Speed Is Strategy
How to Make Faster, Smarter Decisions
The biggest risk in early-stage business isn’t making the wrong decision.
It’s waiting too long to make any decision at all.
In high-velocity environments like startups, product launches & new ventures, decisions are bets. And the faster you place them, the faster you win.
Here are 3 frameworks from arguably three of the greatest decision makers in modern times - Bezos, Musk & Zuck - that I wish I’d learned earlier in my career, that really capture the real skill of decision-making: not perfection, but momentum.
1. Amazon’s 70% Rule: Be Decisive Before You’re Sure
Jeff Bezos built Amazon on a culture of high-velocity decision-making. His golden rule?
“Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had.
If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you're probably being slow.”
He also makes a critical distinction between:
Type 1 decisions: irreversible, high-stakes - treat with caution.
Type 2 decisions: reversible, frequent - make them fast.
Most startup decisions? They’re Type 2. You can recover. But you can’t recover lost time.
Speed doesn’t kill, indecision does.
2. The OODA Loop: Learn Faster Than Anyone Else
Originally developed by Air Force strategist John Boyd, the OODA loop is a rapid-cycle decision model:
Observe → Orient → Decide → Act → Repeat.
The goal isn’t to be perfect. It’s to shorten your loop to iterate through learning cycles faster than your competitors.
This is Musk’s operating system at SpaceX:
Build fast, fail visibly, adapt quickly. His teams don’t fear being wrong, they fear standing still.
Slowness compounds. So does speed. The difference is exponential.
3. Move Fast and Break Things: Default to Action
Facebook’s early motto wasn’t just branding. It was philosophy.
Velocity creates opportunities that careful planning can’t.
You can’t A/B test your way into a breakthrough.
“Move fast and break things” doesn't mean recklessness, it means biasing toward shipping, even if version one is ugly.
The best products in the world started out embarrassing.
Perfection is what kills momentum. Action reveals truth.
The Compounding Effect of Speed
Speed isn’t a tactic. It’s a compounding advantage.
Every decision you defer delays:
Data
Feedback
Morale
Market validation
Meanwhile, every fast loop creates:
Momentum
Clarity
Competitive edge
You don’t need to be right. You just need to be faster at learning than the next person.
The Takeaway
If you’re in startup mode, whether it’s new idea, product or market, optimise for decision velocity.
Be right enough. Move quickly enough. Iterate relentlessly.
“If you’re not embarrassed by your first version, you waited too long to launch.”
-Reid Hoffman
It’s better to be wrong and learn, than to be stuck and irrelevant.
This advice is eye opening. It helps me see things very differently.