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