Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

10 contrarian leadership truths every leader needs to hear | Matt MacInnis (Rippling)

Matt MacInnis is the chief product officer and former longtime COO at Rippling, a unified workforce management platform valued at over $16 billion. We discuss: 1. Why “extraordinary results demand extraordinary efforts” 2. Why you should deliberately understaff projects, and how to know when you’ve gone too far 3. Matt’s transition from COO to CPO and what surprised him about leading product 4. The “high alpha, low beta” framework for evaluating people, processes, and products 5. When founders should quit their startups (hint: much earlier than VCs want you to) 6. How to fight entropy in your organization through relentless energy and intensity — Brought to you by: Google Gemini [https://ai.dev/]—Your everyday AI assistant: https://ai.dev/ [https://ai.dev/] Datadog [https://www.datadoghq.com/lenny]—Now home to Eppo, the leading experimentation and feature flagging platform: https://www.datadoghq.com/lenny [https://www.datadoghq.com/lenny] GoFundMe Giving Funds [http://gofundme.com/lenny]—Make year-end giving easy: http://gofundme.com/lenny [http://gofundme.com/lenny] — Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/10-contrarian-leadership-truths [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/10-contrarian-leadership-truths] — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181916584/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181916584/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation] — Where to find Matt MacInnis: • X: https://x.com/stanine [https://x.com/stanine] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/macinnis [https://www.linkedin.com/in/macinnis] • Email: macinnis@rippling.com [macinnis@rippling.com] — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com] • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan [https://twitter.com/lennysan] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/] — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Matt MacInnis and Rippling (04:38) The importance of extraordinary efforts (08:37) The challenges and rewards of relentless effort (10:11) Your job as a leader is to preserve intensity (12:39) You learn far more from success than failure (16:34) Transitioning to chief product officer (19:54) Fixing product management at Rippling (25:27) The “high alpha, low beta” framework (28:55) The PQL framework (35:16) Hiring frameworks and team dynamics (36:52) A helpful interview tactic (40:00) Leading as a COO vs. a CPO (42:34) The reality of product-market fit (46:38) The problem with venture capital (49:29) When founders should quit their startups (41:48) The immutable market (54:13) Lessons from Notion’s success (57:43) Investment strategies and narrative violations (01:00:42) The power of compounding, power law, and entropy (01:07:02) Maintaining intensity and fighting entropy (01:11:33) The importance of feedback and escalations (01:14:31) Rippling’s vision and success (01:17:48) AI’s impact on SaaS and business software (01:23:42) AI corner (01:26:23) Final thoughts and lightning round — Referenced: • Rippling: https://www.rippling.com [https://www.rippling.com] • Sunil Raman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunilraman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunilraman] • Dan Gill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dangill [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dangill] • Carvana: https://www.carvana.com [https://www.carvana.com] • Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach] • Parker Conrad on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/parkerconrad [https://www.linkedin.com/in/parkerconrad] • Inkling: https://www.inkling.com [https://www.inkling.com] • Akshay Kothari on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akothari [https://www.linkedin.com/in/akothari] • Notion: https://www.notion.com [https://www.notion.com] • Conway’s law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law] • Seeking Alpha: https://seekingalpha.com [https://seekingalpha.com] • Dennis Rodman’s website: https://dennisrodman.com [https://dennisrodman.com] • Dancing pickle emoji: https://slackmojis.com/emojis/456-dancing_pickle [https://slackmojis.com/emojis/456-dancing_pickle] • Pickle Rick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickle_Rick [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickle_Rick] • SPOTAK: The Six Traits I Look for When I’m Hiring: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spotak-six-traits-look-m-181335267.html [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spotak-six-traits-look-m-181335267.html] • Geoff Lewis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geofflewis1 [https://www.linkedin.com/in/geofflewis1] • Zenefits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TriNet_Zenefits [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TriNet_Zenefits] • New banking records prove Deel paid thief who stole trade secrets from Rippling: https://www.rippling.com/blog/new-banking-records-prove-deel-paid-thief-who-stole-trade-secrets-from-rippling [https://www.rippling.com/blog/new-banking-records-prove-deel-paid-thief-who-stole-trade-secrets-from-rippling] • Workday: https://www.workday.com [https://www.workday.com] • Matic robots: https://maticrobots.com [https://maticrobots.com] • Wall-E: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970 [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970] • Conviction: https://www.conviction.com [https://www.conviction.com] • Mike Vernal on X: https://x.com/mvernal [https://x.com/mvernal] • Sarah Guo on X: https://x.com/saranormous [https://x.com/saranormous] • No Priors: https://linktr.ee/nopriors [https://linktr.ee/nopriors] • Gemini: https://gemini.google.com [https://gemini.google.com] • ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com [https://chatgpt.com] • Claude: https://claude.ai [https://claude.ai] • Bryan Schreier on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanschreier [https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanschreier] • Heated Rivalry on HBO Max: https://www.hbomax.com/shows/heated-rivalry/50cd4e99-04ee-427b-a3b4-da721ed05d9c [https://www.hbomax.com/shows/heated-rivalry/50cd4e99-04ee-427b-a3b4-da721ed05d9c] • Fellow coffee maker: https://fellowproducts.com/products/aiden-precision-coffee-maker [https://fellowproducts.com/products/aiden-precision-coffee-maker] — Recommended books: • Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space: https://www.amazon.com/Pale-Blue-Dot-Vision-Future/dp/0345376595 [https://www.amazon.com/Pale-Blue-Dot-Vision-Future/dp/0345376595] • Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values: https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Business-Build-through-Values/dp/1622032020 [https://www.amazon.com/Conscious-Business-Build-through-Values/dp/1622032020] • Thinking in Systems: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557 [https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557] • The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done: https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Executive-Definitive-Harperbusiness-Essentials/dp/0060833459 [https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Executive-Definitive-Harperbusiness-Essentials/dp/0060833459] — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ [https://penname.co/]. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com [podcast@lennyrachitsky.com]. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=show-notes-no-free-preview-language]

The coming AI security crisis (and what to do about it) | Sander Schulhoff

Sander Schulhoff is an AI researcher specializing in AI security, prompt injection, and red teaming. He wrote the first comprehensive guide on prompt engineering and ran the first-ever prompt injection competition, working with top AI labs and companies. His dataset is now used by Fortune 500 companies to benchmark their AI systems security, he’s spent more time than anyone alive studying how attackers break AI systems, and what he’s found isn’t reassuring: the guardrails companies are buying don’t actually work, and we’ve been lucky we haven’t seen more harm so far, only because AI agents aren’t capable enough yet to do real damage. We discuss: 1. The difference between jailbreaking and prompt injection attacks on AI systems 2. Why AI guardrails don’t work 3. Why we haven’t seen major AI security incidents yet (but soon will) 4. Why AI browser agents are vulnerable to hidden attacks embedded in webpages 5. The practical steps organizations should take instead of buying ineffective security tools 6. Why solving this requires merging classical cybersecurity expertise with AI knowledge — Brought to you by: Datadog [https://www.datadoghq.com/lenny]—Now home to Eppo, the leading experimentation and feature flagging platform: https://www.datadoghq.com/lenny [https://www.datadoghq.com/lenny] Metronome [https://metronome.com/]—Monetization infrastructure for modern software companies: https://metronome.com/ [https://metronome.com/] GoFundMe Giving Funds [http://gofundme.com/lenny]—Make year-end giving easy: http://gofundme.com/lenny [http://gofundme.com/lenny] — Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-coming-ai-security-crisis [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-coming-ai-security-crisis] — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181089452/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181089452/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation] — Where to find Sander Schulhoff: • X: https://x.com/sanderschulhoff [https://x.com/sanderschulhoff] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sander-schulhoff [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sander-schulhoff] • Website: https://sanderschulhoff.com [https://sanderschulhoff.com] • AI Red Teaming and AI Security Masterclass on Maven: https://bit.ly/44lLSbC [https://bit.ly/44lLSbC] — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com] • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan [https://twitter.com/lennysan] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/] — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Sander Schulhoff and AI security (05:14) Understanding AI vulnerabilities (11:42) Real-world examples of AI security breaches (17:55) The impact of intelligent agents (19:44) The rise of AI security solutions (21:09) Red teaming and guardrails (23:44) Adversarial robustness (27:52) Why guardrails fail (38:22) The lack of resources addressing this problem (44:44) Practical advice for addressing AI security (55:49) Why you shouldn’t spend your time on guardrails (59:06) Prompt injection and agentic systems (01:09:15) Education and awareness in AI security (01:11:47) Challenges and future directions in AI security (01:17:52) Companies that are doing this well (01:21:57) Final thoughts and recommendations — Referenced: • AI prompt engineering in 2025: What works and what doesn’t | Sander Schulhoff (Learn Prompting, HackAPrompt): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/ai-prompt-engineering-in-2025-sander-schulhoff [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/ai-prompt-engineering-in-2025-sander-schulhoff] • The AI Security Industry is Bullshit: https://sanderschulhoff.substack.com/p/the-ai-security-industry-is-bullshit [https://sanderschulhoff.substack.com/p/the-ai-security-industry-is-bullshit] • The Prompt Report: Insights from the Most Comprehensive Study of Prompting Ever Done: https://learnprompting.org/blog/the_prompt_report?srsltid=AfmBOoo7CRNNCtavzhyLbCMxc0LDmkSUakJ4P8XBaITbE6GXL1i2SvA0 [https://learnprompting.org/blog/the_prompt_report?srsltid=AfmBOoo7CRNNCtavzhyLbCMxc0LDmkSUakJ4P8XBaITbE6GXL1i2SvA0] • OpenAI: https://openai.com [https://openai.com] • Scale: https://scale.com [https://scale.com] • Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co [https://huggingface.co] • Ignore This Title and HackAPrompt: Exposing Systemic Vulnerabilities of LLMs through a Global Scale Prompt Hacking Competition: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Ignore-This-Title-and-HackAPrompt%3A-Exposing-of-LLMs-Schulhoff-Pinto/f3de6ea08e2464190673c0ec8f78e5ec1cd08642 [https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Ignore-This-Title-and-HackAPrompt%3A-Exposing-of-LLMs-Schulhoff-Pinto/f3de6ea08e2464190673c0ec8f78e5ec1cd08642] • Simon Willison’s Weblog: https://simonwillison.net [https://simonwillison.net] • ServiceNow: https://www.servicenow.com [https://www.servicenow.com] • ServiceNow AI Agents Can Be Tricked Into Acting Against Each Other via Second-Order Prompts: https://thehackernews.com/2025/11/servicenow-ai-agents-can-be-tricked.html [https://thehackernews.com/2025/11/servicenow-ai-agents-can-be-tricked.html] • Alex Komoroske on X: https://x.com/komorama [https://x.com/komorama] • Twitter pranksters derail GPT-3 bot with newly discovered “prompt injection” hack: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/twitter-pranksters-derail-gpt-3-bot-with-newly-discovered-prompt-injection-hack [https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/twitter-pranksters-derail-gpt-3-bot-with-newly-discovered-prompt-injection-hack] • MathGPT: https://math-gpt.org [https://math-gpt.org] • 2025 Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Las_Vegas_Cybertruck_explosion [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Las_Vegas_Cybertruck_explosion] • Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign: https://www.anthropic.com/news/disrupting-AI-espionage [https://www.anthropic.com/news/disrupting-AI-espionage] • Thinking like a gardener not a builder, organizing teams like slime mold, the adjacent possible, and other unconventional product advice | Alex Komoroske (Stripe, Google): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/unconventional-product-advice-alex-komoroske [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/unconventional-product-advice-alex-komoroske] • Prompt Optimization and Evaluation for LLM Automated Red Teaming: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22133 [https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22133] • MATS Research: https://substack.com/@matsresearch [https://substack.com/@matsresearch] • CBRN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBRN_defense [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBRN_defense] • CaMeL offers a promising new direction for mitigating prompt injection attacks: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/11/camel [https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/11/camel] • Trustible: https://trustible.ai [https://trustible.ai] • Repello: https://repello.ai [https://repello.ai] • Do not write that jailbreak paper: https://javirando.com/blog/2024/jailbreaks [https://javirando.com/blog/2024/jailbreaks] — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ [https://penname.co/]. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com [podcast@lennyrachitsky.com]. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=show-notes-no-free-preview-language]

The new AI growth playbook for 2026: How Lovable hit $200M ARR in one year | Elena Verna (Head of Growth)

