Replit CEO Amjad Masad on What Young People Should Learn in the AI Era

1. 0:00 – 1:04

   Intro

   1. AMAmjad Masad0:00

      Ultimately, the utility of young people is to question deeply held beliefs, is to be heretics. And in today's college, it's actually the opposite. It kind of beats any outside thought out of them.

   2. GBGagan Biyani0:12

      I just really wanna see a world in which it's okay if you wanna go on a side quest and go do something that's kind of oddball, but also might end up being super amazing if it works out.

   3. AMAmjad Masad0:22

      The future of companies is gonna change. The whole industry has changed. It's a complete reset from a technology perspective. I'd want to go to a college that's not prescriptive about what I learn. I'm motivated by what skills can it give me in order to achieve what I wanna build.

   4. GBGagan Biyani0:39

      One of the core tenets of the academy sidesteps this problem entirely. We don't care if you graduate or not. We don't have grades. We don't have tests. The amount of weight to push against should be a lot less.

   5. ETErik Torenberg0:53

      When you see a 18-year-old that is really inspiring to you, that you're like, "I gotta spend time with this person," what are they doing that is capturing your interest?

   6. AMAmjad Masad1:00

      I think the first thing is that they...

2. 1:04 – 5:36

   "The City and the Stars": Why Young People Should Be Heretics

   1. AMAmjad Masad1:04

      As we were talking, uh, uh, I, I remember this, uh, sci-fi story that I read once. Uh, it's called "The City and the Stars," and it's about this future city that's governed by AGI. We sort of invented AGI. It now governs all of our lives. It solves all, uh, all problems, all human problems. Um, there's no wars. There's, uh, no disease. Everyone lives forever, and people spend their time working on, like, uh, thousand-year art projects and doing all sorts of random things to fill up their time. But they, they found this problem where they accumulate so much knowledge and memory, it becomes, like, harder to keep it all in their heads. So they invented this technology where they go into some kind of laboratory, and they compress their memory, sort of like context compression that we do with AI today. They go through all the memories, and they compress them, and then they go through a boot camp to, like, retrain them for, for, uh, for, for their life. So they invented a new way to be born. Uh, but it i- is n- you're not fundamentally a new person. You're still the same person. You're just editing your memory. But there's a glitch that happens in this system, in this machine, and there's a new person that is fundamentally born new, and he immediately starts causing problems. Uh, in the boot camp, he starts doing weird things, new things, and everyone was like, "Whoa, that's, that's crazy. Like, you shouldn't be doing that. That's not how we do things." It becomes very disruptive. And then when they go out into, into this, like, city, he starts asking questions like, "What's out there? What's in the stars? What's outside our city borders?" They're like, "Oh, we don't talk about outside our city borders." Uh, it's, it's probably-

   2. GBGagan Biyani2:54

      Sounds like Silo a little bit

   3. AMAmjad Masad2:55

      ... it's probably dangerous out there. Yeah, a little bit like Silo.

   4. GBGagan Biyani2:58

      [chuckles]

   5. AMAmjad Masad2:58

      A little bit like Fallout.

   6. GBGagan Biyani2:59

      Yeah.

   7. AMAmjad Masad3:00

      Um, and, and, you know, I don't wanna get into the spoilers too much, but eventually that's what-- He has so much drive to change things and go discover the stars. That's why it's called "The City and the Stars." He, and, a- and, and the story unfolds in that way, and he finds all sorts of interesting things out there. And I'm reminded of this because as we're talking about what is college and w-what is it, what is it for, and I, I think a, a related question is, like, what, what is the utility of young people in society? And I think ultimately the utility of young people is to question deeply held beliefs, is to be heretics.

   8. GBGagan Biyani3:41

      Yeah.

   9. AMAmjad Masad3:42

      And in today's college, it's actually the opposite. It kind of beats any outside thought out of them, right? It, it, it, it, it tells you you're stupid. "We've figured everything out. You need to learn our way, and we need to prepare you for the outside world so you can get a job and be a perfect citizen and go get, you know, get married, have kids, and get a house and a car and, and live happily ever after." But that world doesn't exist anymore. You can do really well in college, and you can still be unemployed with a huge debt. Um, but not only that, I think the, the, the real civilizational missing opportunity is y- is that, is, is that person i- in the city of the stars. It took a glitch to get someone with a clear mind to be able to question deeply held beliefs. And, you know, every one of us, we probably have a blind spots in society. We pr- we have a lot of blind spots in Silicon Valley. There's a lot of ideas that don't come out of Silicon Valley, uh, because there's a monoculture here. There's a certain way of thinking. Every culture is somehow a monoculture, even the most radical cultures like Silicon Valley. And so what, what do you need from young people? You need them to, um, to experiment. You need to encourage them to do, to try impossible things. And every now and then, they're gonna have a breakthrough that once we thought was impossible, and now it's, now it's suddenly possible because the technology changed, something changed. Um, so college ultimately should be about that. Let's get these, these people with clear minds, zen mindsets, first principle mindsets and encourage them to go question the deeply held beliefs.

