Overseer” not Manager, and in that role their real task is to ensure you’re working harder.

Re: The Religion of Speed

#26

Post by aryehof » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:15 AM UTC

thearrow wrote: post #7

Felt this in my bones. It’s painful how accurately this describes my current work situation. The pressure comes from the top - leaders that have no idea what they want but they want _something_ to happen NOW. This has only gotten worse with the recent AI thoughtleadering because now the expectation has been seeded that every random brainwave should take at most one hour to implement (given enough tokens). What can an…

If quality isn't valued, then your only alternatives are to try to change that (good luck), accept it, or look for somewhere that does?

Re: The Religion of Speed

#27

Post by lelanthran » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:17 AM UTC

m463 wrote: post #15

eluusive wrote: post #10

Use to work with a pretty jaded Army Colonel. He'd often say: "even periodic motion looks like progress on short enough time scales." And also, "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast."

I remember learning to race on the track. In the sharp turns, you feel like that's where you should try really hard to go fast. Because you're going so slow! But really, it makes more sense to slow down MORE, be smooth and controlled and get the turn right. And you'll get a better drive and be faster later. slow in, fast out. also, the math wins - going 1mph faster on the 1/4-mile straightaway works out better than g…

With racing, in particular, the high accident zones are the corners so that's where extra care is required.

Hence, in racing, the common advice to newbies is "to finish first, first you must finish".

IOW, make fewer mistakes before you try to go faster.

Re: The Religion of Speed

#28

Post by gavmor » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:21 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #21

The religion of speed is the religion of VC investment backing, because VCs have set time horizons for delivering returns to their own investors. You can only get their interest if you can make them believe you can deliver 10x growth on their schedule . Committing to that schedule — and really believing in that commitment — is what turns someone into the sort of person who sets arbitrary project timelines that disreg…

I like setting arbitrary project milestones or timelines. They don't have to kill the project, but it's good to cast efforts in relief against external developments.

Re: The Religion of Speed

#29

Post by baxtr » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:28 AM UTC

A while back, I read that as you age, you tend to slow down not because of your age itself, but because you incorporate all the experience you’ve accumulated over the years into your thinking process. I wish I still had the link or something...

But on the flip side let's not pretend there is no benefit at all in being fast.

For example, there are certain situations where slowing down will only push out decisions you would take anyway. Or: You develop a fully fledged product just to find out you could have found out that no one needs it with a simple mock-up. It's good to know when it's appropriate to be fast and when not.

Re: The Religion of Speed

#30

Post by tdrgabi » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:33 AM UTC

orionblastar wrote: post #3

We did a paper airplane test in 5th grade. We split into teams and made them like McDonnell Douglas, etc. First, we saw how many airplanes we could make and then how far they flew. Everyone was rushing to get the planes made, but I took my time and measured them to make sure every fold was done right. My planes flew the farthest, and our team won the government contract. The moral of the story was that haste makes wa…

There are anecdotes supporting almost any point.

We've all heard about the "make 100 clay pots", or, sometimes it's photos group vs "make 1 perfect clay pot" group.