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 — Brought to you by: • WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs • Persona—A global leader in digital identity verification • LinkedIn Ads—Reach professionals and drive results for your business — Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad — Where to find Amjad Masad: • X: https://x.com/amasad • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amjadmasad/ • Website: https://amasad.me/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — 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 — 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 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe