Keith steps back from the interview chair to close out the series by synthesizing what six founders taught him about speed. The pattern that surprised him most: whatever industry or stage they're in, every founder was really describing the same thing, compressing the latency between making a decision and getting the evidence that tells you whether it worked. Keith revisits each guest's own definition of speed, takes on the myth that speed and quality trade off against each other, draws a hard line between fast and reckless, diagnoses why fast companies slow down as they scale, and closes with what AI changes (and doesn't change) about judgment and trust. He lands the whole series on one term: mission speed, the rate at which the mission advances in the direction you've chosen.

Speed: Moving Fast Towards What Matters is a six-episode limited series featuring six startup founders and operators who exemplify personal speed and have wrestled with it organizationally, exploring the systematic principles of speed and the critical tactics that make it sustainable as you scale.

In this episode

• 0:00 — Cold open: six guests, six definitions of speed
• 0:47 — Welcome to the finale, and introducing "mission speed"
• 1:50 — Defining speed as latency: Matt's, Harold's, and Jesse's versions
• 4:48 — Does speed cost you quality? Jesse's answer, and Matt's mechanism for making mistakes cheap
• 8:30 — Urgent versus reckless: Anna's "tenth man," Harold's case for trust, and Yaniv's "fix forward"
• 11:57 — Why fast companies slow down: Matt, Anna, and Dave on where the bottleneck moves as a team scales
• 17:41 — Diagnosing the engine: Yaniv's root cause fixes and "speed theater"
• 20:26 — Limiting factors and vision: Anna's "two plus two plus two" and Dave's "keystone of the vision"
• 24:21 — What AI changes, and doesn't: Yaniv, Matt, Harold, and Jesse on speed, judgment, and trust
• 30:39 — Keith's closing synthesis: mission speed, and thank-yous

The Host: Keith Lucas

Keith Lucas has spent almost 30 years in tech, building teams and advising companies. He's the author of Impact, a book for startup leaders who want to transform their teams from scrappy to scale, and hosts Speed, a podcast for startup leaders who want to move fast toward what matters.

Connect with Keith:

• linkedin.com/in/kvlucas
• https://keithvlucas.com/

Get the book: Impact — https://keithvlucas.com/impact/

Contact us: speed@keithvlucas.com

Speed Podcast Synthesis: www.keithvlucas.com/frameworks/speed

Guests featured in this episode

Harold Hughes — Founder & CEO, Divi. Revisited on speed as a signal of intent and his "fail fast, fail often" framing.

Matt Curtis — CEO & Co-founder, Splendid Games. Revisited on defining speed as the time between decision and evidence, and treating experience as a "compression algorithm."

Yaniv Bernstein — Founder & CTO, Vera. Revisited on "speed theater," the real cost AI has changed, and "boiling the lake."

Jesse Stinebring — CEO & Co-founder, Blue Rose Research. Revisited on why speed and quality aren't actually in tension, and the value of "unique taste and flavor" in the age of cheap building.

Anna Shedletsky — CEO & Co-founder, Instrumental. Revisited on urgent versus reckless, the "tenth man" concept, and her "two plus two plus two" operating cadence.

David Baszucki — Founder & CEO, Roblox. Revisited on the Roblox Operating System and "the keystone of the vision."

CREDITS

Produced by : Leah Barnum

Social Media: Julia Guagliardi www.stillwaters-creative.com

Editor: Jon Keur - www.wayfarerecording.com

Content Designer: Natalie Leroux - www.studioeightyseven.com

Studio lighting/Setup - www.175productions.com

David Baszucki has been building Roblox for over twenty years, and his answer to "how do you move fast" isn't what you'd expect: take the long view first. In this episode of Speed, host Keith Lucas talks with Dave about the "magic quadrant" of pairing a long-term vision with daily execution, how speed changes shape as a company grows from 20 people to thousands, how he transfers urgency to individuals on his team, and what ownership really looks like at scale. They close on how Dave tells the difference between an on day and an off day, and why that self-awareness matters for a leader's decisions.

Speed: Moving Fast Towards What Matters is a six-episode limited series featuring six startup founders and operators who exemplify personal speed and have wrestled with it organizationally — exploring the systematic principles of speed and the critical tactics that make it sustainable as you scale.

