In my experience it’s not about “bad” vs. “good” code, and not about a tradeoff between speed and quality.
It’s more about how much abstraction is built into the system. A mature codebase has a clear purpose and therefore can contain durable, high level, even beautiful abstractions. On the other hand, a founder doesn’t always (nor should they) know what their code will need to do in 6 months time, so they typically avoid writing abstractions.
You can still write good code as a founder—it’s just that good founder code looks different than good BigCo code.
It’s more about how much abstraction is built into the system. A mature codebase has a clear purpose and therefore can contain durable, high level, even beautiful abstractions. On the other hand, a founder doesn’t always (nor should they) know what their code will need to do in 6 months time, so they typically avoid writing abstractions.
You can still write good code as a founder—it’s just that good founder code looks different than good BigCo code.