Elena Verna is the head of growth at Lovable, the leading AI-powered app builder that hit $200 million in annual recurring revenue in under a year with just 100 employees. In this record fourth appearance on the podcast, Elena shares how the traditional growth playbook has been completely rewritten for AI companies. She explains why Lovable focuses on innovation over optimization, how they’ve shifted from activation to building new features, and why giving away their product for free has become their most powerful growth strategy. We discuss: 1. Why 60% to 70% of traditional growth tactics no longer apply in AI 2. Why you have to re-find product-market fit every 3 months 3. The specific growth tactics driving Lovable’s unprecedented growth 4. Why giving away product is a growth strategy that beats paid ads 5. “Minimum lovable product” as the new standard (not minimum viable product) 6. Why activation now belongs to product teams, not growth teams 7. Whether you should join an AI startup (honest tradeoffs) — Brought to you by: WorkOS [https://workos.com/lenny]—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs Vercel [https://vercel.com/lennyspodcast]—Your collaborative AI assistant to design, iterate, and scale full-stack applications for the web Persona [https://withpersona.com/lenny]—A global leader in digital identity verification — Transcript: ⁠ [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-new-ai-growth-playbook-for-2026-elena-verna]https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-new-ai-growth-playbook-for-2026-elena-verna⁠ [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-new-ai-growth-playbook-for-2026-elena-verna⁠] — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): ⁠ [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181207556/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation]https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181207556/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation⁠ [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/181207556/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation⁠] — Where to find Elena Verna: • X: https://x.com/elenaverna [https://x.com/elenaverna] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna [https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenaverna] • Newsletter: https://www.elenaverna.com [https://www.elenaverna.com] — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com] • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan [https://twitter.com/lennysan] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/] — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Elena Verna (05:19) The scale and growth of Lovable (08:55) Confidence in Lovable as a business (12:17) Retention at Lovable (15:02) Lovable’s unique growth levers (28:13) The role of marketing in Lovable’s success (38:09) Launching new features (40:59) Hiring and team dynamics (43:17) The value of vibe coding (49:46) The importance of community (51:47) Giving away your product for free (56:26) Tripling their company size (01:00:23) Product-market-fit challenges (01:08:50) Advice for joining AI companies (01:12:00) Work-life balance (01:15:20) What it’s like to work at Lovable (01:19:45) Women in tech (01:25:29) Final thoughts and lightning round — Referenced: • Elena Verna on how B2B growth is changing, product-led growth, product-led sales, why you should go freemium not trial, what features to make free, and much more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/elena-verna-on-why-every-company [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/elena-verna-on-why-every-company] • The ultimate guide to product-led sales | Elena Verna: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-led [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-led] • 10 growth tactics that never work | Elena Verna (Amplitude, Miro, Dropbox, SurveyMonkey): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/10-growth-tactics-that-never-work-elena-verna [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/10-growth-tactics-that-never-work-elena-verna] • Lovable: https://lovable.dev [https://lovable.dev] • Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika] • Stripe: https://stripe.com [https://stripe.com] • What differentiates the highest-performing product teams | John Cutler (Amplitude, The Beautiful Mess): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-differentiates-the-highest-performing [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-differentiates-the-highest-performing] • How to win in the AI era: Ship a feature every week, embrace technical debt, ruthlessly cut scope, and create magic your competitors can’t copy | Gaurav Misra (CEO and co-founder of Captions): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-win-in-the-ai-era-gaurav-misra] • “Dumbest idea I’ve heard” to $100M ARR: Inside the rise of Gamma | Grant Lee (CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-50-people-built-a-profitable-ai-unicorn [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-50-people-built-a-profitable-ai-unicorn] • Eric Ries on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries [https://www.linkedin.com/in/eries] • Elena’s post on LinkedIn about Lovable Missions: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elenaverna_everythingispossible-lovableway-activity-7401627519646474242-hn6e [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elenaverna_everythingispossible-lovableway-activity-7401627519646474242-hn6e] • SheBuilds: