How To Build The Future: Paul Graham & Amjad Masad

00:26:19 · Paul Graham, Amjad MasadPlay from here

[00:26:19] S1: you think the answer is give them what they want? Like, they want to do stupid things, let them do the stupid things? Or do you think the answer is secretly you're working on behalf of the ambitious, scrappy people in the company and you secretly want to give them a way to get around the [00:26:35] S0: bureaucrats? Yeah. That's a tough one. So for example, you take a real thing. I disagree with, like, rationing tokens. So the way companies are kind of approaching this is saying everyone gets, you know, $100 of tokens a month. What they should care about is ROI. ROI, exactly. And what we see from our customers is there's a power law of ROI inside companies. So one person could drive 100x the I next bet there is. [00:27:06] S1: Absolutely. There always isn't software. [00:27:08] S0: And especially with agents, it becomes... It used to be 10x, now it's 100x, it's 1000x. Yeah. You want to control token spend. [00:27:18] S1: So what you need is to help the companies see where good stuff is happening. [00:27:22] S0: Yes. And I think there is some invention we could do there to help with that. So in the short term, I think you kind of have to do what they're asking for. [00:27:32] S1: Because that's how you get in. [00:27:33] S0: That's how you get in. And then you want to invent something better and then show them the way.

00:27:33 · Amjad Masad, Paul GrahamPlay from here

[00:27:33] S0: That's how you get in. And then you want to invent something better and then show them the way. [00:27:39] S1: So there's more stuff to build. There's more stuff to build. This could be very valuable stuff. Wouldn't this be valuable stuff? Because when you think about what you're doing when you're trying to figure out which of the projects that people are using tokens for are the most valuable, you're fixing the biggest problem inside big companies. This is why big companies are the way they are. They can't figure out the value of stuff done by individual people. So if you build something that makes them even 10% better at that, you're fixing the whole fundamental problem with big companies. [00:28:10] S0: Right. Yeah, and I think That's a lot [00:28:13] S1: more than just vibe coding. [00:28:14] S0: Yeah, I think we describe ourselves as vibe coding now. We wrote this blog post called The Self Driving Company. And so the idea behind it is a Replit where early adopters of of technology broadly, but definitely AI, we're seeing that we're working differently. Like, there's fundamental shift in how we work. [00:28:39] S1: You mean Replit as a company? [00:28:40] S0: Replit as a company, which is customer zero for Replit. [00:28:43] S1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe you should figure this out yourself first. How do you identify people doing valuable things?

00:28:43 · Paul Graham, Amjad MasadPlay from here

[00:28:43] S1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe you should figure this out yourself first. How do you identify people doing valuable things? [00:28:49] S0: Yes. And so you know, Replit is... As a customer zero, it's it's the lab. We're trying to figure out, like, that. So the the self driving company is sort of this idea of, like, the future of work, future of how firms are organized. And we think Replit is the platform for the transformation for Wow. The self driving companies. And so that... That's sort of the expanded vision of where Replit is is headed. Because, ultimately, the thing that I didn't really appreciate and realize is, I've always known that making software creation more accessible would have transformational impact. I didn't really appreciate that it would fundamentally change how people work. Like [00:29:30] S1: Because it seemed... We were programmers. It seems like what programmers write programs. Right? It's not like this... The core of the way companies work doesn't consist of programming. Yes. Maybe now it does. [00:29:40] S0: It it does. Yes. [00:29:41] S1: Wow. You know, by the way, incidentally, this is an instance of what happens with the very best startups. The very best startups, you come up with something and you think you're coming up with some idea, you suggested to them, they've already done it. You've already got this big new transformation planned. That's another thing about the best startups. The best startups, they're already big, and then they think of this new thing as if they were a brand new company, right? And they get 100x bigger.

