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Lovable CEO, Anton Osika: The State of Foundation Models, Grok vs OpenAI, and Replit vs Bolt

Anton Osika is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Lovable, the fastest growing company on the planet. In just 7 months, they have scaled from $0 to $120M in ARR. They have raised over $200M in funding from some of the best including Accel, Creandum and 20VC. Their latest round priced the company at a whopping $2BN. ---------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:01 Is AI an Arms Race… Or Just a Talent War? 01:39 How Does Anton Compete with Zuck’s $100M Packages for Talent 04:59 Founder Mode vs. Structure: Can Chaos Scale? 07:19 The Brutal Truth About Defensibility in AI Startups 09:17 Unit Economics: Are AI Companies Doomed to Bleed Cash? 16:45 GPT-5: Game-Changer or Overhyped Disappointment? 20:02 How Lovable Hit $100M ARR in Just 7 Months? 33:33 The Security Bombshells No One Talks About 39:24 Should Anyone Still Study Computer Science? 44:13 Work-Life Balance Is Dead: Inside Anton’s 10x Culture 49:42 Why It’s Better to Build in Europe 59:44 What Does Make the Marriage Successful? 01:03:18 Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on X: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Anton Osika on X: https://twitter.com/antonosika Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #antonosika #lovable #ceo #founder #openai #grok #europe #startups

Anton OsikaguestHarry Stebbingshost
Aug 18, 20251h 14mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:01

    Intro

    1. AO

      I think university is not the best place to learn. Doesn't matter what you're studying. I'd invest in Groq, and I would probably short Anthropic. No, I would, I would short OpenAI, let's say.

    2. HS

      Why?

    3. AO

      I think it's more the slope on the Groq team. They're doing something which I respect a lot, which is to hire missionaries for the data curation part. Morale is super high. OpenAI has gone through all this mess, right?

    4. HS

      Do you think there will be a leading model that has not been created yet?

    5. AO

      Yes, from China.

    6. HS

      Do you worry about China?

    7. AO

      I do think there's, like, a 50/50 chance they will have the best model, that we'll be using a Chinese model at some point. Because...

    8. HS

      Ready to go? Anton, dude, I'm so excited to be here with you in person. Thank you so much for joining me on the show.

    9. AO

      It's great to see you, Ethan. Thanks for coming to Stockholm.

    10. HS

      Dude, I, it's great to be in Stockholm. Um, I want to start, you just recently

  2. 1:01 – 1:39

    Is AI an Arms Race… Or Just a Talent War?

    1. HS

      raised a great round, and I want to start with that. We're seeing a lot of money go into this space, and I just wanted to start with, is it a capital arms race, and a case of who has the most money wins? Or is it something else?

    2. AO

      Uh, I think it's an arms race to build the best team, and then it's an arms race to build the, the best brand and trust from your users. And, I mean, capital can help. For us, it's not a constraint at, at all. Um, if you're building something like the best foundation model, it, it might be a constraint, just because the compute for training and so on is, is so large. But for, for us, it's all about moving extremely fast and collecting the best talent.

  3. 1:39 – 4:59

    How Does Anton Compete with Zuck’s $100M Packages for Talent

    1. AO

    2. HS

      So if we think about talent as the number one there, we've seen Zuck pay NFL-style contracts. I mean, like, mega, mega sums for the best people. How do you think about and analyze that, and how difficult it will be to, uh, get the best talent moving forwards?

    3. AO

      Hmm. Uh, I think for, for me, it's actually more difficult than for Zuck to know who, which engineers are going to really thrive, push the culture forward, push the ways that we're working in the products forward. Uh, for Zuck, it's like, there's these 10 people that, uh, know everything about how to train mo- foundation models, and he's more paying for that knowledge than for, like, these people. The talent itself is so good. It's probably, it's pretty good as well.

    4. HS

      Totally.

    5. AO

      Uh, so it's very different.

    6. HS

      Do you think you do not need the same caliber of engineering talent if you're working in the application layer?

    7. AO

      Mm, you just need very different, uh... I, I think, like, I w- at first, one of those people Zuck is hiring, they wouldn't p- perform as well as my, as the engineers in my team, doing what we're doing. So it's, it's very different type of talent. Um, and, like, I... If I knew who was, like, the perfect engineers to hire, uh, I could maybe step up our, our, like, our compensation bands, uh, to get exactly those. But, but I don't know who are the best people. So I, um, I need to just, like, figure out, are these really, really good people to work with? Are they moldable? Are they going to work well together in this team? Um, and then... And give, like, the compensation that you give on the top-of-market compensation rates for that.

    8. HS

      You've built an incredible team, also, like, of less obvious talent in the early days, and then you hire amazing rock stars like Alena Verna. When you look at your hiring process, your talent assessment process, is there anything that's non-obvious? So like for us, I look for people who have either extreme trauma or extreme masochism.

    9. AO

      (laughs) Yes.

    10. HS

      No, I'm, I'm being serious. I think not enough people are opinionated. You said brand is important. Br- great brands are opinionated. People love them or hate them.

    11. AO

      Hmm.

    12. HS

      Lovable, good, good example. (laughs) Um, but what is yours that is non-obvious about hiring or talent assessment?

