Comment by quotemstr

Why shouldn't the interpreted program start faster? Bytecode is usually at least 2x denser than machine code, so all things being equal, when starting an interpreted program, you should be doing less IO, take fewer page faults, and so run faster, at least if you defer computationally-intensive work to specialized AOT-compiled helpers.

That interpreted programs frequently start slower than their compiled equivalents reflects badly on interpreter implementations, not the concept of interpretation itself.