Replit CEO Amjad Masad on 1 Billion Developers: A Better End State than AGI?
Amjad Masad set out more than a decade ago to pursue the dream of unleashing 1B software creators around the world. With millions of Replit users pre-ChatGPT, that vision was already becoming a reality. Turbocharged by LLMs, the vision of enabling anyone to code—from 12-year-olds in India to knowledge workers in the U.S.—seems less and less radical. In this episode, Amjad explains how an explosion in the developer population could change the economy, society and more. He also discusses his early days programming in Jordan, his unique management approach and what AI will mean for the global economy.
Hosted by David Cahn and Sonya Huang, Sequoia Capital
Mentioned in this episode:
On the Naturalness of Software: 2012 paper on applying NLP to code
Attention Is All You Need: Seminal 2017 paper on transformers
I Am a Strange Loop: 2007 follow up to Douglas Hofstadter’s 1979 classic Gödel, Escher, Bach that explores how self-referential systems can describe minds
On Lisp: Paul Graham’s 1993 book on the original programming language of AI
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1:26:18
Why CRM Needs an AI Revolution, with Day.ai Founder Christopher O’Donnell
Christopher O’Donnell believes the fundamental problems with CRM—incomplete data, complex workflows, siloed work products and the fear of leads falling through the cracks—can finally be solved through AI. Founder of Day.ai and former Chief Product Officer of HubSpot, Christopher explains how his team is building a system that automatically captures the full context of customer relationships while giving users transparency and control. He shares lessons from building HubSpot’s CRM and why he’s taking a deliberate approach to product development despite the pressure to scale quickly in the AI era.
Hosted by Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital
Mentioned in this episode:
The Innovator's Dilemma: Classic book by Clay Christensen (referenced regarding HubSpot's second S-curve strategy)
Hubspot CRM: The only product to successfully challenge Salesforce’s dominance in the CRM category
From Super Mario Brothers to Elden Ring: Analogy to what an AI-powered CRM experience can be through comparison of video games launched in 1985 vs 2022
Punk’d: Hidden camera–practical joke reality television series that premiered on MTV in 2003, created by Ashton Kutcher and Jason Goldberg
Slow is smooth and smooth is fast: SEALs-derived concept mentioned regarding product development)
Aga stove (highlighted as extraordinary product design example)
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1:11:05
From Software Engineers to AI Word Artisans: Filip Kozera of Wordware
Filip Kozera sees parallels between Excel’s democratization of data analytics and Wordware’s mission to put AI development in the hands of knowledge workers. Drawing inspiration from Excel’s 750 million users (compared to 30 million software developers), Wordware is creating tools that balance the rigid structure of programming with the fuzziness of natural language. Filip explains why effective AI development requires working across multiple abstraction layers—from high-level concepts to detailed implementation—while preserving human creative control. He shares his vision for “word artisans” who will use AI to amplify their creative impact.
Hosted by Sonya Huang, Sequoia Capital
Mentioned in this episode:
Lovable: Generative AI app that builds UIs and web apps
Her: 2013 Spike Jonze film that Filip uses as an example of how voice will not be the best modality to express knowledge work.
Descript: AI video editing app that Filip uses a lot.
Granola: AI notetaking app Filip uses every day..
Gemini 2.0 Pro: Google’s newest long context model that can handle 6000 page pdfs.
Limitless pendant: Wearable device for collecting personal conversational context to drive AI experiences that Filip can’t wait for to ship.
DeepLearning.AI: Andrew Ng’s amazing resource for learning about AI
3Blue1Brown: Grant Sanderson’s incredible channel on YouTube that explains math and AI visually.
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43:04
Josh Woodward: Google Labs is Rapidly Building AI Products from 0-to-1
As VP of Google Labs, Josh Woodward leads teams exploring the frontiers of AI applications. He shares insights on their rapid development process, why today’s written prompts will become outdated and how AI is transforming everything from video generation to computer control. He reveals that 25% of Google’s code is now written by AI and explains why coding could see major leaps forward this year. He emphasizes the importance of taste, design and human values in building AI tools that will shape how future generations work and create.
Mentioned in this episode:
Notebook LM: Personal research product based on Gemini 2 (previously discussed on Training Data.)
Veo 2: Google DeepMind’s new video generation model.
Paul Graham on X replying to Aaron Levie’s post that “One approach to take in building in AI is to do something that's too expensive to be reasonably practical right now, and just bet that the costs will drop by 10X or 100X over time. The cost curve is on your side.”
Where Good Ideas Come From: Book on the history of innovation by Steven Johnson.
Project Mariner: Google DeepMind’s research prototype exploring human-agent interaction starting with browser use.
Replit Agent: Josh’s favorite new AI app
The Lego Story: Book on the history of Lego.
Hosted by: Ravi Gupta and Sonya Huang, Sequoia Capital
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51:16
How AI Breakout Harvey is Transforming Legal Services, with CEO Winston Weinberg
Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg explains why success in legal AI requires more than just model capabilities—it demands deep process expertise that doesn’t exist online. He shares how Harvey balances rapid product development with earning trust from law firms through hyper-personalized demos and deep industry expertise. The discussion covers Harvey’s approach to product development—expanding specialized capabilities then collapsing them into unified workflows—and why focusing on complex work like international mergers creates the most defensible position in legal AI.
Hosted by: Sonya Huang and Pat Grady, Sequoia Capital
Join us as we train our neural nets on the theme of the century: AI. Sonya Huang, Pat Grady and more Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to ask critical questions and develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies—and their implications for technology, business and society.
The content of this podcast does not constitute investment advice, an offer to provide investment advisory services, or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund.
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