The text discusses the importance of reducing latency in geo-distributed SQL applications, particularly in cloud-native applications with multi-region deployments. It highlights nine techniques for achieving low latency in such applications, including linearizable reads without quorum, follower reads with timeline consistency, topology-aware client drivers, geo-partitioning, preferred region for shard leaders, JOINs powered by follower reads, read-only replicas, colocated/co-partitioned/interleaved tables, and two-region deployments. These techniques aim to minimize WAN latency in multi-region clusters while maintaining high availability and scalability. The text also emphasizes the importance of careful analysis and experimentation to determine the best approach for a specific use case.