It is possible to have the cake and eat, meaning: have performance and be first, as has been shown recently by Casey Muratori himself in a very public debacle.
People who care about performance also care about speed of development. The only people saying it's impossible to reconcile both is the people who religiously dismiss the need for performance in modern software.
To quote a famous asshole: "Real artists ship."
Or another "Perfect is the enemy of Good Enough™"
Network effects are real and being first to (idea) market has its own benefits. Who would have thought, speed of development has its own merits.