3. 5:36 – 11:20

   Designing Your Ideal 18-to-22 Experience in 2026

   1. ETErik Torenberg5:36

      Yeah. I, I think that's well said. I mean, i-imagine if you were 18 today and you were, had, you know, were able to design your ideal experience in terms of, you know, how much you go to class, to what projects you work on, to what kind of deep study, uh, you would engage in, to w-what you'd wanna study. Um, what are some principles or, you know, uh, that you would add to that in terms of how you wish y- if you could redo, you know, 18 to 22, but in 2026-

   2. AMAmjad Masad6:03

      Yeah

   3. ETErik Torenberg6:04

      ... how you'd think about it?

   4. AMAmjad Masad6:05

      Yeah. I, I, um, I'd want to go- ... to a college that's not pr- uh, prescriptive about what I learn. Yeah. Uh, I wanna be s- I, I wanna be in an environment where there's a lot of different paths. Like, you know, there is, um, there's a, a class about, um, something totally... I haven't even thought about it. It's, it's outside my world, right? We were talking about this story with, um, uh, Steve Jobs. One of the most inspiring speeches he gave is the Stanford commencement speech, and he talked about connecting things backwards. And so the way Steve Jobs approached college, I think it's the ideal experience of college, where he's like, he went to Reed College, but he couldn't afford it, so he dropped out, but kept dropping into different classes. One of them was calligraphy.

   5. GBGagan Biyani6:58

      Yeah.

   6. AMAmjad Masad6:58

      And in the calligraphy, uh, class, he didn't know why he was interested in it, and he just did it and learned it. Later on, when they were inventing the Mac, inventing user, um, interfaces, they're like, "Oh, we should have, uh, proportionally spaced fonts. We should have certain font... People should be able to select fonts." And that was a direct kind of, uh, callback to his college days learning about fonts and calligraphy and things like that. And, and so this, like, meandering that I think s- you know, modern society, uh, thinks is sort of useless, I think is actually the most useful in college.

   7. GBGagan Biyani7:35

      Yeah.

   8. AMAmjad Masad7:35

      It's like, can you take a class that would, like, change the direction of your life because you discover something totally new and outside of your world? So, so, so that's one. I would, I would, I would like to have enough freedom to select the kind of things I wanna study. Um, the other thing is, if I am engrossed in building something, give me the space and time to do it. One of the things about my college that was really hard is, um, we had attendance. Like, you h- they counted attendance.

   9. GBGagan Biyani8:06

      Yeah.

   10. AMAmjad Masad8:06

       And if you, if you c- if you didn't attend for, like, six classes, you're banned. Um, and so, uh, I think if, you know, I'm, I'm going to school, I'm doing all these different things, I'm meeting interesting people, and then I have an idea, and I'm, like, manically working really hard, give me the space to do it. Don't, like, you know, expel me for-

   11. GBGagan Biyani8:28

       Don't yuck my yum

   12. AMAmjad Masad8:29

       ... not showing up. Yeah, exactly.

   13. GBGagan Biyani8:30

       For sure.

   14. AMAmjad Masad8:30

       Exactly. A- and finally, the, the quality of people.

   15. GBGagan Biyani8:34

       Yeah.

   16. AMAmjad Masad8:34

       Like, I think if you're around conventionally-minded people, eventually you'll be conventionally minded.

   17. GBGagan Biyani8:39

       Yeah.

   18. AMAmjad Masad8:39

       If you're in an environment that encourages people to question those deeply held beliefs, I think you will be able to do that.

   19. GBGagan Biyani8:46

       Yeah. Yeah. I, my, I, I went to UC Berkeley, um, go Bears, and I, I did enjoy it a lot. Uh, but one of the things that I really enjoyed was that there was actually no expectation of attending class for most situations. And so I had many semesters where I had, I had, like, three jobs in one semester, and often the time that I was expected to be at work overlapped with my class.

   20. AMAmjad Masad9:13

       Mm-hmm.

   21. GBGagan Biyani9:14

       So, I just looked at my midterm schedule the semester, you know, in advance, and I said, "Okay, these are my two midterms. Hey, boss, can I take those two days off?" And otherwise, I was working.

