The Problem Solvers: Michele Catasta at Replit

At 16, Michele Catasta set out to make software open to everyone. What followed was a decade of research at Stanford and Google X in training state-of-the-art models, all in service of that goal. He joined Replit as a pioneer in agentic building: the place where anyone can take an idea and build it in natural language, with no coding experience required. Over 40 million users are doing exactly that, many discovering for the first time that they have permission to build. None of it works without the right model. Replit chose Claude in early 2024 for its coding capabilities, and that decision has evolved into a partnership. Anthropic brings Replit in on early research previews, they build against what's coming, and when a new model ships, Replit ships the same day. The Problem Solvers is a series from Anthropic speaking to founders about how they're solving problems, and why they build with Claude. Discover more from the founders building at the frontier: https://claude.com/problem-solvers

Michele Catastaguest

May 27, 20262mWatch on YouTube ↗

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2 min read · 429 words

0:00 – 0:30
From teen open-source ambitions to a lifelong mission
1. MCMichele Catasta
  When I was 16, I was focusing on becoming a good open source developer. I love the fact that I'm still working on something was special about as a teenager, and I think this is gonna be my life mission. [upbeat music] Replit is the place where you go with an idea in mind, no coding skills whatsoever, express in natural language what they want to build, and then they see the magic for the first time. We made coding so accessible to everyone, they don't even feel
0:30 – 0:37
Replit’s core promise: build from an idea using natural language
1. MCMichele Catasta
  that they're writing code anymore. They're just creating an idea they have in their mind and turning into an application, turning into a website.
0:37 – 0:44
Choosing a foundation model for Replit Agent: why Claude
1. SPSpeaker
  So when you started building the Replit Agent and you were experimenting with different models, why did you land on using Claude?
0:44 – 1:12
The “engine vs. car” analogy: building the product around model power
1. MCMichele Catasta
  We need high IQ level in our agent. I love to use this analogy where models are like the car engine and we're building the entire car around it ourselves. In order for us to remove the barrier of entry of coding, the power of the model is what makes a difference. We made a choice back in early 2024 where Sonnet 3.5 came out, and since then, Anthropic kept the lead in having the best coding models on the market.
1:12 – 1:22
Early access to research previews and rapid product iteration
1. SPSpeaker
  So one of my favorite parts of my job in applied AI is when we work with you on early research previews of our newest models.
2. MCMichele Catasta
  It feels like receiving a shiny toy-
3. SPSpeaker
  Mm-hmm
1:22 – 1:46
Sonnet 3.7 preview → Replit Agent v2 and a same-day launch moment
1. MCMichele Catasta
  ... at Christmas. [laughs] The discovery process of finding out what it's capable to do is the most exciting window of time we have. Early 2025, you gave us access to Sonnet 3.7. We rushed to create Replit Agent v2, and the moment Anthropic launched the new model and we launched literally the same day our new agent, there was an incredible marketing pop.
1:46 – 2:02
Scale and adoption: from “hidden secret” to tens of millions of users
1. SPSpeaker
  And this is something that's used by relatively few people at the moment? It's a kind of a hidden secret, or?
2. MCMichele Catasta
  I think we recently crossed 40 million registered users. We got a lot of attention because users experienced something that they've never seen before in our product.
2:02 – 2:04
What makes Replit unique: crushing software engineering complexity
1. SPSpeaker
  So what makes Replit unique?
2:04 – 2:28
Empowering non-engineers: “zero to one” product building that changes lives
1. MCMichele Catasta
  We remove all that complexity that makes the job of a software engineer really hard. That barrier has been completely crushed by Replit, and I'm approached by people that didn't even feel the permission to create software in their life. They always had, like, an amazing business idea. Now they're doing the zero to one complete in Replit. This is changing people's lives. [upbeat music]