https://shebuilds.lovable.app [https://shebuilds.lovable.app] • Shopify + Lovable: https://lovable.dev/shopify [https://lovable.dev/shopify] • The Product-Market Fit Treadmill: Why every AI company is sprinting just to stay in place: https://www.elenaverna.com/p/the-product-market-fit-treadmill [https://www.elenaverna.com/p/the-product-market-fit-treadmill] • Cursor: https://cursor.com [https://cursor.com] • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell] • Unorthodox frameworks for growing your product, career, and impact | Bangaly Kaba (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Instacart): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/frameworks-for-growing-your-career-bangaly-kaba [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/frameworks-for-growing-your-career-bangaly-kaba] • The adjacent user: https://brianbalfour.com/quick-takes/the-adjacent-user [https://brianbalfour.com/quick-takes/the-adjacent-user] • Granola: https://www.granola.ai [https://www.granola.ai] • Wispr Flow: https://wisprflow.ai [https://wisprflow.ai] • I’m worried about women in tech: https://www.elenaverna.com/p/im-worried-about-women-in-tech [https://www.elenaverna.com/p/im-worried-about-women-in-tech] • Slack founder: Mental models for building products people love ft. Stewart Butterfield: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/slack-founder-stewart-butterfield [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/slack-founder-stewart-butterfield] — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ [https://penname.co/]. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com [podcast@lennyrachitsky.com]. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=show-notes-no-free-preview-language]

Why humans are AI’s biggest bottleneck (and what’s coming in 2026) | Alexander Embiricos (OpenAI Codex Product Lead)

Alexander Embiricos leads product on Codex, OpenAI’s powerful coding agent, which has grown 20x since August and now serves trillions of tokens weekly. Before joining OpenAI, Alexander spent five years building a pair programming product for engineers. He now works at the frontier of AI-led software development, building what he describes as a software engineering teammate—an AI agent designed to participate across the entire development lifecycle. We discuss: 1. Why Codex has grown 20x since launch and what product decisions unlocked this growth 2. How OpenAI built the Sora Android app in just 18 days using Codex 3. Why the real bottleneck to AGI-level productivity isn’t model capability—it’s human typing speed 4. The vision of AI as a proactive teammate, not just a tool you prompt 5. The bottleneck shifting from building to reviewing AI-generated work 6. Why coding will be a core competency for every AI agent—because writing code is how agents use computers best — Brought to you by: WorkOS [https://workos.com/lenny]—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https://workos.com/lenny [https://workos.com/lenny] Fin [https://fin.ai/lenny]—The #1 AI agent for customer service: https://fin.ai/lenny [https://fin.ai/lenny] Jira Product Discovery [https://atlassian.com/lenny/?utm_source=lennypodcast&utm_medium=paid-audio&utm_campaign=fy24q1-jpd-imc]—Confidence to build the right thing: https://atlassian.com/lenny/?utm_source=lennypodcast&utm_medium=paid-audio&utm_campaign=fy24q1-jpd-imc [https://atlassian.com/lenny/?utm_source=lennypodcast&utm_medium=paid-audio&utm_campaign=fy24q1-jpd-imc] — Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-humans-are-ais-biggest-bottleneck [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-humans-are-ais-biggest-bottleneck] — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/180365355/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/180365355/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation] — Where to find Alexander Embiricos: • X: https://x.com/embirico [https://x.com/embirico] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/embirico [https://www.linkedin.com/in/embirico] — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com] • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan [https://twitter.com/lennysan] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/] — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Alexander Embiricos  (05:13) The speed and ambition at OpenAI (11:34) Codex: OpenAI’s coding agent (15:43) Codex’s explosive growth (24:59) The future of AI and coding agents (33:11) The impact of AI on engineering (44:08) How Codex has impacted the way PMs operate (45:40) Throwaway code and ubiquitous coding (47:10) Shipping the Sora Android app (49:01) Building the Atlas browser (53:34) Codex’s impact on productivity (55:35) Measuring progress on Codex (58:09) Why they are building a web browser (01:01:58) Non-engineering use cases for Codex (01:02:53) Codex’s capabilities (01:04:49) Tips for getting started with Codex (01:05:37) Skills to lean into in the AI age (01:10:36) How far are we from a human version of AI? (01:13:31) Hiring and team growth at Codex (01:15:47) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • OpenAI: https://openai.com [https://openai.com] • Codex: https://openai.com/codex [https://openai.com/codex] • Inside ChatGPT: The fastest-growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-turley [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-turley] • Dropbox: http://dropbox.com [http://dropbox.com] • Datadog: https://www.datadoghq.com [https://www.datadoghq.com] • Andrej Karpathy on X: https://x.com/karpathy [https://x.com/karpathy] • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell] • Atlas: https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-atlas [https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-atlas] • How Block is becoming the most AI-native enterprise in the world | Dhanji R. Prasanna: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-block-is-becoming-the-most-ai-native [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-block-is-becoming-the-most-ai-native] • Goose: https://block.xyz/inside/block-open-source-introduces-codename-goose [https://block.xyz/inside/block-open-source-introduces-codename-goose] • Lessons on building product sense, navigating AI, optimizing the first mile, and making it through the messy middle | Scott Belsky (Adobe, Behance): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-on-building-product-sense [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-on-building-product-sense] • Sora Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openai.sora&hl=en_US&pli=1 [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.openai.sora&hl=en_US&pli=1] • The OpenAI Podcast—ChatGPT Atlas and the next era of web browsing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdbgNC80PMw&list=PLOXw6I10VTv9GAOCZjUAAkSVyW2cDXs4u&index=2 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdbgNC80PMw&list=PLOXw6I10VTv9GAOCZjUAAkSVyW2cDXs4u&index=2] • How to measure AI developer productivity in 2025 | Nicole Forsgren: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-measure-ai-developer-productivity [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-measure-ai-developer-productivity] • Compiling: https://3d.xkcd.com/303 [https://3d.xkcd.com/303] • Jujutsu Kaisen on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81278456 [https://www.netflix.com/title/81278456] • Tesla: https://www.tesla.com [https://www.tesla.com] • Radical Candor: From theory to practice with author Kim Scott: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/radical-candor-from-theory-to-practice [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/radical-candor-from-theory-to-practice] • Andreas Embirikos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Embirikos [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Embirikos] • George Embiricos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Embiricos [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Embiricos]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Embiricos [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Embiricos] — Recommended books: • Culture series: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WLZZ9WV [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WLZZ9WV] • The Lord of the Rings: https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0544003411 [https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0544003411] • A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought series Book 1): https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Upon-Deep-Zones-Thought/dp/1250237750 [https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Upon-Deep-Zones-Thought/dp/1250237750] • Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Kick-Ass-Without-Humanity/dp/1250103509 [https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Candor-Kick-Ass-Without-Humanity/dp/1250103509] — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ [https://penname.co/]. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com [podcast@lennyrachitsky.com]. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=show-notes-no-free-preview-language]

The 100-person AI lab that became Anthropic and Google's secret weapon | Edwin Chen (Surge AI)

Edwin Chen is the founder and CEO of Surge AI, the company that teaches AI what’s good vs. what’s bad, powering frontier labs with elite data, environments, and evaluations. Surge surpassed $1 billion in revenue with under 100 employees last year, completely bootstrapped—the fastest company in history to reach this milestone. Before founding Surge, Edwin was a research scientist at Google, Facebook, and Twitter and studied mathematics, computer science, and linguistics at MIT. We discuss: 1. How Surge reached over $1 billion in revenue with fewer than 100 people by obsessing over quality 2. The story behind how Claude Code got so good at coding and writing 3. The problems with AI benchmarks and why they’re pushing AI in the wrong direction 4. How RL environments are the next frontier in AI training 5. Why Edwin believes we’re still a decade away from AGI 6. Why taste and human judgment shape which AI models become industry leaders 7. His contrarian approach to company building that rejects Silicon Valley’s “pivot and blitzscale” playbook 8. How AI models will