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: <a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad</a>
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Where to find Amjad Masad:
• X: <a href="https://x.com/amasad" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://x.com/amasad</a>
• LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/amjadmasad/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.linkedin.com/in/amjadmasad/</a>
• Website: <a href="https://amasad.me/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://amasad.me/</a>
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: <a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.lennysnewsletter.com</a>
• X: <a href="https://twitter.com/lennysan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://twitter.com/lennysan</a>
• LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/</a>
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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: <a href="https://replit.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://replit.com/</a>
• Cursor: <a href="https://www.cursor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.cursor.com</a>
• Aman Mathur on LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-mathur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-mathur/</a>
• Node: <a href="https://nodejs.org/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://nodejs.org/en</a>
• Claude: <a href="https://claude.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://claude.ai/</a>
• Salesforce: <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.salesforce.com/</a>
• Wasm: <a href="https://webassembly.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://webassembly.org/</a>
• Figma: <a href="https://www.figma.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.figma.com/</a>
• Codecademy: <a href="https://www.codecademy.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.codecademy.com/</a>
• Hacker News: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/news" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://news.ycombinator.com/news</a>
• Paul Graham’s website: <a href="https://www.paulgraham.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.paulgraham.com/</a>
• Jevons paradox: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox</a>
• Anthropic: <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.anthropic.com/</a>
• Open AI: <a href="https://openai.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://openai.com/</a>
• Amjad’s tweet about “society of models”: <a href="https://x.com/amasad/status/1568941103709290496" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://x.com/amasad/status/1568941103709290496</a>
• About HCI: <a href="https://www.designdisciplin.com/p/hci-profession" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.designdisciplin.com/p/hci-profession</a>
• Taylor Swift’s website: <a href="https://www.taylorswift.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.taylorswift.com/</a>
• Andrew Wilkinson on LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/awilkinson/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.linkedin.com/in/awilkinson/</a>
• Haya Odeh on LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/haya-odeh-b0725928/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.linkedin.com/in/haya-odeh-b0725928/</a>
• Amjad’s law: <a href="https://x.com/snowmaker/status/1847377464705896544" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://x.com/snowmaker/status/1847377464705896544</a>
• Ray Kurzweil’s website: <a href="https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/</a>
• God of the gaps: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps</a>
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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 [&hellip;]