   22. AMAmjad Masad9:27

       Mm-hmm.

   23. GBGagan Biyani9:29

       But it's, like, interesting because now I look back and I, I, I did enjoy that, but I feel oftentimes I look at, at that experience and say, "Well, what if the environment was supportive of this?"

   24. AMAmjad Masad9:40

       Mm-hmm.

   25. GBGagan Biyani9:41

       Like, what would, what would happen if... Because honestly, I think today when I talk to students, you know, it's been 20 years plus, like, when I talk to students today, they all do this. This is like, this used to be odd, [chuckles] my behavior, and now-

   26. AMAmjad Masad9:58

       Yeah. That's encouraging

   27. GBGagan Biyani9:58

       ... it's come becoming the norm. And the thing that's weird though is that it's not encouraged yet. It's still not allowed. And so for me personally, I just really wanna see a world in which it's okay if you go, wanna go on a side quest and go do something that's kind of oddball, but also might end up being super amazing if it works out.

   28. AMAmjad Masad10:20

       You should be able to use the college resources. You should be able to use-

   29. GBGagan Biyani10:23

       Yeah

   30. AMAmjad Masad10:23

       ... the computer lab, the compute, the bio lab.
4. 11:20 – 14:46

   Why Curiosity-Driven Learning Actually Works

   1. ETErik Torenberg11:20

      And so for example, I was obsessed with basketball as a kid, but I was also the kid who would ask my math teacher, like, "What's the point of this?" Like, "Help explain it to me." And if she could've explained it to me, maybe I would've got excited about it. If she would say, "Hey, you know, you're obsessed with basketball, you need to understand the salary cap," or y- actually, basketball is, like, very analytical now in terms of, like, people are using stats and data to evaluate players, and so if you don't understand this, you're not gonna be a good student of the game. That would've got me really excited, and that's why I'm so excited about Alpha School-

   2. GBGagan Biyani11:46

      Yeah

   3. ETErik Torenberg11:47

      ... is, is a way that they take people's natural interests and, uh, get them to learn, you know, things that they're gonna need to know over time out of that.

   4. AMAmjad Masad11:54

      Mm-hmm.

   5. GBGagan Biyani11:55

      The thing that's so hard is we all know... Like, the education sort of academic, the, uh, the industry of education, if you will, or the academic, uh, canon of education is completely on board with this. Like, they totally understand that it would be great if every student could have a customized curriculum. You know, and Joe, Joe Lemond of Alpha School talks about this all the time. The problem is that practically it seems impossible. But actually, [chuckles] I think now is the moment when it's completely reverted, and it's not just impossible, it's actually impossible to imagine why you wouldn't do that.

   6. ETErik Torenberg12:33

      Mm.

   7. GBGagan Biyani12:35

      Specifically, like for me, if I think about the academy, right? In the academy, if you are gonna l-learn coding, I don't want you just to take a class on Python. No, like go build something that you're super excited about in Python.

   8. ETErik Torenberg12:55

      Mm-hmm.

   9. GBGagan Biyani12:55

      You know? Use it as a tool to learn the language. And the great thing about today, you know, with AI, is every single student can go and do that on their own, and they don't need a customized syllabus or exercise given to them. They just need the freedom and confidence to say, "Yes, you're allowed to do this. Yes, absolutely, we're super excited about it."

   10. ETErik Torenberg13:18

       Totally.

   11. AMAmjad Masad13:19

       Yeah, I mean, this, um, you know, the buzzword for it is like project ba-based learning. There shouldn't be a buzzword for it because that should be s- the standard. The idea that you're learning something and you don't know the utility of it, I think is a very modern invention, is very weird thing to have done in society, that you would go into a statistic- statistics class, and you would never learn that you could use it for basketball-

   12. ETErik Torenberg13:43

       Yeah

   13. AMAmjad Masad13:43

       ... or you could use it for some of your other interests.

   14. ETErik Torenberg13:46

       Yeah.

   15. AMAmjad Masad13:46

       Um, and so th-there was this inversion for a long time of how we learn things. Like you would go and you, you would learn some of the things, and you had no idea what is the utility, how would you, would you apply it in the real world. Um, and, and for someone like me, and I think for a lot of people that are more pragmatically minded, I, I'm not motivated at all by, by, by pure pursuit of knowledge.

   16. ETErik Torenberg14:14

       Yeah.

   17. AMAmjad Masad14:14

       I'm motivated by skills. What, what skills can it give me in order to achieve what I wanna build and achieve my dreams?

   18. ETErik Torenberg14:22

       Yeah.