become increasingly differentiated based on the values of the companies building them — Brought to you by: Vanta [https://vanta.com/lenny]—Automate compliance. Simplify security. WorkOS [https://workos.com/lenny]—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs Coda [https://coda.io/lenny]—The all-in-one collaborative workspace — Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/surge-ai-edwin-chen [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/surge-ai-edwin-chen] — My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/180055059/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/180055059/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation] — Where to find Edwin Chen: • X: https://x.com/echen [https://x.com/echen] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwinzchen [https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwinzchen] • Surge’s blog: https://surgehq.ai/blog [https://surgehq.ai/blog] — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com] • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan [https://twitter.com/lennysan] • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/] — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Edwin Chen (04:48) AI’s role in business efficiency (07:08) Building a contrarian company (08:55) An explanation of what Surge AI does (09:36) The importance of high-quality data (13:31) How Claude Code has stayed ahead (17:37) Edwin’s skepticism toward benchmarks (21:54) AGI timelines and industry trends (28:33) The Silicon Valley machine (33:07) Reinforcement learning and future AI training (39:37) Understanding model trajectories (41:11) How models have advanced and will continue to advance (42:55) Adapting to industry needs (44:39) Surge’s research approach (48:07) Predictions for the next few years in AI (50:43) What’s underhyped and overhyped in AI (52:55) The story of founding Surge AI (01:02:18) Lightning round and final thoughts — Referenced: • Surge: https://surgehq.ai [https://surgehq.ai] • Surge’s product page: https://surgehq.ai/products [https://surgehq.ai/products] • Claude Code: https://www.claude.com/product/claude-code [https://www.claude.com/product/claude-code] • Gemini 3: https://aistudio.google.com/models/gemini-3 [https://aistudio.google.com/models/gemini-3] • Sora: https://openai.com/sora [https://openai.com/sora] • Terrence Rohan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrencerohan [https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrencerohan] • Richard Sutton—Father of RL thinks LLMs are a dead end: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/richard-sutton [https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/richard-sutton] • The Bitter Lesson: http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html [http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html] • Reinforcement learning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement_learning [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement_learning] • Grok: https://grok.com [https://grok.com] • Warren Buffett on X: https://x.com/WarrenBuffett [https://x.com/WarrenBuffett] • OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai] • Anthropic’s CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-cpo-heres-what-comes-next [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-cpo-heres-what-comes-next] • Brian Armstrong on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barmstrong [https://www.linkedin.com/in/barmstrong] • Interstellar on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Interstellar-Matthew-McConaughey/dp/B00TU9UFTS [https://www.amazon.com/Interstellar-Matthew-McConaughey/dp/B00TU9UFTS] • Arrival on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Arrival-Amy-Adams/dp/B01M2C4NP8 [https://www.amazon.com/Arrival-Amy-Adams/dp/B01M2C4NP8] • Travelers on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80105699 [https://www.netflix.com/title/80105699] • Waymo: https://waymo.com [https://waymo.com] • Soda versus pop: https://flowingdata.com/2012/07/09/soda-versus-pop-on-twitter [https://flowingdata.com/2012/07/09/soda-versus-pop-on-twitter] — Recommended books: • Stories of Your Life and Others: https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122 [https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122] • The Myth of Sisyphus: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Sisyphus-Vintage-International/dp/0525564454 [https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Sisyphus-Vintage-International/dp/0525564454] • Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465086454 [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465086454] • Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid: https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567 [https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567] — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ [https://penname.co/]. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com [podcast@lennyrachitsky.com]. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com [https://www.lennysnewsletter.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=show-notes-no-free-preview-language]