Rebuilding from zero is faster than debugging
I wanted shareful.ai to have a Mac app, iOS app, Chrome extension, Safari extension, frontend, and a monolith database. Repos for all of it. Weeks of work. Then I deleted everything and rebuilt from scratch in one night with CC Max 20x. Live before morning.
Based on the shareful.ai rebuild in February 2026.
The calculus has changed
When rebuilding from zero is faster than debugging, the impulsive move becomes the rational one. That math did not used to work. Deleting a codebase meant losing weeks. Now it means losing hours.
Holding onto broken code is the irrational choice. Every minute debugging accumulated assumptions is a minute not building what you need.
The first version is research
The second version was better in every way. Not because I am smarter at 2am than I was the week before. The context was clearer. I knew what the product needed instead of what I thought it needed when I started.
The first version was built on speculation. The second on experience. That is the hidden value of a failed first attempt. Not wasted work. Research.
Deletion is editing
The old version carried accumulated assumptions. The new version carried only intent. When building is fast, deletion is not waste. It is editing.
Writers know this. The first draft exists to discover what you are trying to say. The second draft exists to say it. Code works the same way now. The first build teaches you what the product should be. The second build is the product. Holding onto the first draft out of sunk cost is how you end up with software that feels designed by committee, even when the committee was just you at different points in time.