Richard Feldman, a software engineer at Zed Industries, discusses the technical decisions behind building the fast code editor Zed, which was designed from the ground up with speed as its primary goal. The company's approach to achieving this speed involved creating custom frameworks and handwritten shaders for different platforms, allowing the editor to render straight to the graphics card and maximize performance. Zed's broader vision goes beyond being a fast editor, aiming to create an open system that captures the entire real-time collaboration process, including conversations and code reviews, with the goal of evolving version control beyond Git. The company also integrates AI features, such as edit predictions and conversational AI, with a focus on customization and low latency, achieved through partnerships like the one with Baseten. Feldman views AI's role in programming as a tool to generate rough drafts and save time, but emphasizes the importance of maintaining control over the final output. Zed's collaboration features enable seamless real-time editing, allowing multiple users to work together on the same document without coordination overhead, making it an effective tool for large-scale collaborative work.