    13. AO

      Hmm, so I like to think a lot about slope. And that, like, if I talk to someone and I learn a lot of things talking from them, and I, I notice that my conversation is, like, very dynamic and, and exciting, that, that is usually feels like a very good indicator that they're going to, uh, adapt to the org- organization, and, um, their slope will be very high. Um, I, otherwise, I think there are good ways to just understand how did they perform. Like, if I could be there with a video camera when they worked in the past, uh, that gives me a lot of signals. So that's, that's usually what I spend a lot of time, uh, when I'm talking to new candidates.

    14. HS

      When you think about slope, wha- it's noticeable with you two. Like, we haven't known each other for a huge amount of time. But when I compare when I first met you to when I meet you today, it is still very different in terms of your leadership.

    15. AO

      Hmm.

    16. HS

      Where have you not progressed where you would like to still?

    17. AO

      I think I still operate lovable in a very scrappy startup-y way, even though we're, like, at a later growth stage right now. Uh, so being... Adding a bit more structure in, like, in a few key areas is, um, somewhere I'm looking to progress or to, to start bi- like, being an excellent operator in.

  4. 4:59 – 7:19

    Founder Mode vs. Structure: Can Chaos Scale?

    1. AO

    2. HS

      The joys of this show and being friends is we can have a discussion, not like a one back-and-forth interview.

    3. AO

      Hmm.

    4. HS

      Do you think you actually need that? We've had founder mode be so, uh, propagated and praised, and being close to the metal, Jansen having 52 direct reports. I would say structure and that middle layer is where slowness and apathy comes.

    5. AO

      True. Yeah.

    6. HS

      Do you think you need that?

    7. AO

      That's a good question. I, I think I'm going to always operate with this, uh, with most of my impact coming from, like, founder mode. But I do need, uh... Given that there's so many things thrown at me and coming in from all the different directions, to have a, kind of a protective layer that introduces a lot of order in, like, how to pri- prioritize all these incoming things. And, and that comes down to a well-running organization. Um, if I'm... And then, and then you... For a well-running organization, you need a very organized manager, uh, uh, somewhere at the top. And I'm not planning to be that, like top percentage manager-

    8. HS

      You don't have to have that today.

    9. AO

      ... myself, but surround myself with great leaders who, who do more of the, like, organization.

    10. HS

      Do, do you have a protective layer say 'cause I get probably-... 25 intro requests for you a week, and I probably make one a month.

    11. AO

      Yes.

    12. HS

      Do you have someone who does filter?

    13. AO

      I do, yeah.

    14. HS

      Yeah.

    15. AO

      And, and they say it's a kind of (laughs) um, wonderful, uh, chaotic protective layer that works together as, as a close team. And I don't really have like a name for it, it's just the, the people working closely with me. Uh, I'm not sure who you've interacted with in the team, but it's, it's... So, so the team is made up of, like, previous founder type generalists, uh, that work closely with me, and I just work in terms of, like, quick feedback, "This is not what you should be doing. This is what you should be doing. Um, works okay now, I think we can do even better."

    16. HS

      So you said talent was number one and brand was number two.

    17. AO

      Mm.

    18. HS

      If we think about great brand, what does great brand mean to you?

    19. AO

      I think, uh, super concrete example is the Apple ecosystem, where they obsess about details maybe too much so they move slowly, but that's what builds up trust and, and is a very strong brand. And that's sort of, that's what, what we're aiming for as well in every interaction. Like, every time we update the product, how do we make sure we roll it out so that we really understand users, uh, and how they react to all the things we're changing very rapidly in the product, in the

  5. 7:19 – 9:17

    The Brutal Truth About Defensibility in AI Startups

    1. AO

      company.

    2. HS

      There's a couple of questions which everyone has, where they will kind of throw them as a critique, at Lovable or at anyone in the space.

    3. AO

      Yeah.

    4. HS

      And I think one is protection, um, defensibility.

    5. AO

      Mm.

    6. HS

      When you think about defensibility today, is brand the core element of defensibility, or is there something that people do not see?

    7. AO

      No, I think you need to build a product, if you want to be, like, maximally defend- be defensive, where if you are on this product, in the, like, the platform that the product is, you don't wanna leave because you have so much value that's, you've created on the platform that you're getting automatically every day. So, I, that's what Lovable is becoming, and this product-building platform where you... Lovable today is your technical co-founder. We want it to be your co-founder in general that handles all the admin, setting up your finance operations. Uh, and if you're on a platform like that, you, you probably don't want, want to leave.

    8. HS

      Would you say to all founders building in AI today from day one, "Don't worry about defensibility, it comes over time"?

    9. AO

      Hmm. Yes, great question. I, I, I have, I have friends who ha- has this fun analog in terms of an AI startup, which is that AI startups are like chickens shot out of a cannon up in the sky, if you, if you kind of start getting traction. Uh, and then it's all about flapping fast as a chicken, because there are new chickens shot out (laughs) from cannons-

    10. HS

      (laughs) .

    11. AO

      ... uh, every day. And if you keep flapping faster than the other chickens, (laughs) then you're going to do great. And I think that's a good, like, first level of analysis in how you should operate.

    12. HS

      I'm just gonna say, for any vegans that are listening, no chickens were shot out of cannons.

