Developing technical taste: A guide for next-gen engineers | Sam Schillace (Deputy CTO at Microsoft, creator of Google Docs)

Sam Schillace is the CVP and Deputy CTO at Microsoft. Before Microsoft, Sam held prominent engineering roles at Google and Box. He has also founded six startups, including Writely, which was acquired by Google and became Google Docs. – In today’s episode, we discuss: Sam’s advice for future engineers What’s next for AI How to develop technical taste The importance of asking “what if” questions Lessons on market timing Scaling a software company in 2024 – Referenced: Amazon: https://amazon.com Box: https://www.box.com/ Elon Musk: https://twitter.com/elonmusk Google Docs: https://docs.google.com Itzhak Perlman: https://itzhakperlman.com/ Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com Netflix: https://www.netflix.com Tesla: https://www.tesla.com/ The Innovator’s Dilemma: https://www.amazon.com.au/Innovators-Dilemma-Clayton-M-Christensen/dp/0062060244 TurboTax: https://turbotax.intuit.com/ Uber: https://www.uber.com/ Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/ Workday: https://www.workday.com/ Writely: https://techcrunch.com/2005/08/31/writely-process-words-with-your-browser/ – Where to find Sam Schillace: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schillace/ Newsletter: https://sundaylettersfromsam.substack.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/sschillace – Where to find Brett Berson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson – Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast – Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (02:54) Lessons on market timing (07:30) Developing technical taste (09:51) Asking “what if” questions (14:03) Building Google Docs (19:32) The decline of Google apps (20:57) The Innovator’s Dilemma facing Microsoft (22:53) The differences between Google and Microsoft (24:42) How to build a winning product (27:46) Becoming an optimist (29:12) Why engineering teams aren’t smaller (32:00) Sam’s prediction about AI (34:11) Capturing the value of AI (37:43) How you should think about AI (45:33) Advice for future engineers (48:18) What makes a great engineer (49:45) One thing the best engineers do (51:37) Microsoft’s new leverage (56:01) Scaling software in 2024 (59:50) The future of AI across several sectors (64:28) What Sam and a violinist have in common

Casey Winters is a legendary advisor on scaling, product and growth. He’s worked with companies like Airbnb, Faire, Canva, Whatnot, Thumbtack, Tinder, and Reddit. Until recently, Casey was the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite, and has also led growth and product teams at Pinterest and Grubhub. – In today’s episode, we discuss: What every marketplace founder should think about Why marketplaces are different Finding product market fit Key ingredients to scaling a marketplace Strategies for acquiring demand and supply – Referenced: Airbnb: https://airbnb.com/ Bill Gurley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billgurley/ Blue Apron: https://www.blueapron.com/ Booking.com: https://www.booking.com/ DoorDash: https://www.doordash.com/ eBay: https://ebay.com/ Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/ Expedia: https://www.expedia.com/ Faire: https://www.faire.com/ Fermat Commerce: https://www.fermatcommerce.com/ Grubhub: https://www.grubhub.com/ Lyft: https://www.lyft.com/ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ Postmates: https://postmates.com/ Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/ Simon Rothman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonrothman/ Square: https://squareup.com/ Tony Xu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xutony/ Turo: https://turo.com/ Uber: https://www.uber.com/ Zillow: https://www.zillow.com/ – Where to find Casey Winters LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseywinters/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/onecaseman Website: https://caseyaccidental.com/ – Where to find Brett Berson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson – Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast – Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (02:30) Ingredients for a successful marketplace (05:34) Creating scalable growth loops (08:42) Emerging marketplaces in 2024 (10:56) 2 ways to acquire supply and demand (15:39) What’s unique about building a marketplace (18:27) When to focus on the demand side (23:10) Who to hire (26:22) Finding sticky customers (26:27) What Grubhub should’ve done (30:19) Uber versus Lyft (34:23) One thing all marketplace founders should know (34:45) Finding product market fit (40:45) Single versus multi-category marketplaces (43:02) When to expand (44:22) The best low-frequency marketplace (46:00) The product is supply, not software (50:48) No value in car-sharing (56:11) Improving supply and demand over time (61:04) The “setup, aha, and habit” framework (66:27) Avoid these marketplace mistakes (71:16) 2 people who influenced Casey’s thinking

