Ionut special guest, wowww! :-)
Keep up the good work!

Bah.

0. Everybody loves a winner.

-1. Be in the right place at the right time.

-2. If you eventually succeed, nobody cares about your mistakes beforehand.

-3. Pithy slogans sound good.

-1/2. Even Seth does.
-3/2. Even if that place is a comment box on Blogoscoped forum.
-5/2. Except Seth.
-7/2. And negative numbered lists sound really lame.

"Speed is more important than looking good."

I think it has been shown time and again that "hard" qualities like speed or runtime stability are not as important as one would hope. Convenience and popularity are often more important.

1. Vision.
2. Transforming idea to Code.
3. Code Simplicity.
4. Portability of software to any device.
5. Plugin to any software.

"I think it has been shown time and again that "hard" qualities like speed or runtime stability are not as important as one would hope. Convenience and popularity are often more important."

If you software is fast, then it will be convenient and more likely to become popular.

X. "Deny everything but do it anyway" (Google Office, Google OS)

I don't know if I really agree with all those points – they're true for Google, but for all software?

Point one sounds nice, but there's plenty of companies out there that launched with a plan to change the world, but no concept of how to monetise that – and they didn't last long. The key to Google's success is directly related to their ability to monetise their popularity. Money does not necessarily follow good intentions. The world would be a better place if it did though.

Speed is better than looking good? For a search engine sure – but for everything? A Mercedes SLK500 doesn't go as fast as a Nascar, but I'd rather drive the Merc. It's about focusing on a goal. If speed is important, sacrifice beauty for speed. If the aesthetic is important you might have to sacrifice speed for beauty. The key is to find out what the most important things are for your users and focus on them. For search, that means fast, relevant results come first – everything else is an 'also ran'. Microsoft Live hasn't figured that out yet.

Point 3, well sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Betamax anyone? New Coke? DVD vs HD-DVD? Sometimes it pays to keep in mind what other people want before you go against the grain. Even for Google it doesn't always work. Google reader (which I like) was not well received.

Google is always great winner!

[Signature removed – Tony]