This is mostly not true in cases where resources are actually available (and in GCE if they're not the API rejects the VM outright, in general). To the extent t

This is mostly not true in cases where resources are actually available (and in GCE if they're not the API rejects the VM outright, in general). To the extent that it is true for Borg when the job schedules immediately, it's largely due to package (~container layers, ish) loading. This is less relevant today (because reasons), and also mostly doesn't apply to GCE as the relevant packages are almost universally proactively made available on relevant hosts. The origin for the info that jobs take "minutes" likely involves jobs that were pending available resources. This is a valid state in Borg, but GCE has additional admission control mechanisms aimed at avoiding extended residency in pending. As dekhn notes, there are many factors that contribute to VM startup time. GPUs are their own variety of special (and, yes, sometimes slow), with factors that mostly don't apply to more pedestrian VM shapes.