   19. AMAmjad Masad14:22

       And th- every now and then you find a teacher that is able to-

   20. ETErik Torenberg14:26

       Yeah

   21. AMAmjad Masad14:26

       ... tell you that, that's able to motivate your learning by telling you what kind of skills you can acquire because of it.

   22. ETErik Torenberg14:32

       Totally. Well, it's interesting because there is, you know, the critique that we're addressing that m- you know, um, we're solving for which is, hey, there's, there's certain s- schoolings, environments where there's very little practical skills gained or they don't train for the real world afterwards, even, you know, they claim

5. 14:46 – 19:40

   The Counter-Critique: Are Kids Professionalizing Too Soon?

   1. ETErik Torenberg14:46

      to. But then there's this also, this opposite critique, and I'm curious if you guys w- h-how we balance this, which is, hey, some people are sort of professionalizing way too soon and not having childhoods or some- or, or not-

   2. AMAmjad Masad14:56

      Yeah

   3. ETErik Torenberg14:57

      ... or not spending time to cultivate, um, intellectually or, or as a person otherwise. There's still kind of this sort of, uh, ineffable quality that some people think you get at e-experience like college where you're sort of, you know, with, uh, meeting new people, getting new friends, uh, uh, you know, sort of going to party. I, I don't know w-what, [chuckles] people are describing exactly. You know, studying the great books, e-e-e-et cetera. What do you think about sort of the, this, the stuff that's gained beyond just the technical skills-

   4. GBGagan Biyani15:24

      Yeah

   5. ETErik Torenberg15:24

      ... of, uh, of building a company or working at a company?

   6. GBGagan Biyani15:26

      I, I think there's this like huge unfair choice that a lot of young people are provided today. It's either go and get a four-year... go to a four-year school where there's a lot of structure around what you should be doing. You're gonna have to attend classes, you're gonna have to do homework and tests and grades and all of that. And then there's another option, which is you can go and start a startup and someone will give you $50,000 tomorrow to start it. And the problem that I see is-- Look, I think there's lots of people who are still gonna go to college and love it, you know? And I think there are lots of p- that there are young people, even at 16, 17, who should be starting a startup. But I think there's an amazing, massive group of people who, I don't know about you guys, but certainly for me, when I was 17 or 18, I knew I wanted to enter business, but it was so nice to have a couple of years to explore and learn and like no pressure, you know? And so personally, I think the investor track should be way underutilized. Like, like only a very small number of teenagers should be raising money. Instead, a-and by the way, grants are great, right? Do something temporary. Make it clear it's temporary, that's fine, but the pressure of making your, a 10-year commitment at 18 isn't for most people. And then the ch- the structure of college isn't for everybody either. And so for me, this middle ground of having two years where you can really explore and you can do whatever you want without the pressure, and Silicon Valley will come to you and provide you with all the information and the, uh, resources that you need. And when you have a cool idea, it's just like more, more, more. That's super exciting to me.

   7. AMAmjad Masad17:17

      Yeah, I mean, um, I think, you know, in, in programming we have this concept of, uh, premature optimization, and the idea, like I think the saying is, "Premature optimization is the root of all evil." That's how bad people think it is.

   8. GBGagan Biyani17:30

      [laughs]

   9. AMAmjad Masad17:31

      Where you, where you sort of start optimizing a program that is not eventually relevant or consequential. Um, and I think, uh, a lot of starting startups is premature optimization. And I see it in a lot of kids now where they're part of a group and a lot of their friends are raising a lot of money, and some of them are becoming unicorns, and they get... And it just becomes, the motivation is envy, um, and really negative motivation as opposed to positive. Um, and then they pre-commit to an idea they're not even interested in, and they raise money for it, and they are kind of pre-optimizing for some path that, um, that they haven't really reached yet, right? And so that's why I always come back to this idea of curiosity. Like, what is actually driving you? What is... Y-You know, once you find that idea that you wanna dedicate your life to or dedicate the next 10 years to, it's gonna have such gravity you're not gonna be able to avoid it, you know? I mean, for me, you know- You know, I, I tried not to start Replit, like actively not to start it, but it kind of exploded into a startup on its own.

   10. ETErik Torenberg18:37

       Yeah.

   11. AMAmjad Masad18:37

       Right? And that's, that's the feeling you should get. It's almost like I, I, I guess I have to do it, right? Because it's, it's like there's so much momentum-

   12. ETErik Torenberg18:46

       Yeah

   13. AMAmjad Masad18:46

       ... behind it. Um, and I think there's, I think a predatory thing that happens right now where I've heard that, uh, VCs go to Stanford students and they give them like a million dollars, not even 50K. 50K is like- [laughs]

   14. ETErik Torenberg19:00

       [laughs]

   15. AMAmjad Masad19:00

       ... a million dollars pre-idea and it's like the moment you start your idea, you know, you already have a cap table.

