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: www.lennysnewsletter.com

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Where to find Amjad Masad:

• X: x.com

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com

• Website: amasad.me

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: twitter.com

• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com

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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: replit.com

• Cursor: www.cursor.com

• Aman Mathur on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com

• Node: nodejs.org

• Claude: claude.ai

• Salesforce: www.salesforce.com

• Wasm: webassembly.org

• Figma: www.figma.com

• Codecademy: www.codecademy.com

• Hacker News: news.ycombinator.com

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

• Jevons paradox: en.wikipedia.org

• Anthropic: www.anthropic.com

• Open AI: openai.com

• Amjad’s tweet about “society of models”: x.com

• About HCI: www.designdisciplin.com

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

• Andrew Wilkinson on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com

• Haya Odeh on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com

• Amjad’s law: x.com

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

• God of the gaps: en.wikipedia.org

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.