00:29:41 · Paul Graham, Amjad MasadPlay from here

[00:29:41] S1: Wow. You know, by the way, incidentally, this is an instance of what happens with the very best startups. The very best startups, you come up with something and you think you're coming up with some idea, you suggested to them, they've already done it. You've already got this big new transformation planned. That's another thing about the best startups. The best startups, they're already big, and then they think of this new thing as if they were a brand new company, right? And they get 100x bigger. [00:30:10] S0: Well, think it's now actually essential to do that because AI, like we talked about earlier, is a massive commoditization force. So I think where it used to be optional to have to reinvent yourself, it's now mandatory almost. [00:30:34] S1: And you're the way AI flows into companies. Yes. I mean, that's gigantic. [00:30:39] S0: Yeah. It's gigantic. [00:30:41] S1: You just have to make that be not vague, cause anybody can say that. Anybody listening to this, there's probably someone at IBM thinking, yeah, that sounds good. We'll see. We're the way AI flows into companies. Everything [00:30:56] S0: we've kind of popularized ended up being copied. Like, you would probably ask this idea of like idea to have fast. And it's like, probably every startup that does like five pudding is like, that's their thing. [00:31:08] S1: But they're copying the old version of you. Yes. You're a movie, and they're copying this frame Yes. From, like, six months ago. Right?

00:31:08 · Paul Graham, Amjad MasadPlay from here

[00:31:08] S1: But they're copying the old version of you. Yes. You're a movie, and they're copying this frame Yes. From, like, six months ago. Right? [00:31:16] S0: Yeah. That's that's how that's how it needs to... Like, you need to be constantly doing that. [00:31:20] S1: But this means Replit's in every company. [00:31:23] S0: Mhmm. [00:31:24] S1: Every company that has competitors that can't afford to just sit. [00:31:28] S0: Yes, that's the goal. That's astounding. [00:31:32] S1: So how do you do this? I suppose gradually is the answer. [00:31:38] S0: Yeah, I think there's always this temptation for founders to come up with this big strategy, make a big news about it and then just like, oh, this is what we're doing now. It's like, no, let the customers tell the story. [00:31:50] S1: Right, it's more like you have this general goal of where you wanna end up. Yeah. But then you do it incrementally. Yes. And what are the increments? Individual things that come up with customers. But you know what you're looking for. Right. You know you're looking for a customer doing a certain sort of thing. Okay, let's help them out and then everybody will be able to do [00:32:07] S0: this. Exactly. [00:32:08] S1: And you're in. That's the great thing. This is what having done all that systems programming buys you. It gets you into the customers so you can see the increments of the new things you're doing.

00:32:08 · Paul Graham, Amjad MasadPlay from here

[00:32:08] S1: And you're in. That's the great thing. This is what having done all that systems programming buys you. It gets you into the customers so you can see the increments of the new things you're doing. [00:32:20] S0: Yes. And if... Like, similarly, like how agent... Replit agent for the outside world was this discontinuous moment for us internally was incremental in many ways. I think a lot of things that we're doing at some point, we were like, there's this is a continuous moment in in how companies [00:32:39] S1: It's so interesting. If you're the experts, if you're the insiders, things that seem like step functions Yes. For the rest of the world. You saw before the step [00:32:51] S0: Yeah. [00:32:51] S1: And you see after, so it's smoother for you. It's smoother. And I [00:32:54] S0: think that's... It's not all invention, but I think the history of invention, if you, you know, zoom in and kind of read the stories, like, you know, Steve Jobs tried to do an iPad in the eighties, you know? Yeah. [00:33:08] S1: Because he knew that something like that would be good. Yeah. The technology just wasn't there [00:33:11] S0: yet. Yeah. So when you read the story of Apple, it was like, oh, the iPhone was totally obvious, especially, you know, after it like [00:33:17] S1: Yeah. Yeah. If it was so obvious, how come nobody else did [00:33:20] S0: it? Right. Right? But but but, like, it was sort of incremental inside Apple, but for everyone in the world, well, that was, a totally transformational moment. But also, if