   16. ETErik Torenberg19:06

       Yeah.

   17. AMAmjad Masad19:07

       I think that's sort of like the music industry. Um, and you're like, uh, you know, Kanye talked a lot about this where it's like how predatory it is where you, you find a young artist and you kind of lock them into a contract and they don't even understand that contract. Like luckily I think in Silicon Valley we have, uh, the SAFEs-

   18. ETErik Torenberg19:24

       Yeah

   19. AMAmjad Masad19:24

       ... which are, you know, a great contribution by, by, by YC and Paul Graham. But the, uh, but it's still somewhat, you know, s- somewhat predatory because you're taking this young person, you're pre-committing them to something they shouldn't have committed to.

6. 19:40 – 24:02

   The Entrepreneur & the Intellectual: Balancing Both

   1. ETErik Torenberg19:40

      Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting because, um, you're an interesting person to bring on this podcast and the academy more broadly because you're both an entrepreneur and a builder and a hacker and a tinkerer and very pragmatic, but you're also an intellectual. You're also, you know, very curious, you know, wi- widely read across, you know, history and economics and culture and politics and, you know, you spend a lot of time on memes like, you know, like you, uh, you sort of, um, pursue your interests there. So going back to this critique, you're neither sort of divorced from the, you know, economic real, real world, but you're neither, you're neither that nor a automaton, you know. Like there are some people who are so career focused that really that's just like the only thing they think about is how to make more money or, or how to make this thing successful. And so I, I think to, to your point, Gagan, sometimes people are funneled into these, you know, either of these paths and I'm curious how you've thought about is that something that you've always been just naturally or how can people both be like very pragmatic in their career, you know, as, as young people and yet also make time or make space or make interest for, um, following their intellectual curiosity even if it might seem, you know, random or-

   2. AMAmjad Masad20:49

      Yeah

   3. ETErik Torenberg20:49

      ... you know, alien from that?

   4. AMAmjad Masad20:50

      Yeah. Um, I, I think that, uh, I, I sort of tend to oscillate between having an itch to build something, uh, and having an itch to like read a lot and explore a lot and see what's, what's out there, what's interesting, and they feed on each other. It's a sort of a recursive process where I accumulate enough knowledge and ideas from all the things I've explored that I really want to go build something with it now, right? And, and so, um, like, you know, for example, recently I got, I got really into chess which is like very late in life to get into chess. Like usually you get into chess when you're six years old. Um, and my kid actually is six years old is getting into chess pretty soon is gonna be beating me.

   5. ETErik Torenberg21:32

      [laughs]

   6. AMAmjad Masad21:32

      Um, but, but I, I didn't know why I was interested in it. I got interested in it and then I started writing programs to like solve chess and then started training models.

   7. ETErik Torenberg21:40

      [laughs]

   8. AMAmjad Masad21:41

      And I was like why LLMs, like ChatGPT actually sucks, uh, at chess.

   9. ETErik Torenberg21:46

      Oh really?

   10. AMAmjad Masad21:46

       Yeah. And I was like well, you know, we're, the ARC AGI score is getting up there, you know, these models are, you know, almost AGI, but why are they bad at chess? They hallucinate moves and, and all of that. And so I went into, um, training an LLM to, to play chess and, uh, I spent a lot of time... Uh, I've never trained a model before that. I spent a lot of time kind of exploring how to train models. Uh, and I realized, you know, some people now call it the RSI or recursive self-improvement, uh, so sort of a buzzword for AI being able to do ML. I realized that AI is actually now capable of doing ML.

   11. ETErik Torenberg22:24

       Hmm.

   12. AMAmjad Masad22:24

       So the moment we were in like 2024 when Replit Agent came out before vibe coding as a term was, was, was coined, suddenly agents were capable of like coding, right? And, uh, and, and coding fundamentally changed, uh, since then. Um, I think we're at a similar moment when it comes to machine learning. I think machine learning where, you know, you could call it vibe research, you could call it auto research, I think that's Karpathy's term. Uh, but um, I spent a lot of time in that world and then now like I, uh, I'm, I'm working on something on Replit to, to, to bring that to, to the world like-

   13. ETErik Torenberg23:03

       Yeah

   14. AMAmjad Masad23:03

       ... where anyone can become a machine learning researcher or like any business owner who has data can like fine-tune a model to kind of solve a certain problem. Um, and so y- when, when I started playing chess, like what are the hops you need to make to understand that oh, oh, that's gonna lead me to build a new business line for, for Replit? [laughs] It's just impossible, but I just followed something that I was interested in and it kind of resulted in, in, in something. And invariably it does, at least for me. But even memes and culture, I, you know, I, I get interested in, in some random subculture in the internet, um, and I learn something about the world. I learn something about society. I learn something about markets. I learn something about where the world is headed.

