20VC Why AI Will Lead to Thousands of Billionaires and Elon Musk's, Will TikTok Be Banned and How Facebook Should Be Investing in AI & Why Startups Have Become Too Soft; We Need a Spiritual Reform with Amjad Masad, Founder & CEO @ Replit

In a dynamic conversation, Amjad Masad, CEO of Replit, delves into the future of AI and its potential to revolutionize software development, predicting that in ten years, one engineer could be as productive as 100 today. He discusses the implications of this shift, such as wealth inequality and the creation of a new class of millionaires, possibly leading to societal envy and unrest. Amjad also reflects on his unique upbringing in Jordan, his early entrepreneurial ventures, and the importance of embracing pain for growth. He emphasizes the significance of hiring misfits and exceptional individuals who show early signs of success, acknowledging the challenges of scaling such a culture. Amjad shares his belief in bitcoin as a future reserve currency and his optimism for AI as an equalizer in education and intelligence. He also expresses concerns about the demonization of wealth and the potential for political exploitation of wealth inequality. Throughout, Amjad's insights into the startup ecosystem, the role of AI in software development, and the cultural aspects of Silicon Valley provide a thought-provoking glimpse into the tech industry's future.

• Wealth inequality is expected to increase significantly in the coming years.
• A single engineer in ten years could be as productive as 100 engineers are today.
• This productivity surge is projected to create a new wave of millionaires and billionaires, particularly in Silicon Valley and similar tech hubs.
• The concentration of wealth and power among these individuals may lead to increased societal envy.

"Wealth inequality will grow a lot. One good engineer in ten years would be as productive as 100 engineers today. It's going to create a new croth of millionaires and billionaires in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. And these people are going to have more and more power in the world, and I think that will create more envy."

This quote highlights the speaker's prediction that the future will see a dramatic rise in wealth inequality due to increased productivity in the tech industry, which will result in a small group of individuals amassing significant wealth and power.

• Amjad Masad is the founder and CEO of Replit, with a mission to bring a billion software creators online.
• Replit has raised over $100 million from notable investors including Peter Thiel, Andreessen Horowitz, and Paul Graham.
• Prior to Replit, Amjad was a tech lead at Facebook and the first employee at Codecademy.
• The host, Eric Toronbo, acknowledges the contribution of those who provided questions and suggestions for the episode.

"We discuss the future of AI, the good, the bad, wealth inequality, the need for spiritual reform within startups. We go all over the place and joining me, Amjad Masad, founder and CEO, Replit, whose mission is to bring the next billion software creators online."

This quote introduces the episode's guest, Amjad Masad, and outlines the broad range of topics to be discussed, including AI, wealth inequality, and Replit's mission to democratize software creation.

• Amjad grew up in Jordan and was known as a troublemaker during his childhood.
• He had a unique appearance, being a redhead in a region where this was uncommon, and he also had a temper.
• Despite financial challenges, Amjad's father prioritized education, sending him to a good school.
• Amjad and his brother engaged in entrepreneurial activities from a young age, including selling toys at arbitrage prices.

"I was a big troublemaker. I looked very different, so I'm like a redhead... My father, he worked in government. He didn't make a lot of money... But he really put a lot of money behind our education."

This quote provides background on Amjad's upbringing, emphasizing the contrast between his appearance and temper with his father's dedication to providing a good education despite financial limitations.

• Amjad experienced early successes in entrepreneurship, selling toys and later starting a software business as a teenager.
• He was driven by a desire to achieve greatness and was inspired by stories of successful individuals.
• Amjad believes that early signs of exceptionalism are important indicators of future success.

"There was a lot of early successes... It just felt like I sort of had it in me. I had the hunger... I always wanted to do something great."

The quote reflects on Amjad's early entrepreneurial spirit and his ambition to achieve greatness, which he views as integral to his later success.

• Amjad looks for early signs of exceptionalism when hiring, such as unique achievements or a non-traditional life path.
• He suggests that it is difficult for individuals who have followed a conventional path to achieve exceptional results later in life.
• Exceptionalism can manifest in various forms, including business acumen, athletic prowess, or other remarkable talents.

"That's basically the biggest sign, the early sign of exceptionalism... I think there's always signs of exceptional things."

Amjad argues that exceptionalism often manifests early in life and is a key trait he seeks when hiring, as it is indicative of an individual's potential to achieve great things.

• Amjad is motivated by a fear of mediocrity and strives to be extraordinary.
• He believes that taking massive risks is essential to avoid mediocrity.
• Authenticity is important to Amjad, as it attracts like-minded individuals and repels those who would not be compatible.