    13. AO

      (laughs)

    14. HS

      And that is the most-

    15. AO

      Not yet.

    16. HS

      ... extremely Swedish way of (laughs) ... You know, it's the Reid, um, Hoffman who says, you know, "It's about kind of running off the cliff or whatever with a paraglider-"

    17. AO

      Mm.

    18. HS

      "... and just kind of flapping." That, that works too.

    19. AO

      Yeah.

    20. HS

      Um-

    21. AO

      I think, I think that's my recommendation, to just be, like, execute fast, grow faster. Um, and then when, when you're starting to get up there, you can start, maybe start thinking a bit ab- about defensibility.

  6. 9:17 – 16:45

    Unit Economics: Are AI Companies Doomed to Bleed Cash?

    1. AO

    2. HS

      Totally get you. That's the one criticism. Another is, like, actually when you look at these businesses, and a lot of people are criticizing this with your Replets, your Bolts, your Lovables, they're not actually very good businesses in terms of unit economics, and so much is passed through. So, like, bluntly, if I give you a dollar, how much is passed straight through to Anthropic and OpenAI?

    3. AO

      Hmm. I don't give you the exact numbers, but if you look at the paid usage, it's majority. I- it's not everything.

    4. HS

      Okay. How does that change over time?

    5. AO

      Uh, so as our business develops, w- we're looking to get most of our revenue once you as a user are, like, "I love this platform, I'm never leaving." Uh, and, but today it's only, like, in the beginning and you're paying to build pr- pretty much. So over time, uh, we just want to create so much value you stay on the subscription, and the, the small, uh, part of the cost is, goes to the, to the AI g- compute.

    6. HS

      Will you be able to make money through not optimizing models? And what I mean by that is-

    7. AO

      Mm.

    8. HS

      ... in the future, you may not need the very best, very latest model to do the simple About Me website. And so you can route users-

    9. AO

      Yep. Yeah. Yeah, the, I think, um, as all applications develop, the AI is going to be adapted to those applications. And for most things, it's like, super simple to do it. It's like you're driving a car and you don't, you're not thinking about what you're doing. So when you're in a new situation driving a car, then you're like, your brain really goes on fire. And we're not there, we're not close to being there yet. I think for us it's too early to optimize for that, because the AI is, every month it's, like, doing new completely different things. So we just want to be able to iterate really fast on what the AI is able to do, and not optimize the models for what they, what it's doing.

    10. HS

      That's really interesting. So you build for what tomorrow's model can do, not what we have today?

    11. AO

      Yeah, to a, to a quite large extent, yes. And, um, like, what... Generally, in, when I think about models, uh, they're the models that are, like, very thoughtful and deep thinking, um, and now we put as much work on those models. In the future, it's going to be a mix, y- in terms of, uh, when it's obvious what it should do, then it, it just cost- doesn't cost any money, it's super fast. But when it's a new situation, um, which building a software product often results in, then it has to think much more.

    12. HS

      One other area where you can see real, like, margin expansion-

    13. AO

      Mm.

    14. HS

      ... is also in token selling. Like, when you think about how you price tokens, given prosumers and consumers don't fundamentally often know the price of tokens, you can actually have quite a considerable markup on token usage. Do you think that is a place of real elas- elasticity to gain margin, or not?

    15. AO

      Yeah, so w- we looked at, like, the number... This was a few months ago, but we looked at how much revenue is flowing through the AI from Lovable applications. Okay. And it was more than 10 million.... dollars in ARR. Um, and now all of that revenue needs the user to go through this, like, uh, bit complex process of setting up their connection to the, uh, eh, model providers. So, that's something we're just simplifying, uh, we're looking at simplifying. Uh, so, stay tu- to stay tuned for how we enable more simplicity, first of all, for our users with that, um, and then, uh, if we can reduce the underlying cost, may- maybe we can add- take a margin there as well.

    16. HS

      How do you think about mental plasticity to delay margin optimization?

    17. AO

      Mental plasticity, what does that mean?

    18. HS

      So like, the willingness to wait-

    19. AO

      Yeah.

    20. HS

      ... for margins to come.

    21. AO

      Mm-hmm.

    22. HS

      And what I mean by that is, like, if you look at Deliveroo, yeah? Its margins are shit in the early days, and over time they get better and better as you have more and more people use it and more density, more orders in small areas.

    23. AO

      Mm.

    24. HS

      You've got to be patient, so to speak.

    25. AO

      Yeah.

    26. HS

      Same with OpenAI.

    27. AO

      Yeah.

    28. HS

      Same with Lovable. How long does one think before you're thinking margin optimization?

    29. AO

      Hmm. Um, I, I have these two conflicting pieces of perspectives on it, uh, and one is, I speak to Nick, who built Revolut-

    30. HS

      (laughs)

  7. 16:45 – 20:02

    GPT-5: Game-Changer or Overhyped Disappointment?

    1. AO

      tha- in, in 12 months.

    2. HS

      Mm-hmm. How did you analyze GPT-5? And when you look at performance post, are you more or less bullish on OpenAI?

