Why It’s Time To Stop Saying “Move Fast And Break Things”

A slogan born in the early days of Silicon Valley no longer fits a world defined by complexity, interdependence, and fragile trust.

The widely quoted expression “move fast and break things” has a certain pizazz. It captures the swagger of early Silicon Valley: a belief that speed beats caution, disruption is better than tradition, and progress somehow requires collateral damage. The phrase is most closely associated with Facebook during its hyper-growth years in the mid-aughts, though variations of the idea circulated broadly across the early internet economy. Back in the day, the advice not only grabbed attention, it made a kind of sense. When you’re building lightweight digital products in relatively simple systems, speed creates advantage, and failure is often low-cost and reversible.

But even when I first heard the phrase, I was uneasy. Why, exactly, would anyone want to break things?

To be clear, there is real value in challenging the status quo. The concept of “creative destruction” has an impressive pedigree, and innovation often requires questioning assumptions, testing boundaries, and disrupting entrenched systems. Moving fast can matter, especially in competitive or crisis situations.

But turning “move fast and break things” into an operating philosophy is a different matter altogether. Because what we often break isn’t just code or process. We break trust. We break relationships. We break credibility. And these are much harder to repair.

In today’s world—one defined by complexity, interdependence, and fragile institutional trust—the costs of breaking things are much higher. Few organizations are isolated systems. Decisions ripple across employees, customers, partners, regulators, and communities. Leaders operate in environments where missteps are shared, amplified, and remembered. And in our new age of AI, those effects are increasingly accelerated and magnified: systems scale instantly, decisions propagate quickly, and small errors can become systemic before leaders have time to respond. In this context, speed without judgment isn’t agility: it’s recklessness.

In our new age of AI, those effects are increasingly accelerated and magnified: systems scale instantly, decisions propagate quickly, and small errors can become systemic before leaders have time to respond.

In contrast, I often think of the Navy SEALs’ mantra: “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” Originating with warriors who are literally trained to break things when necessary, that lesson is instructive. Precision, discipline, and coordination—moving deliberately—are what really enable speed when it matters most. Rushing increases error, while smooth execution compounds advantage.

Leaders today might benefit from a more mature manta than “move fast and break things”: move with curiosity, experiment with discipline, and build with resilience. Build trust before you need it. Build alignment before you accelerate. Build shared understanding so that when you do move quickly, the organization moves together instead of splintering apart. I’m reminded of a question a particularly thoughtful engineer once posed to me: Why do vehicles have brakes? The answer is beautifully counterintuitive: vehicles don’t have brakes merely so they can stop; they have brakes so they can go fast.

Moving slower doesn’t mean being timid—it means being intentional and adaptive. It means understanding where speed creates value and where patience creates resilience. It means prioritizing, making tough tradeoffs, and being deliberate about how you allocate attention, resources, and leadership energy. In complex human systems, progress is rarely linear and almost never free.

The irony is that many of today’s leaders, from government to business to not-for-profits, are now trying to repair what yesterday’s leaders broke in the name of speed: trust in institutions, confidence in leadership, and the belief that change is being done with people rather than to them. In that context, the real competitive advantage may not belong to those who move fastest, but to those who build most thoughtfully—and therefore endure.

Perhaps the most important shift required is not tactical but cultural: a renewed commitment to building rather than breaking. The kind of building that happens when diverse teams come together in intense, creative collaboration. This means working together rather than racing ahead alone, and resisting the temptation to sacrifice trust, relationships, or coherence in the pursuit of quick results.

In a world that already feels fractured and unstable, leaders who choose to build deliberately will be the ones who create change that lasts.