The text discusses the challenges faced with slow CI pipeline running on GitHub Actions due to increasing complexity of their software. They initially tried to solve this issue by purchasing larger runners from GitHub, but it proved ineffective and expensive. After a series of trial and error, they managed to bring down the average build time from 25 minutes to just 5 minutes using Dagger Cloud's caching mechanisms and Depot's custom runners. This resulted in significant productivity improvements and cost reductions.