    3. AO

      So w- we looked a lot about, at how does Op- how d- sorry, we looked a lot at how, uh, GPT-5 would impact our users before we decided, "Okay, let's put this into the product." And we looked at the, how long time it took to get responses, we looked at our quali- quantitative evals, and, and then we just vibe-checked it in many different ways, and what we concluded was that it's oftentimes too, like, ambitious for our users-

    4. HS

      Hmm.

    5. AO

      ... so n- and that's why we decided, "Hey, um, this is very smart, so let's give it to all our users and see what they, what they tell us w- in terms of how, like, what's good and what's bad." Um, what we found was that, um, it's, like, for the use cases when you had to solve a really, really hard problem, it's great, and all, in terms of is OpenAI doing great job, I think th- this was a really smart, uh, obvious choice for them to say like, "We have these five different models that you have to select in ChatGPT. Let's just bring it down into one model, GPT-5." Um, but, so they sh- they should, definitely should have done that, but it, but it comes with a lot of trade-offs, and so far, I'd say they executed pretty well on it. The model is still too ambitious.

    6. HS

      There's also a question of when you set the bar at AGI-

    7. AO

      Yes.

    8. HS

      ... and then you get model optimization-... and model routing, really essentially-

    9. AO

      Mm.

    10. HS

      ... which is what it is.

    11. AO

      GPT-5, yeah.

    12. HS

      That's it.

    13. AO

      Yeah.

    14. HS

      Like, capability wise, it hasn't been a step function improvement than what we had before.

    15. AO

      No. No. I, I don't think, uh, like, it, it, the biggest part of GPT-5 that's disappointing is that n- now they have to optimize all these different things into one model. Before, it was like different models, and they had to do it really fast. So it's inevitably going to fall short in some dimensions. Um, and I mean, it, it just is a disappointment that you can't improve in all the directions at the same time.

    16. HS

      How do you use OpenAI versus Anthropic within Lovable today?

    17. AO

      Mm. So we have a, this very complex agentic chain, where we pass the user's response, uh, the application information in, through many different models. And then can, we take the really fast and small ones, and then we use, for code writing, we usually use Anthropic. Um, and, and right now, you can say, like, "I want to use GPT-5." Um, and that's better when you're solving a really hard debugging problem.

    18. HS

      Super inter- And you've seen it be better than Anthropic when it comes to a hard debugging problem?

    19. AO

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    20. HS

      What do models not do today that would be a step function change in what Lovable can do?

    21. AO

      I think, well, like something I'm, I'm super excited about is that the AI has more context about who they're talking to and how they should be answering to, you know, guide them through our specific application.

    22. HS

      Mm-hmm.

    23. AO

      And, uh, they, solving that problem is something that we have to do, and we have to do it, uh, both with, like, how we build this agentic chain, uh, and over time, in building, uh, absolutely world-class, paying $100 million for getting the people that train the models. So that, so that's on the, on the horizon for us to, to get it to, like, be hyper-personalized for you specifically.

  8. 20:02 – 33:33

    How Lovable Hit $100M ARR in Just 7 Months?

    1. AO

    2. HS

      When you think about hyper-personalized for you specifically-

    3. AO

      Yeah.

    4. HS

      ... and the users that you have, you know, you recently announced the $100 million, or amazing milestone to hit in seven months.

    5. AO

      Mm.

    6. HS

      That's fucking nuts. For years, dude, it was like zero to ten million in two years, was like the gold standard.

    7. AO

      Yeah.

    8. HS

      That's what I was brought up on, which makes me feel really old. Uh... (laughs)

    9. AO

      (laughs)

    10. HS

      Um, which is, uh, amazing, um, to see. My question to you is, when you look at revenue breakdown, of the $100 million, just kind of guesstimate, what is split between hobbyists, pro devs, kind of normal people? How does it fit-

    11. AO

      Hm.

    12. HS

      ... between the different segments?

    13. AO

      You're right. So, uh, people do everything with Lovable. They come with their idea to build a software business and product, and then there's a lot of people in large companies, they, that use it as like, "Okay, now I can prove, show what I actually think we should build in, in the business." And then they buil- they build a working, uh, product that then they can like decide, "Are we going to put this, this into our, uh, give it to their, our, our engineering team?" And they actually implement it. Um, and then it's everyone else who build, like, their personal website, their small business websites, where, you know, like in a few minutes. And 80% of people are, are in the first category, that they're building real, uh, complex applications, in terms of revenue.

    14. HS

      80% are building complex applications?

    15. AO

      Yeah, in terms of revenue, 80%, 80%.

    16. HS

      Wow.

    17. AO

      And then, yeah. But and then the second segment is actually, uh, growing very fast, because, uh, like, enterprises are slowing to wake up, uh, slower to wake up. But you might have seen this product leader from Google who says, like, "We're never again writing a document about a product. We have to use Lovable or something to build out a fully working demo." Uh, so that, so that's, that use case is also growing very fast. And, and in terms of the third use case, I mean, uh, a lot of people have been burned trying to build nice websites in this, like, uh, no code website builders, Wix, Squarespace, and so on. And if you can just always do everything in Lovable and with a UX that I think is more sophisticated in moving fast, um, that's, I, that's also growing. But I think the, the first two are the ones who are really, like, game changers.

    18. HS

      Okay. So we go back. So 80%, sorry, is like actually building complex apps.

    19. AO

      Yeah.