   15. ETErik Torenberg23:47

       Yeah.

   16. AMAmjad Masad23:47

       And I have alpha.

   17. ETErik Torenberg23:50

       You have an itch and you listen to the itch and sometimes the itch is-

   18. AMAmjad Masad23:52

       Yes

   19. ETErik Torenberg23:52

       ... build something, the itch is learn something and they... A lot of kids get the itch beaten out of them because they, you know, they learn o- they over time to ignore, ignore, ignore in favor of, you know, going through these hoops.

7. 24:02 – 35:40

   Learning to Follow vs Learning to Lead

   1. AMAmjad Masad24:02

      Right.

   2. ETErik Torenberg24:02

      And it's helpful to learn how to go through hoops, but it's also helpful to learn how to, um, listen to itches, how to follow itches.

   3. AMAmjad Masad24:07

      Is it helpful to-

   4. ETErik Torenberg24:09

      I mean, not, not more than people do currently but-

   5. AMAmjad Masad24:13

      Right

   6. ETErik Torenberg24:13

      ... I think generally it's like in order to lead it's also helpful to know how to follow.

   7. AMAmjad Masad24:16

      Right.

   8. ETErik Torenberg24:16

      But I think people spend their entire high, high school and, you know, and often college just learning how to follow.

   9. AMAmjad Masad24:22

      Yeah.

   10. ETErik Torenberg24:22

       Just learning how to, you know-

   11. AMAmjad Masad24:23

       Right

   12. ETErik Torenberg24:23

       ... someone says something, you do it. And I think it'd be... Yeah.

   13. AMAmjad Masad24:25

       'Cause, 'cause my belief is that the future of companies is gonna change- Um, like I think, uh, you know, in Silicon Valley there's been so many experiments to try to change the nature of firms, of how companies work.

   14. GBGagan Biyani24:38

       Hmm.

   15. AMAmjad Masad24:39

       Uh, if you remember, uh-

   16. GBGagan Biyani24:40

       Holacracy.

   17. AMAmjad Masad24:41

       Holacracy, Medium did that.

   18. GBGagan Biyani24:43

       Yeah.

   19. AMAmjad Masad24:44

       GitHub, uh, did the, like, no managers.

   20. GBGagan Biyani24:46

       Mm-hmm.

   21. AMAmjad Masad24:47

       They all kind of blew up in-

   22. GBGagan Biyani24:48

       Yeah

   23. AMAmjad Masad24:48

       ... like spectacular ways. [chuckles]

   24. GBGagan Biyani24:50

       Yeah, they did.

   25. AMAmjad Masad24:51

       But I-

   26. GBGagan Biyani24:51

       Yeah

   27. AMAmjad Masad24:51

       ... but I think it was a technology problem. Like, I think now, like you can have agents kind of function as the glue within these organization, and like have the bureaucracy be this invisible thing that's happening by machines-

   28. GBGagan Biyani25:04

       Hmm

   29. AMAmjad Masad25:04

       ... in the background, and then people have true autonomy i- to work on the things that they find, like, most interesting, and AI can sort of judge your impact.

   30. GBGagan Biyani25:12

       Hmm.
8. 35:40 – 36:38

   Discernment & Meta Retard Maxing: When to Trust Elders

   1. AMAmjad Masad35:40

      The um... Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think going back to your thing around, you know, when to trust the elders versus when to disrupt, it's kind of, there's this general, uh, trend in terms of like what's really important to gain is discernment, 'cause all, like-

   2. GBGagan Biyani35:53

      Yeah

   3. AMAmjad Masad35:53

      ... you know, rules and heuristics, it's like it really matters what the context and case. But, and the way to get discernment is by having reps, um, and, and be trusting the students to sort of fail on their own, to make decisions, to, to learn from it. It's, you, you coined, uh, you know, technoprimitism on this podcast.

   4. GBGagan Biyani36:07

      Mm.

   5. AMAmjad Masad36:07

      The thing I'll coin is, uh, meta retard maxing.

