With my laptop throttled, I was seeing my installs timeout due to the apiserver being unable to reach the etcd server:

level=info msg=Started local control plane with envtest
E0804 16:49:51.518514 660718 server.go:328] "unable to start the controlplane" err="timeout waiting for process kube-apiserver to start" logger="controller-runtime.test-env" tries=0
E0804 16:50:11.972156 660718 server.go:328] "unable to start the controlplane" err="timeout waiting for process kube-apiserver to start successfully (it may have failed to start, or stopped unexpectedly before becoming ready)" logger="controller-runtime.test-env" tries=1
E0804 16:50:29.253101 660718 server.go:328] "unable to start the controlplane" err="timeout waiting for process kube-apiserver to start" logger="controller-runtime.test-env" tries=2
E0804 16:50:49.742748 660718 server.go:328] "unable to start the controlplane" err="timeout waiting for process kube-apiserver to start successfully (it may have failed to start, or stopped unexpectedly before becoming ready)" logger="controller-runtime.test-env" tries=3
E0804 16:51:06.829984 660718 server.go:328] "unable to start the controlplane" err="timeout waiting for process kube-apiserver to start" logger="controller-runtime.test-env" tries=4
level=debug msg=Collecting applied cluster api manifests...
level=error msg=failed to fetch Cluster: failed to generate asset "Cluster": failed to create cluster: failed to run cluster api system: failed to run local control plane: unable to start control plane itself: failed to start the controlplane. retried 5 times: timeout waiting for process kube-apiserver to start

When i put my laptop in performance mode things succeeded. I also confirmed if i started up the etcd server manually (using the same command that the installer was using to launch it), the etcd port was initially only available intermittently before stabilizing.

my impression/theory is that etcd was taking too long to come up/stabilize and the apiserver/installer gave up.

Increasing the default timeout and making the timeout configurable in general would be helpful to provide a workaround for people who run into this situation.