    20. HS

      And then 10% is enterprise and 10% is hobbyists?

    21. AO

      Something like, something like that. Uh, th- yeah. Something like that.

    22. HS

      Is that what you want it to be?

    23. AO

      So, uh, we want to build for the new generation of AI-native founders that, um, build, like, maybe one person unicorns soon. And, and then the, the, the funny thing is that those people also have jobs maybe in, in large, successful companies. Uh, and they wanna help their friends and their family to build, uh, simple websites. So I think this is a, yeah, I think this is a good split. But-

    24. HS

      Is that an optimal market to go after if you're thinking about... God, I sound like such a VC, but like value extraction, which is like an AI founder building a mega business on Lovable. Great. You want to have to have a lot of mechanisms for value extraction-

    25. AO

      Mm.

    26. HS

      ... and then, be it payment solutions or you name it. But if they're single seat, uh, and p- it's g- just, like, tough to get true value extraction from that, is it not much better to be hobbyist for everyone, for mom and pop to build the About Me website, where it's seven billion people?

    27. AO

      Hm. Uh, like our mission is to enable a lot of people that have the opportunity to build businesses, but they have been held back by not being able to write code and like not have access to capital to hire engineers. Um, so it's obvious to start with the people who are going to build businesses. And then, uh, it naturally trickles down to everyone else as well, as a function of that. If, like, those, I think those are the best people to start building for. And, uh, where you can extract value, I think less about that. I think about our mission.

    28. HS

      We should have like a Lovable holiday fund, which is like-

    29. AO

      Uh-

    30. HS

      ... every year, we pay the most talented people within large enterprises for a week's holiday. (laughs)

  9. 33:33 – 39:24

    The Security Bombshells No One Talks About

    1. AO

      f- face-to-face.

    2. HS

      Well, I mean, it was, it was interesting 'cause, uh, uh, Jason Lampkin, who's a friend of mine-

    3. AO

      Yeah.

    4. HS

      ... I don't know if you saw it, but he was using R- Rapplit. Um, and then I'm, I can't remember exactly what happened, but they basically had a massive security breach or they deleted all his database or something bad happened, and it was like code red for them. And the takeaway for him was like, just security on all of them-

    5. AO

      Yup.

    6. HS

      ... is just nowhere n- near where it needs to be. And like, it's wrong for Rapplit to bash Lovable, it's wrong for Lovable to bash Rapplit, all of you guys suck at security. Is that true?

    7. AO

      Uh, yes, I think they are. (laughs)

    8. HS

      (laughs)

    9. AO

      They, they are, uh, like, so let me say it different way. First of all, we talk about security, like, company-wide every week almo- like, every day I, I hear something about security because we take it so seriously. And, um, there's so many different fronts to make it much more secure than if a human would do the, the application development. And that's why it's so important for us to be the best in the world at security. And-

    10. HS

      So you're saying it's more secure than humans.

    11. AO

      Not yet. Uh, for, I mean, I s- I said this at some point, which is if, um, you take your average developer who, like, normally works in a large team where they have a lot of support, and then they, they, that human goes out and builds an application, they are going to create software that has security holes on average.

    12. HS

      Mm-hmm.

    13. AO

      Um, and l- when you build a application with Lovable, it's going to tell you to go through a bunch of security reviews, and the AI is going to do a bunch of security reviews and, finally, it's going to give you green light, like, "We haven't found any security vulnerabilities." So if you compare those two, the, like, average, truly average developer with Lovable, Lovable is going to, uh, have a lower chance of having a vulnerability. And so we want them that, put that to 0%. We need to put that at 0% chance of vu- vulnerability.

    14. HS

      It reminds me of self-driving-

    15. AO

      Yeah.

    16. HS

      ... which is like, you know, for the world's best driver, I'm sure you are better than self-driving. But for the majority, and for the majority who are tired-

    17. AO

      Yes.

    18. HS

      ... humans have the potential-

    19. AO

      Yeah.

    20. HS

      ... to be hungover-

    21. AO

      Yeah.

    22. HS

      ... high, malfunctioning in some way, actually wildly dangerous.

    23. AO

      Absolutely.

    24. HS

      It's much, much better.

    25. AO

      Very much so. Yup. So, yeah, and I, I, I would say I'm very proud of what the team done so far with the security and, and, but there's more to come. Yeah.

    26. HS

      So when we look at... We, we've spoken about m- many different kind of, uh, competitors in different ways, from your Figmas to your Rapplets. If you move forward three years, what does the space look like then?

    27. AO

      Again, I, I think I focus on what our product does and how we serve our customers best. And, like, I don't really predict that. If, if we get all the, the majority of the profit share in this market, that's amazing. Um, if there's, if this is spread out across different companies, that's, uh, that's also fine as long as we build a product that lasts for generations. And that, and I do that by building the best products for our customers. Um, if, yeah-

    28. HS

      And this is why brand is so important for you.

    29. AO

      Yeah.... that, that's how I think about it.

    30. HS

      Do you mind if devs go to Lovable, get 60% of the code from there, and then fine tune it?

  10. 39:24 – 44:13

    Should Anyone Still Study Computer Science?

    1. AO

    2. HS

      When you think about skills required too-

    3. AO

      Mm.