"Mediocrity. The idea of being normal is just very scary to me, and undifferentiated is something that I really don't like to be."

This quote expresses Amjad's aversion to being average or unremarkable, which he combats by taking significant risks and valuing authenticity.

• Amjad views successful startups as conspiracies that aim to change the world.
• He cites historical examples of small groups of people who have had a significant impact on history.
• The AI revolution, particularly with OpenAI at its center, is a contemporary example of a small group changing the world.
• Startups often begin with a small team and a secret or unique insight that drives their mission to change the world.

"Great startups are examples of conspiracies to change the world... They have some sort of secret or some sort of message. They work really hard over many years, perhaps decades, then eventually they succeed and they change the world."

Amjad likens startups to historical movements that started with a small group of people with a shared secret or mission, working diligently until they achieve world-changing success.

• Replit's vision is to democratize the power of software, likening it to the impact of the printing press on literacy.
• Amjad believes that software is a superpower currently confined to a select few, and Replit's goal is to make it accessible to more people.
• He emphasizes the importance of having a core insight or "secret" about how the world works or should work.

"One of our biggest insights at Replit is that software is a superpower, and this superpower is actually stuck in this ivory tower of Silicon Valley Elite, and we're trying to free this superpower and get more and more people to experience it and make use of it."

The quote outlines Replit's core belief that software has transformative power, which they aim to make accessible to a wider audience, challenging the status quo of its concentration among the elite.

• Amjad criticizes the tendency of people to over-plan and under-execute.
• He advocates for a focus on action, suggesting that the best job description is simply "doing stuff."
• His perspective challenges the culture of excessive meetings and planning, emphasizing the importance of tangible work and execution.

"The best job description is doing stuff."

This quote encapsulates Amjad's philosophy that action and execution are paramount, and that job roles should be centered around tangible accomplishments rather than just planning and strategizing.## Hiring Entrepreneurial People

• Amjad Masad emphasizes hiring entrepreneurial individuals over creating processes to encourage hard work.
• He suggests that no amount of process can instill a strong work ethic in someone inherently lacking it.

"There's no amount of processes you can put in to make someone who doesn't want to work hard to work hard."

Amjad's statement underscores the limitation of processes in altering an individual's intrinsic motivation and work ethic.

• Amjad and Eric discuss a perceived decline in work ethic in the current generation, attributed to cultural decadence.
• They explore the idea that modern culture overemphasizes pleasure and consumption, leading to passivity.
• Amjad believes that inspiring younger generations and spiritual reform are necessary to combat this issue.

"There's a feeling that life is about pleasure and paganistic pursuits, whereas I think cultures of past, even 20th century America, was very different."

Amjad contrasts the current cultural values with those of the past, suggesting that hard work and exceptionalism were more prevalent before.

• Amjad explains the importance of a 'non-values page' to filter out potential hires who would not fit the company culture.
• He discusses the need to be transparent with candidates about the challenges of working at his company, Replit.

"We send people a lot of material, including why not to work at Replit, we have an entire blog post about that."

This quote highlights Amjad's strategy of being upfront about the difficulties of working at his company to ensure only those aligned with the company's values apply.

• Amjad believes in having company values that are meaningful and can be reasonably disagreed with.
• He gives the example of Replit's value "seek pain" to illustrate the importance of facing difficult truths in a startup.

"One of our values, for example, is seek pain."

Amjad uses 'seek pain' as an example of a provocative value that is meaningful because it can be challenged and has a reasonable opposite.

• Amjad discusses the importance of confronting painful issues promptly to prevent them from worsening.
• He emphasizes that delaying painful decisions only leads to greater pain in the future.

"The longer you delay a painful sort of conclusion or decision, the more painful it becomes."

This quote illustrates Amjad's belief that procrastination in facing problems amplifies their negative impact.

• Amjad addresses the challenge of employees who do not scale with their roles as the company grows.
• He discusses the difficulty of balancing loyalty with the need to make decisions that benefit the company as a whole.

"You have to do the right thing by the company ultimately, which is either layer them, replace them, or do something else like that."

Amjad reflects on the tough decisions required when an employee no longer fits their role, emphasizing the company's success as the priority.

• Amjad prefers finding suitable roles within the company for employees who do not scale, rather than letting them go.
• He aims to ensure these transitions do not appear as demotions and are handled delicately.

"I typically try to find places for them in the company that would be still happy."

This quote reveals Amjad's approach to managing employees who struggle to adapt to the company's growth by finding alternative roles that suit their capabilities.

