Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

918: Extreme Native Perf on the Web with Superhuman


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Wes and Scott talk with Loïc Houssier about how Superhuman builds lightning-fast, delightfully-designed email software. They dig into engineering philosophy, offline-first architecture, local databases, AI-powered productivity, and what it takes to create tools that people love.

Show Notes
  • 00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
  • 03:05 Inside Superhuman and Loïc’s role
  • 06:49 Is Superhuman native? What’s the tech stack?
  • 08:16 How Superhuman approaches product design and speed
  • 12:17 Local-first architecture – Sync, storage, and performance
    • Realm
    • 13:46 Vector search, AI, and privacy considerations
    • 18:12 How the team ships fast and stays focused
    • 21:27 Rethinking email for the future
    • 26:54 Brought to you by Sentry.io
    • 27:19 How calendar integration and smart features work
    • 29:54 Where new ideas come from
    • 31:54 Will there ever be a true dark mode?
    • 33:02 Are people actually using keyboard shortcuts?
    • 36:42 How shortcuts work and the role of the command palette
    • 41:28 Engineering for speed – Costs and trade-offs
    • 43:32 How Superhuman’s sync engine works
    • 46:09 What code runs locally and what runs on the server?
    • 46:51 How Superhuman handled the Google and Cloudflare outage
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      Syntax - Tasty Web Development TreatsBy Wes Bos & Scott Tolinski - Full Stack JavaScript Web Developers

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