Amjad Masad & Adam D’Angelo: How Far Are We From AGI?

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

November 7, 2025

Duration

1h 2m

Channel

a16z

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Adam D’Angelo (Quora/Poe) thinks we're 5 years from automating remote work. Amjad Masad (Replit) thinks we're brute-forcing intelligence without understanding it. In this conversation, two technical founders who are building the AI future disagree on almost everything: whether LLMs are hitting limits, if we're anywhere close to AGI, and what happens when entry-level jobs disappear but experts remain irreplaceable. They dig into the uncomfortable reality that AI might create a "missing middle" in the job market, why everyone in SF is suddenly too focused on getting rich to do weird experiments, and whether consciousness research has been abandoned for prompt engineering. Plus: Why coding agents can now run for 20+ hours straight, the return of the "sovereign individual" thesis, and the surprising sophistication of everyday users juggling multiple AIs. Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 00:41 The Bearishness Paradox: "I don't know what people are talking about" 04:25 "Functional AGI" - Brute Forcing Your Way to Automation 11:18 "We are in a human expertise regime" 15:31 The Weird Equilibrium: Automating Entry-Level but Not Experts 17:22 The Expert Data Paradox 24:44 The Sovereign Individual: A Prediction Framework for the AI Era 28:51 "Vastly increased what a single person can do" 45:04 "It's gonna be the decade of agents" 49:01 Managing Tens of Agents in Parallel 52:56 "I actually think vibe coding is unbelievably high potential" 58:47 Claude 4.5's Strange New Awareness Resources Follow Amjad on X: https://x.com/amasad Follow Adam on X: https://x.com/adamdangelo Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Amjad Masad

  guest

  Founder/CEO of Replit, focused on developer tools and AI agents.

• Erik Torenberg

  host

  Podcast host at a16z, interviewer covering startups, tech, and AI.

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of a16z, featuring Amjad Masad and Erik Torenberg, Amjad Masad & Adam D’Angelo: How Far Are We From AGI? explores aGI timelines, brute-force automation, and the coming agent-led economy shifts Adam D’Angelo argues recent leaps in reasoning, coding, and multimodal generation suggest progress is accelerating and that key blockers are increasingly about context, tooling (e.g., computer use), and integration rather than fundamental model limits.

🔗 RELATED EPISODES

The Golden Age Thesis | Marc Andreessen on MTS

The Investor Behind Costco, Starbucks, and Blackstone | Tony James on The a16z Show

Digital Freedom, AI Regulation, and the Fight for the Western Internet | The a16z Show

Crypto Experts Explain Stablecoins & the Future Financial System w/ Ali Yahya & Arianna Simpson

Why Scale Will Not Solve AGI | Vishal Misra - The a16z Show

Emil Michael: The Department of War Is Moving Faster Than Silicon Valley on AI | The a16z Show