    4. HS

      ... there's a lot of people who are asking today, "Should I bother studying computer science if we're gonna see Lovable be the last, you know, software that we ever need?" How would you advise your little brother questioning whether to do CS at university?

    5. AO

      I think university is not the best place to learn. Uh, that com- th- it doesn't matter what you study. Uh, you should be out there and s- really understand how the world works in terms of how work translates to value creation, and you don't learn that at university. Um, so university is, like, a way to m- train your brain to learn new things and, uh, meet a lot of interesting people. Uh, so, uh, computer sh-

    6. HS

      Would you encourage your children to go to university?

    7. AO

      So, this is now 20 years in the future pretty much.

    8. HS

      Oh.

    9. AO

      So, it's hard to say, (laughs) to say something about 20 years in the future. I think it's a great experience to have had in life, uh, so why not? But it depends on what outcome you want to reach. If you wanna have a, a job that's where you make the most money, no, you shouldn't, they shouldn't go to university.

    10. HS

      I think the opportunity cost of those years is very high.

    11. AO

      Mm. True.

    12. HS

      Yeah, in the, in the UK in particular, we just get very drunk for three years.

    13. AO

      Yeah.

    14. HS

      And that's generally how it is, and generally study generalist subjects like geography and history. And honestly, it is a little bit of a waste of time, in which case you can utilize those years so much better-

    15. AO

      Mm.

    16. HS

      ... given your stamina, your energy, the plasticity of your brain at that age-

    17. AO

      Sure.

    18. HS

      ... which is why I highly advocate against it.

    19. AO

      Agree. I mean, if, if you just do a v- a very, very specialized job for, for those years, maybe you, you'll become less of a generalist, so the, there's, like, there's a trade-off there as well, of course. I think, whereas university, you're exposed to many different concepts, which can be useful.

    20. HS

      We mentioned earlier AI and enterprise. When you look at the biggest enterprises today, they're not able for data, for permissioning, for security, to use AI. Are we going to see the biggest shift in incumbent power in the next 10 years?

    21. AO

      So, you mean if they're not enabled-

    22. HS

      (laughs)

    23. AO

      ... uh, there's someone else that c- will come in and, and be enabled?

    24. HS

      Exactly.

    25. AO

      I think you see this in banking, like for example, where bank is a software company, right? It's all about software systems. And the old banks are moving much slower. I, I think, yes, I, there is going to be some companies that are, like, built ground up for an AI to change their s- their sys- their systems. Uh, and anyone who's exposed to, like, customers understanding the legal requirements and so on can move much, much faster in the creating a good customer experience. Um, so yes, I, I g- I imagine there are also some, um, benefits of being, having been around for a long time in the enterprise. In, in, like, banking, there's a certain element of trust and so on. Uh, so I don't know how large the shift is going to be in, in the, in, like, across different segments of the enterprise market. But, um, many companies will be, get disrupted by cheaper, much, much better alternatives.

    26. HS

      It's interesting you said there about trust. How loyal do you think Lovable users and customers are? Do you think there's a high propensity to switch and an ease to switch, or do you think people fundamentally are loyal?

    27. AO

      It's 50/50. Like, some people are just super, super loyal to a brand. Uh, many people-... I mean, if you do something that hurts your brand, they will, they will switch, and they're just out there looking for, uh, maximizing some kind of cost versus, uh, capability subjective. So, so there's, there is, like, you can do, um, you can think about both of those groups simultaneously, um, and, but it, like, if you have the best product with the best value, you are g- going to get everyone.

    28. HS

      What question... We, we spoke about kind of people being, um, threatened-

    29. AO

      Yeah.

    30. HS

      ... large incumbents. What question should large CEOs, business leaders be asking today about the future of AI in their companies and how they use it, that they're not asking, do you think?

  11. 44:13 – 49:42

    Work-Life Balance Is Dead: Inside Anton’s 10x Culture

    1. AO

    2. HS

      You said about speed there, you said about talent earlier.

    3. AO

      Mm-hmm.

    4. HS

      Bluntly, dude, I get really fed up with everyone saying that Europeans are about espresso and taking the summer, and, "It's August and July, we're not gonna work." And I advocate for a very aggressive work culture, which, uh, you know, is 996-

    5. AO

      Yep.

    6. HS

      ... and how I say that. Um, how do you feel about the importance of unwavering hard work over balance in the desire to win?

    7. AO

      I think over a 10-year period, I, I would advocate for some balance.

    8. HS

      Yeah.

    9. AO

      But if over a two-year p- period, uh, if you really care about something, then you should make sure that you have, like, you get your exercise, your sleep in really, really well, and maybe something that you know relaxes you, uh, and then just work your ass off (laughs) . That's what you should be doing.

    10. HS

      Do you agree then with Scott from Cognition, who clearly said to windsurf employees-

    11. AO

      Yeah.

    12. HS

      ... after hiring them or buying the company, it's six days a week, it's unwaveringly relentless, and if you don't want to sign up for that, you can leave?