Milin Desai is the CEO at Sentry, an application monitoring tool for developers. Sentry has recently passed two key milestones: 100K customers and over $100M in ARR. Before Sentry, Milin was a GM at VMware and scaled their cloud networking into a billion-dollar business. Prior to stepping into leadership roles, Milin was a PM at Riverbed and a software engineer at Veritas. — In today’s episode, we discuss: The key ingredients of Sentry’s success Sentry’s developer-centric approach Lessons on pricing, packaging, and product from VMware Being an external CEO at a startup Forging successful relationships with founders — Referenced: Building for the Fortune 500,000: https://blog.sentry.io/building-for-the-fortune-500-000/ Carl Eschenbach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-eschenbach-980543/ Chris Jennings: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriskjennings/ David Cramer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmcramer/ FRC’s product market fit framework: https://pmf.firstround.com/ Martin Casado: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martincasado/ Pat Gelsinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patgelsinger/ Raghu Raghuram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raghuraghuram/ Riverbed: https://www.riverbed.com/ Sentry: https://sentry.io/ Todd Bazakas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-bazakas-b5a2533/ Veritas: https://www.veritas.com/ VMware: https://www.vmware.com/ — Where to find Milin Desai: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milin-desai-464757/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/virtualmilin — Where to find Brett Berson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson — Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast — Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (03:03) Joining Sentry as an external CEO (06:27) The CEO/founder relationship (09:37) Lessons from VMware (13:04) What PMs did differently at VMware (18:04) Becoming the need, not the want (20:53) Scaling Sentry (23:07) Building for the “Fortune 500,000” (27:02) Open versus closed source product (30:43) The key ingredients to Sentry’s success (36:21) How Milin updated his playbook at Sentry (38:49) Focus on packaging, not pricing (40:29) “Build for the many, not the few” (41:53) Sentry’s B2D model (45:10) The second product mindset (51:03) Contrarian take on building for enterprise (52:50) Several people who influenced Milin

Matt MacInnis is the COO at Rippling, an all-in-one HR, IT, and finance platform for businesses, which last raised $500M at a $11.25B valuation. Before Rippling, Matt was the co-founder and CEO at Inkling, a mobile learning platform that was acquired in 2018. He also held several management roles at Apple. — In today’s episode, we discuss: Lessons on culture, org-design, and product from Rippling Characteristics of great CEOs How to a better executive leader Leading with kindness and impatience How to fight entropy — Referenced: Andy Roddick: https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andy-roddick/r485/overview Apple: https://www.apple.com Bain & Company: https://www.bain.com/ Bill Campbell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Campbell_(business_executive) Conscious Business: https://www.amazon.com.au/Conscious-Business-Build-Value-Through/dp/1622032020 Google: https://www.google.com Inkling: https://www.inkling.com/ McCaw Cellular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCaw_Cellular_Communications McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/ Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com Oracle: https://www.oracle.com Parker Conrad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parkerconrad/ Peter Currie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Currie_(businessman) Rippling: https://www.rippling.com The Effective Executive: https://www.amazon.com.au/Effective-Executive-Peter-Ferdinand-Drucker/dp/0060833459 — Where to find Matt MacInnis: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/macinnis/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/stanine — Where to find Brett Berson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson — Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast — Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (02:14) Great CEOs don’t worry about their weaknesses (06:31) The third-time founder mindset (08:09) Why every great CEO is impatient (11:54) How executives fight entropy (19:11) Experience ≠ wisdom (21:26) Managing workplace politics (24:02) Why all businesses should dogfood (26:20) Overseeing employee expenses (27:43) The best CEOs don’t need coaching (29:55) The hidden cost of advice (40:40) Why execs are “tortured but happy” (44:16) Clear versus first principles thinking (51:09) Finding first principles thinkers (53:13) Why people overcomplicate culture (55:53) Don’t make this mistake when interviewing (59:26) The importance of anti-patterns (61:27) Important business values (63:28) How Matt thinks about output (66:33) Rippling’s key leadership principle (71:02) Why kindness matters (72:03) Freeing yourself from self-doubt

