Ambitious Technologists

In my interpretation, the purpose of rapid iterations is to validate/de-risk hypotheses. In some cases (most of the ones I've worked on), it's ALSO a useful way to ship, because for many use-cases, people are pretty tolerant of shit software. But I think there's an implicit/accidental conflation of iterate-to-learn / iterate-to-build / iterate-to-ship. The difference between them being the end audience after each minor iteration. (respectively: myself / my team-mates / my customers)

The author emphasizes the importance of the "move fast and break things" approach, which encourages shipping products quickly, but believes it is often underrated and overlooked outside the tech industry. They argue that this approach forces simplicity and minimalism, which can lead to stripping out valuable features and neglecting important aspects like code refactoring. They discuss examples of companies that took ambitious and unconventional approaches to create outstanding products.

The first example is 280 North, a team of Apple alums who created 280 Slides, a web-based presentation tool that rivaled native applications in terms of performance and aesthetics. They achieved this by designing a new programming language called Objective-J and rewriting OS X's Cocoa library to build a suite of tools for web applications.

Figma, a design tool, is another example. They developed a full graphics editing tool in the browser by implementing underlying graphics rendering technologies using WebGL and creating a programming language to optimize it. They also implemented a realtime change management system for collaboration.

The Browser Company is highlighted as a recent example of ambitious technologists. They built Arc, a reimagined web browser, and took the audacious step of writing a Swift compiler for Windows to ensure performance, security, and native UI. This decision required tackling technical challenges and investing in a team to port the Swift tooling to Windows.

Superhuman, a power-user email client, and Zed, a high-performance code editor, are mentioned for their dedication to quality and their willingness to go beyond what is commonly done. Superhuman created their own CSS layouting framework to achieve typography precision, while Zed built a GPU-powered graphics library instead of relying on existing platforms like Electron.

The author concludes by acknowledging that the move-fast-and-break-things approach is generally good advice, but there are cases where it stifles progress and incremental thinking. They argue that being an ambitious technologist can lead to remarkable achievements, even if commercial success is not guaranteed. The goal should be to create something exceptional and be proud of it, rather than solely focusing on quick market delivery.