Lenny RachitskyModify

2025-04-22 21:00:49

We’re living through one of the most extraordinary moments in history. How the entire world operates is changing with the rise of AI, and how we live and work is shifting along with it.

It’s both exciting and overwhelming.

Many of us are wondering if we’re falling behind, what we should be paying attention to (and ignoring), and how to best use the new tools and technologies.

That’s why I’m so unbelievably thrilled to announce the launch of a new podcast: “How I AI” with Claire Vo. Check it out now on YouTube / Spotify / Apple.

The mission of Claire’s new podcast is to show you how people from all walks of life have figured out how to use AI tools in their day-to-day life to improve the quality and efficiency of their work.

What makes this podcast unique is that it’s designed to give you highly practical and actionable tips, tricks, and workflows that you can copy and start using immediately. No philosophical debates about the future of humanity or pontification on what might be possible someday.

Each episode will be just about 30 minutes (often shorter), and the guest will live-demo one or two specific use cases they’ve found helpful, to show you how to do everything they describe.

I couldn’t imagine a more perfect host for this podcast than Claire Vo. Claire is an engineer, a three-time chief product officer, and a founder, and on the side has been building an AI product that is already making six figures. She also gave the #1 most popular talk at last year’s Lenny and Friends Summit.

What I love about Claire is that, unlike many people online, she doesn’t only talk about using AI—she lives and breathes it, and is constantly sharing what she’s learning. I can’t wait for you to learn from her and her amazing guests.

This is the first new podcast in the Lenny’s Podcast network. Depending on how it goes, we may add more down the road. And to be clear, nothing changes with Lenny’s Podcast—this is just more free content coming your way, every Monday.

If you’re building products, leading teams, starting a company, or just want to learn how to actually use AI in your life, this podcast is for you.

P.S. For the richest experience, since there will be a lot of screen sharing, you’re going to want to watch the video version, so definitely check it out on YouTube or Spotify, which includes video.

P.P.S. Nominate someone (or even yourself!) to come on the podcast and share their AI use case by filling out this form.

Check out the first episode here 👇

Subscribe to the podcast here: YouTube / Spotify / Apple

Sincerely,

Lenny 👋

2025-04-22 18:00:24

Brought to you by:

Enterpret—Customer SuperIntelligence Platform for Product and CX teams
Vanta—Automate compliance and simplify security with Vanta

Sahil Lavingia is the founder and CEO of Gumroad, where AI agents are already writing 41% of all code commits, and he’s targeting 80% by year’s end. Sahil demonstrates how this approach allows him to transform what would typically be two-week projects into two-hour implementations—a 40x productivity increase.

What you’ll learn:

1. The exact AI workflow Sahil uses to build features 40x faster—from prototyping in v0 to implementation with Devin

2. How Gumroad incentivizes AI adoption across the organization with $33,000 bounties for engineers who outperform the CEO

3. How to use component libraries like shadcn/ui for effective AI development

4. How AI is shifting engineering roles toward architecture and tech-debt removal while enabling designers and PMs to ship features directly

5. Why spending more time on UX iteration becomes possible (and necessary) when implementation costs drop dramatically

6. Which organizational functions will be transformed by AI next

Where to find Sahil Lavingia:

Gumroad: https://gumroad.com/

Website: https://sahillavingia.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahillavingia

X: https://x.com/shl

Where to find Claire Vo:

ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/

Website: https://clairevo.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/

X: https://x.com/clairevo

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Sahil’s background

(02:31) How soon will AI do most engineering?

(04:08) Live demo: redesigning with v0, Devin and Cursor

(09:30) Using the right tools

(11:03) Prototyping and iteration with AI

(19:45) Incentivizing AI adoption in teams

(24:50) “Magical” date picker component development

(31:47) AI’s impact on marketing, sales, and support

(36:50) Deciding what to build when AI builds everything

(40:02) Conclusion and final thoughts

Referenced:

• Devin: https://devin.ai/

• Cursor: https://www.cursor.so/

• v0: https://v0.dev/

• Tobi Lütke’s tweet on how AI usage is now a baseline expectation at Shopify: https://x.com/tobi/status/1909231499448401946

