I wonder if speaking fast is a problem in and of itself. Bryan Cantrill's talks are some of the best around, and he talks very fast. For other speakers, I usually put them at 1.5x speed.

It seems to me that the problem isn't speaking fast per se, but almost speaking where you're tripping over yourself unconfidently. Bryan, for example, often does trip over his words, but he's confident in what he has to say and enunciates very clearly (he's basically yelling).

During the pandemic I made a few Youtube videos, basically public speaking without an audience. I was amazed at how hard it was, I spend hours and hours trying to speak with any confidence. Funnily enough though, at tech meetups, I'm pretty comfortable presenting in front of everyone even though I see others struggle so much. Not sure what's the difference.

Ha ha -- thanks, I think? For whatever it's worth, the most important advice I have for a speaker is: speak from the heart, not from the book. That is, don't tell people what you think they want; be true to yourself and speak your own truth, in a manner that is true to who you are.

To that end: different styles work for different people. Yes, I speak quickly (or can!), but there's a method to the madness: when I am speaking fastest (and... tripping over my words, I guess?), it is likely something that -- while interesting/weird -- is in fact only tangentially related to my main point. For me, it's really important to have my actual points written on my slide: my actual decks[0] are really important to me, and serve to make my main points -- albeit devoid of the visceral metaphors for which I've become (in)famous.

[0] https://speakerdeck.com/bcantrill/

:-)

I think one of the problems with speaking for video is that you're self-conscious and feel you need to be perfect. When I started doing a lot of recorded presentations during COVID, I just felt uncomfortable in a way that I didn't with an in-person audience.