   6. GBGagan Biyani36:10

      [laughing]

   7. AMAmjad Masad36:11

      Uh, when to retard max-

   8. GBGagan Biyani36:12

      All right

   9. AMAmjad Masad36:12

      ... versus wh- when to, like when to go on pure instinct-

   10. GBGagan Biyani36:15

       Ooh

   11. AMAmjad Masad36:15

       ... versus when, when to sort of, like when that will drive you into, into trouble. And I think it really relates to, like, when there's asymmetric upside versus asymmetric downside. But you kinda need reps, and, and I, I think that's a lot of what project-based learning is, or just giving people more control over their time is the idea of, uh, of just giving them more opportunities to choose a path- You succeed, fail, learn from it.

9. 36:38 – 44:02

   Beyond Skills: How Do You Actually Become a Good Person?

   1. GBGagan Biyani36:38

      Yeah.

   2. AMAmjad Masad36:38

      Here, here's my last question. There, there's some people who would say something like, "Hey, you know, um, you know, remember when Thiel launched his fellowship and a lot of people were mad at him?" They were like, "College, you learn how to be a good person." [laughs] Like it, it's, it's something beyond this in, uh, this technical, you know, skill set, but even beyond this intellectual... You know, people imagine like Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society, I don't know. But there's sort of this like cultivate... You know, we're 18, 19-

   3. GBGagan Biyani36:58

      Yeah

   4. AMAmjad Masad36:58

      ... you're becoming a person. And so I'm curious if, if you could talk a little bit about how we see sort of in the Bay Area, you know, in this environment that is both, you know, hyper, um, career-oriented, but also, you know, hyper intellectual. But what is the sort of cultivation of values or morals or ethics or, or just like becoming an adult? Um, what would you, what do you, what do, what do we say about that?

   5. GBGagan Biyani37:19

      Yeah. It's, it's, it's actually interesting. So I've traveled all over the world. I, I've, uh... I, I would like to think... You know, I've been to refugee camps. I've been to, you know, billion- billionaire's houses. I have met-

   6. AMAmjad Masad37:32

      The Amjad's house

   7. GBGagan Biyani37:32

      ... people from every... I've been to Amjad's house.

   8. AMAmjad Masad37:34

      [laughs]

   9. GBGagan Biyani37:35

      Um, I, uh, I would say that some of the kindest, most thoughtful, most grounded people I've ever met are here in Silicon Valley, and it's not everyone. I mean, there are, there are some real idiots out there who've made a lot of money. Like, don't get me wrong, I don't have respect for everyone who's made money. That's not the truth. But the positive sum high trust ecosystem actually I think breeds really amazing human beings.

   10. AMAmjad Masad38:03

       Yeah.

   11. GBGagan Biyani38:04

       Um, and interpersonal skills is an absolute pillar of the academy. Like we want, we want our, uh, you know, graduates or attendees or fellows or whatever we're gonna end up calling them, we want the people who attend the academy to be positive influences on society and the world, and I think that that's like one of the missions of the academy is to create a positive sum world. So I actually think we absolutely believe in a two-year... You know, you're gonna spend two years and you're gonna grow as a human being. You're gonna meet other people, and we're gonna create an environment where you can see the benefits of the culture that I think many people don't pay attention to, but is very much here in, in, in San Francisco.

   12. AMAmjad Masad38:57

       I, I, I think having a reputation of being a good person here actually is, is, is very valuable.

   13. GBGagan Biyani39:03

       Yeah.

   14. AMAmjad Masad39:03

       And people trust you with their money, people trust you with governing your company and, and, and, and so on and so forth. Uh, and I think developing that, that sense in university is, uh, is very important. And I think being a well-adjusted person is, is important. Um, I think that, um, you know, for, for, for a while, like, you know... I, I, I think, you know, some people play the role of being like this autistic genius person, um, and maybe at some point it paid off. Uh, like I remember the Sequoia blog post about SBF that's like gold.

   15. GBGagan Biyani39:42

       [laughs]

   16. AMAmjad Masad39:42

       They deleted it. You can find it on archive.org. Um, and I don't think, I, I don't think it works anymore. I think Silicon Valley is no longer this sort of renegade thing. We're kind of... It, it's, it's an institution.

   17. GBGagan Biyani39:58

       Right.

   18. AMAmjad Masad39:58

       It's part of establishment in many ways. Um, and we also have to interface-

   19. GBGagan Biyani40:02

       Yeah

   20. AMAmjad Masad40:02

       ... with, with the world, right? Um, and people need to understand that we have a responsibility, uh, that we're not just talking amongst ourselves.

   21. GBGagan Biyani40:13

       Yeah.

   22. AMAmjad Masad40:13

       Um, and what we're saying, like, you know, Bernie Sanders read Dwarkesh's blog post.

   23. GBGagan Biyani40:21

       Yeah. Yeah.