    13. AO

      I would say m- in how we think about it, is that you are here to have 10x impact over the other people at other companies. And if you don't have 10x impact, uh, so for, you do that by being very talented, being good at your job, and, uh, being very focused. Uh, and for some people, you need to put in a shit ton of hours, and, and for th- but not for everyone. So I, I would prefer... I, I'd speak about are you s- am I seeing the impact? Are you s- am I seeing that if you would tell me you're leaving tomorrow, I would be like, "No, you are, like, such an important part of this company, you have to stay." Uh, and that's how I push, uh, performance, uh, and impact.

    14. HS

      Do you do the keepers test?

    15. AO

      Yeah. I do the keepers test. Yeah.

    16. HS

      Has it made you change how you construct teams?

    17. AO

      The keepers test?

    18. HS

      Yeah.

    19. AO

      Yeah, I, I think, um, a, it's, it always under- makes it clear to people that, um, I need to always figure out am I... Like, how can I have more impact? Uh, so that's one part. And then, um, I mean, I, I think in terms of what does this organization look like if it's in the, um, uh, is it optimally set up to suc- to succeed right now? And, um, I don't, I don't do... Like, culture is such an important part. If you're just, like, throwing people around too much, it's, it hurts the culture and the ways of working. But doing this business exercise of saying, "Is this c- organization set up perfectly to win?" uh, definitely shapes how I build an organization.

    20. HS

      You mentioned Nick earlier-

    21. AO

      Yeah.

    22. HS

      ... at Revolut. He gave me the best answer, I think, ever on culture. You know, I've done 3,000 shows, and when culture comes up, it's, like, first principles thinking, I'm like, "Ugh, fuck it, we'll edit this bit out." Um-

    23. AO

      (laughs)

    24. HS

      Always. B- but he said the best thing ever. He said, "I don't think about culture, I think about winning."

    25. AO

      Mm-hmm.

    26. HS

      "The single biggest determinant of human happiness is growth and development. And when you are winning, you are most optimally positioned to grow and develop. And so if I create the conditions to win, you will grow and develop." And then supporting that, the other thing that people like to do is accumulate wealth (laughs) as well as development.

    27. AO

      Yep.

    28. HS

      And you will accumulate that by winning because of your share price increase. It's the most-

    29. AO

      That's a good quote.

    30. HS

      It's a really-

  12. 49:42 – 59:44

    Why It’s Better to Build in Europe

    1. AO

    2. HS

      Can you imagine if Apple were like, "Oh, fuck, we deleted your cloud, sorry"?

    3. AO

      Yeah, sounds very good. (laughs)

    4. HS

      (laughs)

    5. AO

      How bad.

    6. HS

      Uh, I said earlier about, like, Europe and summer and, you know, not moving fast enough. You've said before that it is better to build in Europe.

    7. AO

      Mm-hmm.

    8. HS

      And I don't want this to be, like, an advert for Europe, um, but why do you think it's better to build in Europe?

    9. AO

      I think there are very many, uh, good things about Europe. (laughs) There are also good things, uh, things that are better in, in the US, for example. Uh, I mostly think, uh, about I want to prove that you can build a generational product, a generational company team from Europe, and part of it is on, is on hard mode, uh, and I think-

    10. HS

      What parts are on hard mode?

    11. AO

      Yeah. O- So hard mode is the, the, where the network isn't as great-

    12. HS

      (laughs)

    13. AO

      ... in how many individuals and companies that have worked on and have context for, like, all the different stages of building an amazing multinational company.

    14. HS

      Completely agree. There are no Elena Vernas in Europe.

    15. AO

      Yeah.

    16. HS

      Or very few.

    17. AO

      Maybe we'll get her here soon.

    18. HS

      Yeah.

    19. AO

      But, um, I think, uh, that's hard mode. I think the, um, like, access to capital, people that will quickly give you a lot of distribution, help you with dis- distribution and brand, part of it is-

    20. HS

      Do you think access to capital is a genuine problem? I think there's so much money in Europe that actually it's a problem.

    21. AO

      No, for, as I said, it's not a bottleneck for us, no.

    22. HS

      Yeah.

    23. AO

      It's not. Um-

    24. HS

      And, and you're gonna start to see very soon, I'm sure you're probably already seeing it, but Lovable spinouts, where anyone who leaves Lovable will get a term sheet straight away.

    25. AO

      100% true. Um, I think, yeah, why, why it's better to build in Europe?

    26. HS

      Yeah. What-

    27. AO

      There's, so there's-

    28. HS

      Well, so the, the, so, so the hard-

    29. AO

      We're the best, we're the best talent, okay, yeah.

    30. HS

      So you said the hard things there is, like, number one, what was number one again, sorry? Wasn't access to-

  13. 59:44 – 1:03:18

    What Does Make the Marriage Successful?

    1. AO

      both of us.

    2. HS

      When you think about that and then you think about f- you're married and very happily married. When you think about successful marriages, what makes the marriage so successful?

    3. AO

      I mean, I, me and Fabian, we can talk about anything, uh, and, uh, that's extremely productive. And we can talk about turning things, uh, turning every stone and challenging each, each other, um, around anything. And we have a lot of, like, humility. I think that's very valuable and very important. And the same is true in my marriage. (laughs) .

    4. HS

      Humility.

    5. AO

      I think humility. Yes, a lot of humility. I see, I, I talk about my faults a lot in my marriage, for example. And, um-

    6. HS

      Does success-

    7. AO

      ... yeah, I try to work around them.