In this episode

• 0:00 — David on "the keystone of the vision"
• 0:48 — Welcome, and introducing David Baszucki
• 4:16 — How David personally demonstrates speed: "take the long view" and "get stuff done"
• 13:43 — Building speed at 20-30 people vs. thousands: the Roblox Operating System
• 19:28 — How David transfers urgency to one person on his team
• 25:53 — Ownership as a marker of speed and leadership
• 28:15 — What changed (and what didn't) as Roblox scaled from dozens to thousands
• 30:43 — Recovery: how David tells an "on day" from an "off day"

The Guest: David Baszucki

David Baszucki is the Founder and CEO of Roblox, an immersive gaming and creation platform he started over twenty years ago that is now nearing 400 million monthly active users worldwide. His vision has driven Roblox's recognition as one of TIME's "100 Most Influential Companies," and by Fast Company for Most Innovative Companies, Best Workplaces for Innovators, and Innovation by Design. Previously, David founded Knowledge Revolution, where he and his brother Greg created Interactive Physics, a leading educational physics and mechanical design simulation software. David graduated from Stanford University as a General Motors Scholar in Electrical Engineering.

Connect with David:

• linkedin.com/in/davidbaszucki
• https://x.com/DavidBaszucki
• https://www.roblox.com/

The Host: Keith Lucas

Keith Lucas joined Roblox as employee #7 and later served as CPO and CTO, leading product, engineering, and operations as the company scaled. He went on to serve as COO of Instrumental and now advises leaders across AI, gaming, creator platforms, and enterprise technology. He is also the author of IMPACT and host of Speed.

Connect with Keith:

• linkedin.com/in/kvlucas
• https://keithvlucas.com/

Get the book: Impact — https://keithvlucas.com/impact/

Contact us: speed@keithvlucas.com

CREDITS

Produced by : Leah Barnum

Social Media: Julia Guagliardi www.stillwaters-creative.com

Editor: Jon Keur - www.wayfarerecording.com

Content Designer: Natalie Leroux - www.studioeightyseven.com

Studio lighting/Setup - www.175productions.com

In this episode of Speed, host Keith Lucas — who worked alongside Anna at Instrumental from 2018 to 2020 — asks her what it really takes to move fast without breaking things. She talks about pairing conviction with open debate, the "10th man" principle for protecting dissent, and why she traded "leading from the front" for empowering ownership as Instrumental scaled. She also shares how the company pivoted from consumer electronics to AI data center infrastructure, the "2+2+2" framework behind 5x customer growth, and how she resets after a bad day.

Speed: Moving Fast Towards What Matters is a six-episode limited series featuring six startup founders and operators who exemplify personal speed and have wrestled with it organizationally — exploring the systematic principles of speed and the critical tactics that make it sustainable as you scale.

In this episode

00:00 – Welcome to Speed & introducing Anna-Katrina Shedletsky

01:50 – Conviction, debate, and fast decision-making with co-founder Sam Weiss

04:39 – The "10th Man": building a shield for productive dissent

05:44 – "This time better than the last": running pre-mortems, not postmortems

06:54 – A Keithism: the difference between urgent and reckless

08:50 – From leading the front to empowering ownership

16:02 – Instrumental's inflection point: pivoting to AI data center infrastructure

19:12 – Jensen Huang's "speed of light" and finding your limiting factors

20:26 – The "2+2+2" framework: six weeks from signed deal to delivered value

24:42 – Is speed vs. quality really a trade-off? Inside Instrumental's "Play to Win" values

29:42 – How great leaders recover: sleep, agency, and a little vengeance

34:31 – Closing thoughts

The Guest: Anna- Katrina Shedletsky

Anna-Katrina Shedletsky is the co-founder and CEO of Instrumental, which she founded to solve the 20 cents of every dollar spent in manufacturing that's wasted. Instrumental builds a Manufacturing Acceleration Platform, accelerating time-to-market in development and improving throughput in production for the world's most complex electronics. Before Instrumental, Anna spent six years as an Apple Product Design Engineer, leading system product design for the Apple Watch Series 1 and several iPods. She holds two degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University and sits on the National Leadership Council for the Society for Science.

Connect with Anna:

• linkedin.com/in/annakatrinashedletsky
• https://x.com/anna_shedletsky
• https://instrumental.com/

The Host: Keith Lucas

Keith Lucas joined Roblox as employee #7 and later served as CPO and CTO, leading product, engineering, and operations as the company scaled. He went on to serve as COO of Instrumental and now advises leaders across AI, gaming, creator platforms, and enterprise technology. He is also the author of IMPACT and host of Speed.

Connect with Keith:

• linkedin.com/in/kvlucas
• https://keithvlucas.com/

Get the book: Impact — https://keithvlucas.com/impact/

Contact us: speed@keithvlucas.com

CREDITS

Produced by : Leah Barnum

Social Media: Julia Guagliardi - www.stillwaters-creative.com

Editor: Jon Keur - www.wayfarerecording.com

Content Designer: Natalie Leroux - www.studioeightyseven.com

Studio lighting/Setup - www.175productions.com