Nope, folks didn't invent higher-level programming languages (the first of which was arguably Fortran, see case in point [1]) because they wanted their code to run slower.

In fact, if “fast” is the most important requirement we'll probably write it in Fortran or C++. With C++ you just have to know which parts not to use.

[1] Fortran Web Framework https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509333