"I suppose the big advantage of being more “productive” is that you can churn through more wrong ideas more quickly and thus perhaps improve your chances of stumbling across something that is valuable."

But I think there is a very big danger here - you build in the action but completely neglect the deep thinking behind a vision, strategy etc.

So yes you produce more stuff. But that stuff means more money spent - which is generally a sunk cost too.

In a bizarre way, I predict we will see the failure rate of software firms rise. Despite the fact these 'productivity' tools exist.