I think that it also depends on funding, for example: - you have great seed funding and decent runway, you can afford not to have all the required features to

I think that it also depends on funding, for example: - you have great seed funding and decent runway, you can afford not to have all the required features to make the product viable for longer z and can do a better job. - your potential investors want to see AI being used in your stack before they close on a funding round, so you cludge a basic autoML model or basic tensorflow network and put it somewhere it won't break stuff and scream "we're using AI". Then actually do it when it makes sense properly later. - you need a massive client to show board you're capable of revenue, they demand a feature in order to close, so you build it ASAP. I think what I'm trying to say is the lean startup art is to carefully leverage technical debt and feature debt in the appropriate times, and have a culture of cleaning little bits as you work o other features. Having a good eye for architecture and clean code is the secret sauce. As long as there are people reviewing code who understand this, you'll hopefully end up with isolated technical debt, which can be kept under control and won't sink your startup when you expand and accelerate growth.