This seems like it's reading too much into things. I'm sure driving an ambulance slower vs faster doesn't make a difference to survival in most cases, but on the margins it absolutely does.

Startups are also quite different from ambulances; surviving and minimising patient harm isn't the most important thing for a startup. Instead, it's building a profitable and valuable business. You're not just worrying about the margins, you're also hoping to squeeze out every bit of growth you can.

> That’s an indicator code quality doesn’t matter at macro scales.

I think it can though. It just depends. Having high quality code and making good technical choices can matter in many ways. From improving performance (massively) and correctness, to attracting great talent. Jane Street and WhatsApp come to mind, maybe Discord too. Just like great design will attract great designers.

I also think it might matter even more in the age of AI Agents. Most of my time now is spent reviewing code instead of writing code, and that makes me a huge bottleneck. So the best way to optimize is to make the code more readable and having good automated checks to reduce the amount of work I need to do, like static types, no nulls, compilation, automated tests, secondary agent reviews, etc.

I mean, look at all the startups that succeeded despite being complete shitshows behind the scenes... the baseline for leadership, organization, coordination or, hell, execution for a startup to succeed isn't exactly high either.

What's PH?

Bad code is one possible axis - not a likely one at that stage though. Bad code gets you a few years down the line when competitors are moving faster than you to the point where they are cheaper and better.