As someone who lived through, and ran a startup during, the era of 1999-2006, I would say that at the birth of a new industry there is often a period where bein

As someone who lived through, and ran a startup during, the era of 1999-2006, I would say that at the birth of a new industry there is often a period where being first is a huge advantage. But it's important to realize this is a small window of time. In most industries (cars, telephones) it is at most 20 years, and it is well known that the Internet consolidated much faster than other industries -- we went from having nothing to having 30 search engines to have one monopoly during the years 1990 to 2008. If you happen to be alive and working during the first 10 years of some new industry, then working fast can be an advantage. Just realize that such an era is an exception. There is no need to make a fetish out of being fast, for most industries, most of the time, there is no particular advantage to being fast, and it can be a detriment in the many mature markets that demand quality first.