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  "description": "If you are at all worried about AI disrupting your business, learn to build momentum. Your ability to execute more reps that your competition is, and always has been, the best moat.\n\nThe trigger for this post was hearing that Claude Code was built in a weekend. It's probably mildly exaggerated but it led a lot of folks to claim that it's not worth much if its that quick to build.\n\nThat version, the one the shipped that weekend, probably not.\n\nThe fact that they kept shipping however, is very val",
  "path": "/momentum-is-the-safest-moat/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-09T01:47:43.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.elliotcsmith.com",
  "textContent": "If you are at all worried about AI disrupting your business, learn to build momentum. Your ability to execute more reps that your competition is, and always has been, the best moat.\n\nThe trigger for this post was hearing that Claude Code was built in a weekend. It's probably mildly exaggerated but it led a lot of folks to claim that it's not worth much if its that quick to build.\n\nThat version, the one the shipped that weekend, probably not.\n\nThe fact that they kept shipping however, is very valuable.\n\nThis isn't something specific about Claude Code or the team at Anthropic. Teams that are able to move quickly will win in the long run, as long as they can meet two criteria.\n\nThat is assuming that they can keep up the speed as they scale, and that they're moving cohesively.\n\nMost companies slow as they scale. Most slow down faster than they scale up. Taking the momentum metaphor literally, their momentum goes down. Moving fast as you get bigger is hard. It feels necessary to slow down as you get bigger, there's more to lose and more people involved in the process. This isn't building momentum.\n\nMore people means more process, more layers of communication and more chance of incoherence. You still ship quickly but what you ship is almost random. Features come out but top line metrics don't move. This isn't building momentum either.\n\nMomentum is fighting the urge to add process and ensure you're shipping valuable features again and again.\n\nIt takes a lot of effort. Mostly saying no to things. Strip back the things that aren't \"deliver more value\" and then find out how to do that faster.\n\nThis is how you take on a giant. Arguably this even applies to things like Claude Code. The bigger it's gotten, the more that's been added and the more the team has been focused on other things, the less momentum they maintain.\n\nThey will have economies of scale, network effects, cornered resources and all the other things we typically associate with moats. Those haven't gone away. Your ability to move fast enough that they don't hold the same weight is what's new.\n\nGet stuck in, keep your head down, do the reps.",
  "title": "Momentum is the Safest Moat",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-09T01:47:43.215Z"
}