Alyssa Henry is the former CEO of Square, a financial services company providing products and services used by over 4 million merchants. Formerly at Amazon, Alyssa led the development and growth of Simple Storage Service (S3) at AWS. Alyssa now serves as an Independent Director at Intel and Confluent. —  In today’s episode, we discuss: Lessons from Amazon, Microsoft, and Square “Minimum Remarkable Products” versus Minimum Viable Products Navigating different work cultures in big tech Insider reactions to the disruptive launch of AWS “Pioneer” versus “fast-follower” companies —  Referenced: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com Bill Gates: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates Block, Inc: https://block.xyz Cash App: https://cash.app Fast Company - Back To Square One: https://www.fastcompany.com/3033412/back-to-square-one Gokul Rajaram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gokulrajaram1 Jack Dorsey: https://twitter.com/Jack James Hamilton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameshamilton4 Jeff Bezos: https://twitter.com/jeffbezos Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com Oracle Corporation: https://www.oracle.com Sarah Friar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-friar Square: https://squareup.com Tom Szkutak: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-szkutak-4b59817 WSJ - Mobile-Payments Startup Square Discusses Possible Sale: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303825604579513882989476424 —  Where to find Alyssa Henry: LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/alyssa-henry-0905692 Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/alyssahhenry —  Where to find Brett Berson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson —  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 (02:20) Lessons from Microsoft and Amazon (08:29) Noticeable consistencies in the human condition (10:50) Differences in culture at Amazon, Microsoft and Square (13:27) Why “customers come first,” even above employees and community (14:01) Why fast-followers can be less customer-focused (15:50) The challenge of commercializing research projects (18:58) Joining Square and “building a picture” of the org (24:55) Knowing what to replicate from past companies (27:45) Questioning norms in new companies (28:41) The importance of effective communication systems (31:31) How to operationalize company values (33:38) Why shared beliefs are crucial for good company culture (37:05) Building Minimal Remarkable Products at Square (38:13) How to scale an aesthetic (42:46) Org design lessons from Square (50:06) How to align different teams behind business priorities (52:57) Lessons learned from fierce competition (57:39) The “fast follower” vs “pioneer” playbook (61:05) The original thinking behind AWS (66:08) The unlikely origin of Amazon CloudFront and other products (73:47) How Jeff Bezos influenced Alyssa

Adam Nash is the co-founder and CEO at Daffy, a platform that makes it easier to donate to charities and non-profits. Before Daffy, Adam was the President and CEO at Wealthfront, where he scaled the company’s assets under management from $100M to over $4B. Adam has also held leadership and technical roles at Dropbox, LinkedIn, eBay, and Apple. — In today’s episode, we discuss: Why founders should build platforms, not apps The importance of “delighting” customers How Daffy is disrupting donor-advised-funds Lessons on strategy from LinkedIn How to think about leadership transitions — Referenced: Andy Rachleff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachleff/ Bill Gates: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamhgates/ Daffy: https://www.daffy.org/ Daffy’s 2023 Year in Review: https://www.daffy.org/resources/year-in-review-2023 eBay: https://www.ebay.com/ Jeff Weiner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffweiner08/ Reid Hoffman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reidhoffman/ Robinhood: https://robinhood.com/ Ryan Roslansky: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanroslansky/ The Innovator’s Dilemma: https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Clayton-M-Christensen/dp/0062060244 Tim Cook: https://www.apple.com/leadership/tim-cook/ Wealthfront: https://www.wealthfront.com/ — Where to find Adam Nash: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamnash/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/adamnash — Where to find Brett Berson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson — 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 (02:08) Why the last 10 years have been less disruptive (06:15) Why we think about luck wrong (08:39) How eBay survived the dot com bubble (14:37) The value of building platforms, not apps (22:18) What made LinkedIn successful (27:31) Good company strategy = good product strategy (30:58) Setting LinkedIn’s strategy in 2009 (36:41) Why KaChing didn’t work (40:56) Pivoting to Wealthfront (43:23) Universal lesson on customer acquisition (45:11) Treating growth like a product problem (49:01) Advice on successful leadership transitions (54:20) How to delegate moral authority (60:24) The problem with metrics and customer requests (66:41) Apple’s approach to “delighting” customers (69:16) The 70/20/10 rule you’ve never heard about (70:29) How Daffy ships “delight features”