   24. AMAmjad Masad40:22

       And I, I criticized Dwarkesh for, for the kind of the language.

   25. GBGagan Biyani40:25

       Yeah.

   26. AMAmjad Masad40:25

       And, and it's, it's like people who don't understand this technology are... They're, they're gonna... They're not, they... That blog post, in my opinion, did not create more understanding in them. It actually-

   27. GBGagan Biyani40:38

       Yeah

   28. AMAmjad Masad40:38

       ... it probably, if you don't understand, it probably c- you know, you, you, you learn the lo- wrong lessons-

   29. GBGagan Biyani40:43

       Yeah

   30. AMAmjad Masad40:43

       ... uh, from, from that, that thing. And so, um, so I, I think it's important that we create, or this academy creates-
10. 44:02 – 46:49

    What Amjad Looks for in Young Talent

    1. ETErik Torenberg44:02

       Yeah. In closing, we're grateful for your support of the Academy. We're excited to have people building on Replit, potentially interning Replit, potentially being, being fun-funded by you. Um, and so maybe as a, as a last question, when you see a 18-year-old or 20-year-old or 16-year-old that is really inspiring to you, that you're like, "Oh, wow, I gotta, you know, spend time with this person or, or, you know, be involved with them in some capacity," what are they doing that, that is, um, you know, capturing your interest? Or what, what are you looking for in, in young talent?

    2. AMAmjad Masad44:28

       I thi- I think the first thing is that they dove really deep in something. They can teach me something.

    3. ETErik Torenberg44:33

       Yeah.

    4. AMAmjad Masad44:34

       Um, uh, and, and I, I am interested in, uh, like I, I think I can be interested in anything. I think if you're able to tell a story about, uh, some project you've done and you've gone really, really deep in it, I think that's always impressive because that's what most people lack, and most people get bored easily. Most people, you know, do the traditional thing, uh, but did you actually follow a thread all the way through? That's always really impressive, and that shows all sorts of good personality traits.

    5. ETErik Torenberg45:08

       Yeah.

    6. AMAmjad Masad45:09

       Persistence, intrinsic motivation. You might be doing something, uh, that is really, uh, you're following your curiosity and, and maybe doesn't have an immediate reward. Um, and, um, and, and I, I think that, uh, uh, s- you know, like you said, I mean, being contrarian, having really important opinions, but it's, it's very easy if you're smart and if you're young and smart to think everyone's an idiot.

    7. ETErik Torenberg45:45

       Yeah.

    8. AMAmjad Masad45:45

       Uh, including me. Like, you know, I'll see young people, and I was like, [chuckles] like, they'll talk to me like I don't understand anything. But, uh, I think it's important to, um, respect, uh, uh, respect to the y- uh, the person that you're talking to. Having good, uh, good interpersonal skills, I think it's important.

    9. ETErik Torenberg46:05

       Yeah.

    10. AMAmjad Masad46:05

        Otherwise, people don't wanna be around you.

    11. ETErik Torenberg46:07

        Yeah.

    12. AMAmjad Masad46:07

        I think, I think that's important.

    13. ETErik Torenberg46:08

        Totally. Yeah, I think it's, it's both not being afraid to spike in something. Like-

    14. AMAmjad Masad46:12

        Yeah

    15. ETErik Torenberg46:12

        ... you know, a lot of people just struggle because they're too, you know, broad in everything, but not really amazing at anything.

    16. AMAmjad Masad46:16

        Right.

    17. ETErik Torenberg46:17

        And, and just follow, follow that to its conclusion, see how good you can get at it. But-- And while also, um, having a baseline of [chuckles] sort of like, um, you know, interpersonal skills or just sort of like the right-

    18. AMAmjad Masad46:28

        Be likable. Yeah.

    19. ETErik Torenberg46:29

        Yeah. Be, be, be likable and, and in a way that's not, like, contrived or fake or-

    20. AMAmjad Masad46:34

        Mm-hmm

    21. ETErik Torenberg46:34

        ... you know, uh, they're just like, you know, it's, it's truly authentic 'cause people wanna support people who are good people.

    22. AMAmjad Masad46:39

        But the most endearing thing is you can nerd out on something-

    23. ETErik Torenberg46:42

        Yeah

    24. AMAmjad Masad46:43

        ... obscure and interesting-

    25. ETErik Torenberg46:44

        Yeah

    26. AMAmjad Masad46:44

        ... and, and, yeah.

    27. ETErik Torenberg46:45

        Totally. Yeah. Awesome. Amjad, thanks for taking some time.

    28. AMAmjad Masad46:47

        Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Episode duration: 47:03