• Amjad reflects on his past hiring mistakes, particularly giving too much credence to misfits.
• He acknowledges that while misfits can be creative, they may also cause issues within the team if not managed properly.

"Maybe I stick with misfits too long and really try to make them work."

Amjad admits to sometimes persisting with misfits to the detriment of team dynamics, highlighting the balance required in valuing creativity while maintaining team cohesion.

• Amjad discusses the challenge of maintaining a culture that values misfits as a company grows.
• He is currently dealing with this issue and is unsure if a company made entirely of misfits can scale effectively.

"You can't build a company made entirely of misfits that scale."

Amjad expresses doubt about the scalability of a company culture heavily reliant on misfits, suggesting that a balance is needed as the company expands.

• Amjad provides a historical overview of software development, noting significant productivity improvements over time.
• He explains the transition from machine code to assembly, C, and scripting languages, and the impact of open source on productivity.

"Since then, the next one was not language. I think it was tapped out on how much languages could actually make you more productive."

Amjad suggests that the evolution of programming languages has reached a point where further productivity gains are more likely to come from other areas, such as open source, rather than new languages.## Evolution of Programming Productivity

• The sharing of code through open source packages has significantly improved programming productivity.
• The availability of open source resources allowed individuals, such as Mark Zuckerberg, to build platforms like Facebook rapidly.
• This increase in productivity is likened to a 10x or even 100x improvement due to shared codebases.

"In pre GitHub era, pre open source, every programmer in the world had to write the same functions all the time... And now we had this way of sharing code, not just within companies, but just globally."

Amjad Masad highlights the transformative impact of open source culture on programming efficiency, where the reuse of existing code has saved countless hours of development time.

• Amjad Masad suggests that we are at the beginning of a new S-curve in productivity growth.
• He references Andrej Karpathy's claim that AI writes 80% of his code, indicating a significant shift in how programming is done.
• Studies show that programmers using tools like GitHub's Copilot are 55% more productive.

"My prediction is we are at the start of a new sort of s curve in productivity growth."

Masad predicts a new phase of productivity growth in programming, potentially driven by AI and machine learning advancements.

• Large language models are changing software development in two ways: AI-assisted development and replacing pieces of software.
• AI can automate tasks like website parsing, which traditionally takes hours or weeks.
• AI assistance enables programmers to focus more on customer needs and business logic rather than low-level coding tasks.

"There are two ways in which large language models are going to change software... It's going to become a core piece of software. In the function call graph of software."

Masad explains that AI not only aids programmers but also becomes an integral component of the software itself, enhancing and expediting development processes.

• AI automation will allow programmers to operate at a higher level, focusing on customer needs and business logic.
• The need for software engineers may decrease, but smaller teams will be able to have more significant impacts.
• Creative and hardworking developers could become more productive and valuable.

"One good engineer in ten years would be as productive as 100 engineers today."

Masad suggests that the productivity of a single skilled engineer could exponentially increase due to AI's ability to handle routine coding tasks.

• Automating business logic is considered an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) complete problem, requiring a level of AI that does not yet exist.
• Business logic involves creativity and understanding customer needs, which are difficult to automate.

"Logic is fundamentally creative activity and fundamentally novel activity, that it would be hard for them to entirely do that."

Masad emphasizes that the creative aspect of programming, particularly business logic, remains a human-centric task due to its complexity and novelty.

• The increasing supply of code and developer time might lead to a decrease in average developer salaries.
• However, the most creative and hardworking developers may earn more due to their increased leverage and productivity.

"Maybe the average developer salary would go down, but I think the most creative, most hardworking developers will actually be able to earn a lot more."

Masad predicts a potential decrease in average developer salaries but also foresees greater earning potential for the top tier of developers due to their enhanced productivity and creativity.

• Wealth inequality may grow as smaller teams achieve higher valuations and impact with fewer people.
• Knowledge inequality may shrink due to AI's ability to provide education and intelligence augmentation.
• There are concerns about the social and political implications of increasing wealth inequality.

"Wealth and quality will grow a lot."

Masad expresses concern that the advancements in technology and productivity may exacerbate wealth inequality, leading to social tensions and potential unrest.

• AI, such as ChatGPT, can serve as an equalizer in intelligence by providing access to education and personalized tutoring.
• The knowledge gap is expected to shrink as AI democratizes access to information and learning resources.

"I actually think that Chad GPT probably added multiple iq points to a lot of people... the knowledge gap will shrink and the education gap will shrink, and even the intelligence gap will shrink."

