"Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast." If you move fast _and_ you break things you just end up with a lot of broken things. I never did understand this philosophy.

You do things slowly, intentionally, again and again and again, that it becomes almost muscle memory that when the times comes for you to do it again in future, it happens smooth and is thus fast eventually.

https://brajeshwar.com/2025/slow-is-smooth-smooth-is-fast/

People often mistake speed for progress. One of the best examples of this is in jiujitsu. Two beginners sparing are often moving fast, but so many of the moves are wasted effort there's no actual progress in the match. Two experts sparing can often look like a training round because every move is efficient leading them towards their goal.

It's about trying and breaking things to find out what's working, instead of casually tip-toeing lest you break something, and wasting your time.

In racing the fastest laps look slow.

But slow laps also look slow.

"Move fast and break things" is about conquering the second kind of slow. Not idealizing breaking things but not being legitimately slow tied up in bad attempts not to break things.

Step two is being slow in the right way.

An old baseball coach always said “be slow, but quick!” Took me years to sort that out.

Be thoughtful, be methodical, be aware, be comfortable, and be decisive. Made a lot of sense when I caught a 2-hopper off the line at 3rd and didn’t have time to think about how to field it or where to throw.

Learning fast is probably what moving fast implies, not breaking things carelessly to let technical debt pile up to slow you down.

Your "smooth fast" may be not fast enough in grab the market as fast as possible economy.

There was a lot of low hanging fruit at the advent of the internet. A few rich kids with some decent vision moved in and solved those problems. They then confused the ease of operating within this landscape with actual business acumen.

Not knowing _why_ you were just successful is a killer.