Paul Graham argues a tech company's shipping rate predicts success, while investor Alfred Lin says speed needs direction

What have you shipped today?

@paulg Also needs to be pointed in the right direction. Velocity = speed + direction.

shipposting

@paulg Ship fast, launch fast

I think Zuck had a startup analogy to an RTS or strategy game

The more cycles you can get per turn, the better you evolve vs competitors and the market

So the goal is to get as many cycles as possible

@paulg *shipping new valuable stuff

@paulg Speed reveals truth faster than any metric.

@paulg few understand this

@paulg It's a difficult metric to benchmark tho. How do you know if you are not shipping new stuff fast enough?

Probably just asking the question implies we don't, but I want to do better.

@paulg Shipping rate is also the a predictor of how fast your schema rots underneath you

@paulg So you’re basically saying “ship it or ship out,” and I’m suddenly craving a fast‑food startup.

@paulg Who are some great examples of fast shippers?

@paulg i have seen many founders spend their time building new features that nobody needed.

it's a double-edged sword, and most founders spend months building when they should've improved existing featues, market them, or collect user feedback

@alexisohanian My buddy just shipped me this card! Personal collection addition. My first Picasso.

@paulg Listening to Sam Waltons memoir. A constant is his innovation and experimentation. From the boonies on up. What a guy.

@paulg Apple is not a successful tech company then.

@paulg And vibe coding makes that accessible to all.

@paulg @sam_kececi good signal

@paulg Does that refer exclusively stuff for end users/customers, or do you count internal new stuff as well?

@paulg Rate of Iteration is a moat

@paulg 迭代🔁的轮数🎯