Masad believes that AI has the potential to narrow the gaps in knowledge and education by providing widespread access to learning tools and resources.

• Zuckerberg's shift in focus from the metaverse to AI and addressing the TikTok threat is considered the right move.
• The metaverse bet may have been overestimated in terms of its development timeline and market readiness.

"I think that's absolutely the right thing to do for Zuck."

Masad agrees with Zuckerberg's decision to prioritize AI over the metaverse, suggesting that it aligns with the current technological landscape and competitive pressures.## AI Investment Traction

• AI has gained significant traction and has clearly happened, rationalizing increased investment.
• Shifting resources towards AI would be a sensible strategy.

AI absolutely clearly has traction and absolutely clearly has happened.

The quote indicates that AI has made definitive progress and is a field worthy of further investment.

• US concern over China's influence through consumer apps.
• Top Chinese apps in the App Store indicate substantial data access from US phones.
• The shooting down of the Chinese balloon is contrasted with the pervasive data collection by Chinese apps.

Speaking of kind of investing more in AI, I think one concern that the US has is China and China's ability.

This quote reflects the strategic concerns of the US regarding China's growing capability in AI and technology.

• The speaker values western concepts of freedom, democracy, and individualism.
• The Chinese Communist Party's values are at odds with these principles.
• Free market and competition are important, but there should be evidence of wrongdoing before taking action against Chinese companies.

The Chinese Communist Party embodies none of that. It's pretty obvious. They say they don't like individualism. They're clearly at odds with our values.

The quote highlights the ideological differences between Western values and the Chinese Communist Party's stance, particularly regarding individualism.

• Chinese companies are required to share data with the Chinese government upon request.
• The debate is whether the potential for data requests justifies banning Chinese apps in the US.

The evidence that they're doing something bad is actually just roosting their company, structuring, which is all Chinese companies have the right and are required to share data with the Chinese government upon request.

This quote points out the structural requirement for Chinese companies to share data with their government, raising security concerns.

• The Twitter files revealed US government collusion with social media companies.
• Despite this, there is value alignment with individualism and meritocracy in the US.

Want it yeah, I'm a little conflicted on that because the Twitter files just showed that there's incredible US government collusion with US social media companies as well.

The speaker expresses conflict over the US government's involvement with social media, suggesting a parallel with concerns about Chinese apps.

• The importance of keeping US markets open to international competition.
• Challenges in defining values to legislate against foreign apps without evidence of wrongdoing.

So defining those values clearly to make it into law, I think it's going to be tricky.

The quote addresses the difficulty in creating laws that target foreign entities based on values without compromising the principles of open markets.

• TikTok may face increasing pressure to move operations to the US and become more transparent.
• Possible changes could include US ownership stakes and operational firewalls.
• An outright ban is unlikely unless there is a full Republican government with the political will.

I think there's going to be increasing pressure on them to move more of their operations to the US.

This quote predicts future regulatory pressure on TikTok to align more closely with US operations and standards.

• Optimistic about equality of access in the software economy.
• Having children makes one more future-oriented and concerned about the world.
• Startups still thrive in San Francisco due to a unique community and optimism.

Equality of access. The ability for anyone in the world to participate in the software economy is just going to be huge.

The speaker expresses optimism for the democratization of the software economy, suggesting a significant impact on global participation.

• The speaker values the concept of winning and consistently striving for success.
• The importance of experiencing different industries, such as insurance, to gain new perspectives.
• Reflects on the balance between ambition and maintaining health and relationships.

Win. And I don't mean that I'm consistently winning, but I consistently try to win.

The quote encapsulates the speaker's personal philosophy of striving for success and the value of persistence.

• Belief that Bitcoin could become the future reserve currency due to the problems with fiat currencies.
• Bitcoin is seen as the only commodity that meets all the requirements for a universal currency.

I think bitcoin is the future reserve currency of the world.

The speaker predicts that Bitcoin's characteristics will lead to its adoption as the global reserve currency over traditional fiat currencies.

• Advises younger self to balance ambition with health and relationships.
• Recognizes the potential to incur 'life debt' for success but questions its necessity.

Maybe I would tell myself to take life a little bit more seriously.

This quote suggests a retrospective consideration of the importance of life balance beyond professional achievements.

• Impact-focused vision for Replit, enabling global access to coding education and startup opportunities.
• Aspires for Replit to be a full-stack service supporting individuals from learning to code to starting a business.

I really want that opportunity to be available for in the world.

The quote reflects the speaker's aspiration for Replit to have a significant impact on global economic empowerment through technology.