if it matters, i doubt many early start-ups worried about or even used version control. we used dropbox when starting out because we never worked on the same code, and we had to hit deadlines quickly. as it turns out, we got funded, and we took the time to polish the code (and implement version control) when we had the opportunity. a vast majority of founders of yc funded start-ups i've asked have told me they did not use version control early on (ie justin.tv and airbnb didn't, although i think reddit always did).
i know for a fact that youtube for example did not touch version control early on. you should definitely appreciate speed when you're starting because your ideas could change (and your code).
it's a trade off, and eventually you'll start doing stuff like unit testing. at some point, the more time you spend perfecting your code, the less time you can spend prototyping and changing the idea if it needs to be changed. i don't think it's comparable to a "wear your seatbelt, you should ALWAYS be using version control in EVERY situation" thing, you should really think about whether you need it. you should worry about hard disk failures, so do a back up every once in a while with a flash drive or dropbox at the very least. but version control has its own learning curve.
A benefit of learning version control early is that once you're good at it, it doesn't slow you down, even in early rapid/solo/investigational work. (The few tiny extra steps it requires quickly pay themselves back by providing de facto backups, reversing wrong turns, helping to debug or reconstruct prior reasoning, etc.)
I would guess most people on their second startups enable version-control from the beginning.
I think if anything a VCS could make you faster because it frees you from worrying about whether you're going to make a change or delete something you can never undo.
With version control you're always safe in the knowledge that whatever you do, you can always 'revert' to the last version that worked.
As a historical note -- git and hg didn't become popular and trivial to use until the past couple of years. When YouTube was written, free DVCSes were tricky to use, documentation was shakier and the best alternative, SVN, is a pain to set up for sharing over the internet. We're living in enlightened times now.
Completely true, of course, but the original poster's use of irony wins more style points than yours. ;)
Irony is judged by how artfully it approaches the line of apparent total sincerity without going over. Your response is clearly ironic. But it's possible to imagine, for a few seconds during the first reading, that the OP is being serious. Only after you think about what he just said do you start laughing.
Man, are you californian? I have noticed that what californians call irony and my own definition are completely different. What you're talking about I'd maybe call deadpanning - sorry, not really up on the various types of comedy. Irony would be more like a guy who had long publicly scorned version control, mocking all who used it, losing all of his code because of some problem which would have been easily avoided by the use of version control.
Guh, reminds me of what my friend used to do. He'd be acting all excited and say "Did you hear? Nine Inch Nails is having a concert here next month!" and I'd be like "Wow, cool, I want to go!" and then he'd crack up laughing and say "I can't believe you thought I was serious".
edit: he didn't deserve to be downvoted .. wtf. Maybe downvoting should cost the downvoter a point too, like on Stack Overflow. Would be an interesting experiment.
No. That way, when you have a crash and are severely injured, you'll realise that you should have been wearing a seatbelt!