In Depth

The secret lever Replit pulled to scale ahead of its competition | Amjad Masad (Co-founder and CEO)

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Amjad Masad is the co-founder and CEO of Replit, an online platform designed for collaborative coding in multiple programming languages. Replit boasts over 30m users, has secured $200M in venture funding, and was recently valued at $1.2B. Before Replit, Amjad was a Software Engineer at Facebook, and a Founding Engineer at Codecademy.

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In today’s episode, we discuss:

  • How AI is reshaping the software landscape
  • Bridging the gap between ideas and software
  • Why YC almost rejected Replit four times
  • Replit’s fundraising difficulties, and how Paul Graham helped
  • The secret lever Replit pulled to scale ahead of its competition
  • Replit’s impressive distribution engine

    • —

    Referenced:

    • 7 Powers: https://www.amazon.com/7-Powers-Foundations-Business-Strategy/dp/0998116319/
    • Codecademy: https://www.codecademy.com/
    • Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/
    • I Am a Strange Loop: https://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loop-Douglas-Hofstadter/dp/0465030793
    • Mythical Man-Month: https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959
    • On the Naturalness of Software: https://people.inf.ethz.ch/suz/publications/natural.pdf
    • OpenAI: https://openai.com/
    • Paul Graham: https://twitter.com/paulg
    • Python: https://www.python.org/
    • Read Write Own: https://www.amazon.com/Read-Write-Own-Building-Internet/dp/0593731387/
    • Replit: https://replit.com/
    • Roy Bahat: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roybahat/
    • Sam Altman: https://twitter.com/sama
    • The Innovator’s Dilemma: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Management-Innovation/dp/1633691780/
    • The Little Schemer: https://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P-Friedman/dp/0262560992/
    • Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/

      • —

      Where to find Amjad Masad:

      • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amjadmasad
      • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/amasad

        • —

        Where to find Todd Jackson:

        • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddj0/
        • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/tjack

          • —

          Where to find First Round Capital:

          • Website: https://firstround.com/
          • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
          • Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround
          • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
          • This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

            • —

            Timestamps:

            (00:00) Introduction

            (02:31) Replit’s origin story

            (08:24) Starting Facebook’s JavaScript infrastructure team

            (10:36) Amjad’s unique path to entrepreneurship

            (16:04) How Replit got its early users

            (17:00) Replit’s fundraising difficulties

            (17:54) Why YC almost rejected Replit four times

            (20:23) Building Replit’s distribution engine

            (22:08) Drivers of Replit’s growth

            (27:41) What Silicon Valley gets wrong

            (30:09) Replit’s monetization strategy

            (32:29) Integrating AI into the platform

            (36:18) The impact of AI on software engineering

            (39:40) Defining the new “software creator” role

            (41:43) How to keep up with developments in AI

            (46:24) Replit’s goals for 2024

            (48:11) Advice for founders: defy conventional wisdom

            (51:12) Amjad’s 4 favorite books

            ...more
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