A decades-old rule of thumb claims that every layer of approval makes a process 10x slower, and developers keep finding it painfully true. The math is simple: code review by a peer takes 5 hours instead of 30 minutes. Add an architecture review and it balloons to a week. Involve another team and suddenly you're looking at 12 weeks for what should be a simple fix.

This isn't just about AI accelerating the initial coding phase. Even if Claude can write code in 3 minutes instead of 30, the review process remains the bottleneck. Large changes get sliced into smaller chunks, each requiring its own review cycle. Design documents add another layer of delay. The result? Projects that should take hours stretch into weeks or months.

The fundamental problem is that companies add review layers to prevent expensive mistakes at scale. But this creates a paradox: more checks mean slower delivery and higher costs. The only sustainable solution is fewer reviews, not faster code generation. Companies must decide whether the quality gains justify the massive time penalties.