Move Slow and Fix Things
Matthias Endler critiques Silicon Valley's hustle culture, advocating for sustainable growth and small businesses prioritizing user privacy. He emphasizes accessible resources for entrepreneurship and encourages focusing on meaningful contributions over trends.
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Matthias Endler reflects on his journey from aspiring startup founder to open-source maintainer, critiquing the prevailing Silicon Valley culture that glorifies rapid growth and hustle. He expresses disillusionment with the "move fast and break things" mentality, advocating instead for sustainable growth and meaningful contributions. Endler emphasizes the value of small, bootstrapped businesses that prioritize user privacy and community impact over profit. He challenges the notion that success is synonymous with becoming a unicorn, arguing that many successful ventures can thrive without venture capital. He highlights the accessibility of resources for building software and physical products today, suggesting that aspiring entrepreneurs can find alternative paths that align with their values. Endler warns against the pressure to conform to trends, such as the current AI boom, and encourages a focus on creating lasting value rather than chasing fleeting success. Ultimately, he promotes a mindset of moving slowly and fixing problems, valuing personal fulfillment over societal expectations of wealth and fame.
- Endler critiques the hustle culture and "winner takes all" mentality prevalent in Silicon Valley.
- He advocates for sustainable growth and small businesses that prioritize user privacy and community impact.
- The article emphasizes that success does not require venture capital and that resources for entrepreneurship are more accessible than ever.
- Endler warns against the pressure to conform to trends and encourages focusing on meaningful contributions.
- He promotes a mindset of moving slowly and fixing problems, valuing personal fulfillment over societal expectations.
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6 commentsI used to be big on the "move fast and break things" mantra. The world was ossified, so the narrative went, full of incumbents fortifying their positions with regulatory capture, and we needed a disruption, a fire to burn the brush so fresh undergrowth could spring through. They broke things with the promise of a better world and now the things are all still broken. They never got around to the building a better world part. Turns out that undergrowth was parasitic vines waiting for an opportunity to strangle the forest.
I hold it true
whate’er befall
I feel it most
for sorrow’s sake
Tis better to
move fast and break
Than never to have
moved at all
I enjoyed the article but I think it’s a bit too provocative of the author to distill it all down to “move slow and fix things”.
If anything, the lean nature of a bootstrapped, slow growth, mom-and-pop software business puts even more emphasis on the ethos of moving fast (or quickly if you prefer): it’s always best to make progress, even if things break, as long as you fix anything you break along the way.
What's the advantages of moving slow and fix things? The author mentioned he moved slow for his existing open source projects and non-profits over 15 years. Why not distil some lessons about what moving slow means and what life experiences he went through to put forth this perspective...
Half of it was just ranting about vc culture and Paul Graham...
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