Eilon Reshef is the co-founder and CPO at Gong, an AI-powered platform that tracks, records, and analyzes sales calls to drive revenue growth. In 2021, Gong raised $250M at a $7.25B valuation. Gong was one of the fastest SaaS companies to hit $100m ARR, and now has over 4000 customers. Before Gong, Eilon sold his previous e-commerce startup, Webcollage. — In today’s episode, we discuss: Why Eilon was so bullish on recording sales calls How Gong knew they had product market fit The importance of design partners Expanding into multi-product offerings Lessons from riding the AI wave since 2015 The future of AI in B2B sales efficiency — Referenced: Act-On Software: https://act-on.com/ Amit Bendov: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amitbendov/ BlueJeans: https://www.bluejeans.com/ Crossing the Chasm: https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Geoffrey-Moore/dp/0062292986 Gong: https://www.gong.io/ Mistral: https://mistral.ai/ OpenAI: https://openai.com/ Salesforce: https://salesforce.com/ Webcollage: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/webcollage Webex: https://www.webex.com/ Zoom: https://zoom.us/ — Where to find Eilon Reshef: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eilonreshef/ — 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 (02:32) Eilon’s unwavering conviction in Gong (09:34) Initial reactions to Gong’s demo (13:48) Keeping the beta lean (15:33) Gong’s monetization strategy (16:38) Early signs of product market fit (18:14) The importance of design partners to Gong’s growth (21:52) Why VCs were afraid to invest (23:43) Reaching 100 customers (26:10) Eilon’s unique product roadmap framework (28:22) Going from $2M to $9M ARR in one year (29:02) The journey to multi-product (30:52) How Gong measures success (34:07) Lessons from building AI products for sales (37:45) Predicting the future of B2B sales (38:48) The concept of “raving fans” (39:31) Why it’s “easier” for second-time founders (42:00) Eilon’s favorite books (42:45) Gong in 2024

Dennis Pilarinos is the founder and CEO at Unblocked, a developer tool that lets you talk to your codebase. In 2018, Dennis’ first company, Buddybuild, was acquired by Apple, and he was subsequently appointed Director of Development Technologies. Before that, Dennis was a Senior Director at AWS and a Director at Microsoft. — In today’s episode, we discuss: Lessons on culture and product from Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft Building and scaling DevTools Finding product market fit and monetizing it Why AI is complicating product market fit How Dennis prioritizes mental health as a founder The common mistake people make when hiring — Referenced: Apple’s acquisition of Buddybuild: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/apple-agrees-to-buy-buddybuild.html AWS: https://aws.amazon.com Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org Confluence: https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence GitHub: https://github.com GitLab: https://gitlab.com Looker: https://looker.com Microsoft Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com Stewart Butterfield: https://www.linkedin.com/in/butterfield/ Stripe: https://stripe.com Twilio: https://twilio.com Unblocked: https://getunblocked.com/ — Where to find Dennis Pilarinos: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennispi Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/dennispilarinos — Where to find Brett Berson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson — 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 (02:18) Why building for developers is different (07:28) Buddybuild’s origin story (10:40) Early signs of product market fit (12:22) Managing mental health as a second-time founder (21:09) Building and scaling Unblocked (29:52) Dennis’ cautious take on AI (34:20) Being customer-obsessed (35:25) Unblocked’s decision-making process (38:31) Don’t over-index on competency when hiring (43:36) Why great product is everything (45:41) Monetizing product market fit (48:21) The power of positioning (51:48) Why Dennis doesn’t do demos (54:45) How to deal with customer feedback (57:29) Stewart Butterfield’s impact on Dennis

May Habib is the co-founder and CEO of Writer, a full-stack generative AI platform built for enterprises. The model is trained on a customer’s own data to create content that is consistent with their brand style and voice. Writer recently raised $100M at a valuation of around $500M. Prior to Writer, May co-founded Qordoba, an AI writing assistant. —  In today’s episode, we discuss: Advice for AI founders in 2024 Why it’s difficult to scale AI products for enterprise The secret to finding champions Signs of a healthy co-founder relationship The future of agentic AI —  Referenced: Accenture: https://www.accenture.com ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com Goldman Sachs: https://www.goldmansachs.com/ Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com Jill Kramer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-kramer-64230840/ L’Oreal: https://www.loreal.com/ Northwestern Mutual: https://www.northwesternmutual.com/ Palmyra: https://writer.com/blog/palmyra/ Retrieved Augmented Generation: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/what-is-retrieval-augmented-generation/ United Healthcare: https://www.uhc.com/ Vanguard: https://global.vanguard.com/ Waseem Alshikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/waseemalshikh/ Writer: https://writer.com/ —  Where to find May Habib: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/may-habib/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/may_habib —  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 (02:34) Writer’s origin story (06:30) Building a full-stack generative AI platform for enterprise (11:56) The #1 challenge building Writer (15:41) Writer’s approach to finding champion customers (20:29) How Writer is winning the enterprise space (27:11) Signs Writer found product-market-fit (29:26) Scaling LLMs for specific use cases (31:53) Writer’s goals for 2024 (33:57) Advice for 0 to 1 founders (35:53) Creating a culture of “connect, challenge, and own”

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. — 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