    8. HS

      ... make marriage harder or easier?

    9. AO

      I mean, if you have zero hours to spend time with your partner, it makes it more difficult. Um, I don't see...

    10. HS

      I also look at n-

    11. AO

      Yeah.

    12. HS

      ... 90% of relationships often struggle, and a lot of arguments is based on money.

    13. AO

      Mm.

    14. HS

      Which is a inevitable thing that's very hard, especially as cost of living goes up and for a lot of people.

    15. AO

      Mm.

    16. HS

      Um, that then doesn't become a problem.

    17. AO

      True. Yeah, I don't think... For us, it was never a problem.

    18. HS

      Has it changed your marriage?

    19. AO

      Um, not so much, no.

    20. HS

      Very humble Swedes, aren't you?

    21. AO

      Yes, we... (laughs)

    22. HS

      (laughs)

    23. AO

      I mean, I haven't changed my lifestyle since Lovable was be- successful.

    24. HS

      Have you not?

    25. AO

      Um, maybe I think less about m- monetary decisions. But no, lifestyle is pretty much the same.

    26. HS

      What does the Lovable product look like at the end of 2026?

    27. AO

      Uh, I mean, it's your perfect co-founder that you go to with your idea from the idea stage, but also all, all the way up to...... growing your business once you have customers, and, um, taking care of, like, what Elena is doing, optimizing the products for growth, optimizing the product and optimizing your, uh, communication with your customers, be it in- through email or through, um, different marketing channels.

    28. HS

      So you eat the whole stack, then?

    29. AO

      Yeah, it's one opinionated way to do the entire product lifecycle.

    30. HS

      So you do everything from email marketing, to SMS marketing-

  14. 1:03:18 – 1:14:07

    Quick-Fire Round

    1. AO

      just one example.

    2. HS

      Joakim, we're gonna do a quick fire round.

    3. AO

      Okay.

    4. HS

      I'm gonna hit you with some incredibly unfair questions and you can give me your thoughts, okay? What wildly held belief about AI do you think is just very wrong?

    5. AO

      I think AI is smarter than humans, and most people don't agree.

    6. HS

      Do you not think they do now?

    7. AO

      I think most people don't agree. And, and the reason is that it's of- oftentimes it's very, very stupid. Um, but it's actually very stupid. But if you give it all the context, um, or you have like... you build a purposeful system for that, th- what they are stupid at, it's smarter than humans.

    8. HS

      Do you think we will see a plateauing or do you think we will see a continuous exponential progression curve?

    9. AO

      I think we'll see a plateauing, uh, on the things that we, uh, we care about, which is a lot of nuance and, like, being good at all the different things, uh, at once in a- in, in the same model. Um, there's probably some ways-

    10. HS

      But people are looking at GPT-5 now-

    11. AO

      Yeah.

    12. HS

      ... and saying, "Ah, we're hitting a stage where-"

    13. AO

      Yeah.

    14. HS

      "... actually improvements are much more incremental."

    15. AO

      Mm. I mean, I think we... Like, i- we, we... What we're s- what we've seen so, so far is, like, the sigmoid curves across many different dimensions at the same time, um, and, yeah, we're going to s- we're going to see a, a plateauing. There's some sigmoid curves where I, I think we're still in this, like, exponential phase of the sigmoid curve. So it, um... And those could be something like, um, science and engineering, and, like, bioengineering, where AI is just going to continue to, like, exponentially become extremely powerful and, uh, g- generate a lot of new medicines and new ways of treating health.

    16. HS

      Grok, Anthropic, OpenAI.

    17. AO

      Mm-hmm.

    18. HS

      You can invest in OpenAI at 380, Anthropic at 180, and Grok at, I think it's 100. Which one do you invest in and which one do you short?

    19. AO

      I'd invest in Grok and I would, um, short, uh... S- what was the numbers again? 380?

    20. HS

      380 and 180.

    21. AO

      Okay. And 100. I, I would probably short Anthropic because... No, I would, I would short OpenAI, let's say.

    22. HS

      Why? Why would you buy the, uh, Grok and short, um, OpenAI?

    23. AO

      I think it's more the slope on the Grok team. They have... They're doing something which I respect a lot, which is to hire missionaries for the data curation part, and they call it AI tutoring. Um, and they, um... I think the morale is much, much better in that team than both of the other teams. The morale is super high. Uh, OpenAI has gone through all this mess, right? Anthropic's pr- has good mor- morale as well. Um, and they're growing faster on the enterprise side from what I'm hearing.

    24. HS

      Do you think OpenAI wins the consumer, in terms like next generation Google, and Anthropic wins the developer and the enterprise?

    25. AO

      No, I think it's gonna be v- unknown. Uh, there's gonna be something else happening that we don't know what it is though.

    26. HS

      Do you think the, there will be a leading model that has not been created yet?

    27. AO

      Yes. From China.

    28. HS

      Are you... Do you worry about China?

    29. AO

      I think Chinese companies are not as good as either really understanding your users, so not very more worried. I do think there's, like, a 50/50 chance they will have the best model, we'll be using a Chinese model at some point, and that makes me a bit concerned be- because I, because we do-

    30. HS

      Would you use Chinese models at Lovable?

Episode duration: 1:14:08

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