Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO)

Amjad Masad is the co-founder and CEO of Replit, a browser-based coding environment that allows anyone to write and deploy code. Replit has 34 million users globally and is one of the fastest-growing developer communities in the world. Prior to Replit, Amjad worked at Facebook, where he led the JavaScript infrastructure team and contributed to popular open-source developer tools. Additionally, he played a key role as a founding engineer at the online coding school Codecademy. In our conversation, Amjad shares:

• A live demo of Replit in action

• How Replit’s AI agent can build full-stack web applications from a simple text prompt

• The implications of AI-powered development for product managers, designers, and engineers

• How this might reshape companies and careers

• Why being “generative” will become an increasingly valuable skill

• “Amjad’s law” and how learning to debug AI-generated code is becoming ever more valuable

• Much more

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad

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Where to find Amjad Masad:

• X: https://x.com/amasad

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amjadmasad/

• Website: https://amasad.me/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Amjad Masad and Replit

(02:41) The vision and challenges of Replit

(06:50) Replit’s growth and user stories

(10:49) Demo of Replit’s capabilities

(16:51) Building and iterating with Replit

(25:04) Real-world applications and use cases

(30:13) The technology stack

(33:48) The evolution of Replit and its capabilities

(39:36) The future of AI in software development

(44:04) Skills for the future: generative thinking and coding

(47:26) Amjad’s law

(50:36) Replit’s new developments and future plans

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Referenced:

• Replit: https://replit.com/

• Cursor: https://www.cursor.com

• Aman Mathur on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-mathur/

• Node: https://nodejs.org/en

• Claude: https://claude.ai/

• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/

• Wasm: https://webassembly.org/

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• Codecademy: https://www.codecademy.com/

• Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/news

• Paul Graham’s website: https://www.paulgraham.com/

• Jevons paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

• Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/

• Open AI: https://openai.com/

• Amjad’s tweet about “society of models”: https://x.com/amasad/status/1568941103709290496

• About HCI: https://www.designdisciplin.com/p/hci-profession

• Taylor Swift’s website: https://www.taylorswift.com/

• Andrew Wilkinson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/awilkinson/

• Haya Odeh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haya-odeh-b0725928/

• Amjad’s law: https://x.com/snowmaker/status/1847377464705896544

• Ray Kurzweil’s website: https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/

• God of the gaps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.