• Flexile: https://app.flexile.com/

• shadcn: https://github.com/shadcn/ui

• Gusto: https://gusto.com/

• GitHub: https://github.com/

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• Slack: https://slack.com/

• Vercel: https://vercel.com/

• Next.js: https://nextjs.org/

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

2025-04-21 23:02:23

How I AI, hosted by Claire Vo, is for anyone struggling to keep up with the latest AI advancements and wondering how to actually use these magical new tools to improve the quality and efficiency of their work. In each episode, guests will demonstrate a specific, practical, and impactful way they’ve learned to use AI in their life. Forget theoretical debates—this podcast is about real, concrete suggestions. Expect 30-minute episodes, live demos, and tips/tricks/workflows you can implement immediately. Whether you’re building products, leading teams, or just want to level up your AI game, this show helps demystify AI and give you the skills you need to thrive in this new world.

2025-04-20 19:02:44

Brought to you by:

Brex—The banking solution for startups
Productboard—Make products that matter
Coda—The all-in-one collaborative workspace

Varun Mohan is the co-founder and CEO of Windsurf (formerly Codeium), an AI-powered development environment (IDE) that has been used by over 1 million developers in just four months and has quickly emerged as a leader in transforming how developers build software. Prior to finding success with Windsurf, the company pivoted twice—first from GPU virtualization infrastructure to an IDE plugin, and then to their own standalone IDE.

In this conversation, you'll learn:

1. Why Windsurf walked away from a profitable GPU infrastructure business and bet the company on helping engineers code

2. The surprising UI discovery that tripled adoption rates overnight

3. The secret behind Windsurf's B2B enterprise plan, and why they invested early in an 80-person sales team despite conventional startup wisdom

4. How non-technical staff at Windsurf built their own custom tools instead of purchasing SaaS products, saving them over $500k in software costs

5. Why Varun believes 90% of code will be AI-generated, but engineering jobs will actually increase

6. How training on millions of incomplete code samples gives Windsurf an edge, and creates a moat long-term

7. Why agency is the most undervalued and important skill in the AI era

Some takeaways:

1. High-performing companies will hire more engineers, not fewer—AI tools increase the ROI of engineering investment, making the opportunity cost of not building higher.

2. The “dehydrated entity” approach to hiring: only add team members when current staff is genuinely “underwater,” to force ruthless prioritization and prevent manufactured work.

3. Challenge SaaS purchases by exploring if AI tools can enable your domain specialists to build custom solutions tailored to your specific needs.

4. Get your hands dirty with AI tools immediately—the competitive advantage gap between AI tool users and non-users will dramatically widen in the next year.

5. When building AI products, invest as much in UI/UX design as model quality—Windsurf’s experience shows interface changes alone can triple adoption rates.

6. Hire high-agency team members who can drive results regardless of role definitions—AI tools are making traditional role boundaries more fluid.

7. Be willing to “bet the company” on pivots when your core assumptions change—Windsurf abandoned a profitable business when they realized generative AI would commoditize their infrastructure offering.

8. For engineers and product managers: start using AI coding tools to modify existing codebases, not just for prototyping—this creates a competitive advantage while your colleagues are still figuring out the tools.

9. Don’t fear AI replacing developers—instead, recognize that AI tools increase the ROI of technology investments, potentially leading to more engineering hiring at companies with ambitious tech goals.

10. Invest in understanding what truly differentiates your product—in AI, unique data (like Windsurf’s incomplete code states) can create moats that even companies with better base models can’t easily cross.

Where to find Varun Mohan:

• X: https://x.com/_mohansolo

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varunkmohan/

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Varun’s background

(03:57) Building and scaling Windsurf

(12:58) Windsurf: The new purpose-built IDE to harness magic

(17:11) The future of engineering and AI

(21:30) Skills worth investing in

(23:07) Hiring philosophy and company culture

(35:22) Sales strategy and market position

(39:37) JetBrains vs. VS Code: extensibility and enterprise adoption

(41:20) Live demo: building an Airbnb for dogs with Windsurf

(42:46) Tips for using Windsurf effectively

(46:38) AI’s role in code modification and review

(48:56) Empowering non-developers to build custom software

(54:03) Training Windsurf

(01:00:43) Windsurf’s unique team structure and product strategy

(01:06:40) The importance of continuous innovation

(01:08:57) Final thoughts and advice for aspiring developers

Referenced:

• Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/

• VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/

• JetBrains: https://www.jetbrains.com/

• Eclipse: https://eclipseide.org/

• Visual Studio: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/

• Vim: https://www.vim.org/

• Emacs: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

• Lessons from a two-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor, and 20-time company board member | Uri Levine (co-founder of Waze): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-uri-levine

• IntelliJ: https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/

• Julia: https://julialang.org/

• Parallel computing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_computing

• Douglas Chen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaspchen/

• Carlos Delatorre on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cadelatorre/

• MongoDB: https://www.mongodb.com/

• Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/

• GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot

• Llama: https://www.llama.com/

• Mistral: https://mistral.ai/

• Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika

• Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder & CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons

• Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad

• React: https://react.dev/

• Sonnet: https://www.anthropic.com/claude/sonnet

• OpenAI: https://openai.com/

• FedRamp: https://www.fedramp.gov/

• Dario Amodei on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dario-amodei-3934934/

• Amdahl’s law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law

• 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

Recommended book:

• Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs: https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Love-Problem-Solution-Entrepreneurs/dp/1637741987

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

2025-04-20 00:02:08

👋 Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of ✨ Community Wisdom ✨ a subscriber-only email, delivered every Saturday, highlighting the most helpful conversations in our members-only Slack community.

Read more

2025-04-16 00:47:25

Important: This offer saw unprecedented demand, and unfortunately we’ve run out of codes for a number of products below. We may replenish some of these over time, and we’ll be adding additional mind-blowing products to this collection over time, so stay tuned, and don’t forget this subscription comes with a lot more than just free products :)

When you subscribe to Lenny’s Newsletter, you’ll get one free year of a rotating list of incredible products—including some of the hottest AI tools in the world right now (while supplies last):

1. Bolt

2. Replit

3. Superhuman

4. Notion

5. Linear

6. Perplexity Pro

7. Granola

These companies have never offered anything like this before. You’re getting a $15,000+ value for the price of a yearly newsletter subscription. Using even just one of these products offsets the cost of the newsletter.

And we’ll be adding additional world-class products to the bundle over time.

This bundle is in addition to the existing benefits of being a paid subscriber: full access to every new newsletter post, along with five years’ worth of previous posts, and invites to a thriving members-only Slack community and local community meetups.

A yearly subscription is an absolute no-brainer. Click here to grab this deal 👇

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Important deal details:

1. You must be a new paying customer of the products to take advantage of the free year. If you’ve already paid for one of the products in the bundle before, you won’t be able to get a free additional year of that specific product.

2. You must have an annual subscription to Lenny’s Newsletter to be eligible for this bundle. Monthly subscribers do not have access to the deal.

3. Both existing subscribers and new subscribers are eligible.

4. Your one free year of the product begins when you activate the product with your unique code, not when you purchase this newsletter subscription.

5. To secure your codes, you must claim them using the link below. We may run out of codes for certain products over time, and this deal may end.

6. If you request an early refund or chargeback for your subscription, your bundle codes will deactivate (whether they’re active or unused).

Subscribe now

How to redeem the deal:

1. Once you become a paid yearly subscriber, click here to redeem your codes.

2. If you’re on a monthly plan, upgrade to yearly, then go here to redeem your codes.

3. If you’re already a paid annual subscriber, click here to redeem your codes.

Specifics of what you get:

1. Bolt: One year of the Pro plan ($240 value)

2. Replit: One year of the Core plan ($360 value)

3. Granola: One year of the Business plan for you and your team—up to 100 seats ($10,000+ value)

4. Notion: One year of the Plus plan (plus unlimited AI) for you and your team—up to 10 seats ($2,000+ value)

5. Linear: One year of the Business plan—two seats ($336 value)

6. Superhuman: One year of the Starter plan ($300 value)

7. Perplexity: One year of the Pro plan ($240 value)

If you have any trouble or questions, email [email protected].

Subscribe now

Sincerely,

Lenny