I've always had sub second startup times. With text rendered within the first 1.5-2 at most. Time to "Actual interactivity" usually takes around 3-5 seconds, but that's mostly due to my plugins. I could start typing per-se, just not in Vim mode.

I mostly leave the editor permanently open on the project I'm working on, so I guess I don't really notice it much either way. And using the integrated terminal to change one dir back and switch to another project, then opening it with code . is a pretty good flow so I don't feel stifled in that sense either.

> I mostly leave the editor permanently open on the project I'm working on

I leave Visual Studio permanently open, but I use sublime for quick edits/viewing/changes (e.g. opening a remote file on perforce, or modifying a config file), so even 2 seconds to interactivity is just too long.

My low-end MacBook opens it in less than 2 seconds.

I've just tried it on a gaming PC (i7, installed on an NVM SSD.) 4 second startup compared to instant for Sublime.

Even still 2 seconds is too long for quick edits.

Seems it checks for updates every once in a while. Took 6 seconds the first time with network activity. Second time it was <2 seconds.