My thoughts on "good, fast, cheap, pick (at most) two":
1) If you're not fast you will never get good
2) There's no such thing as "good, slow, and cheap" and if there is, that person is booked for the next 30 years
I’ve come to expect ~80% of work requirements be ‘fast and cheap’ (regular projects) and the rest is ‘fast and good’ (well-funded startup, maybe internal). As I work near academy, there’s a fraction of ‘slow and very cheap’ (produce publications expected by grants by end of the reporting period).
‘Good and slow’ requires exceptional planning or some kind of a lifestyle business, and thus is uncommon in software, AI in particular. Most work conditions require tight deadlines to coordinate with other (relatively isolated) business entities, therefore gotta go fast to deal with possible scheduling conflicts and unaccounted for parts of work.
1) If you're not fast you will never get good 2) There's no such thing as "good, slow, and cheap" and if there is, that person is booked for the next 30 years