Amjad Masad: How I Founded Replit; Zuck's Famous Saying; Will TikTok be banned? | E987

Amjad said something very interesting. He said one here sticked, you know, whether you're saying something meaningful is that, like, reasonable people can disagree with it, and the opposite of it is also reasonable. So, like, move fast and, and break things could be, like, move slow and don't break anything, and that could be, like, a value at IBM, right? (laughs)

(instrumental music) Amjad, I am so excited for this. As I said, I've heard so many good things from Mazio for years. So thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you. I'm a big fan of the show and excited to be here.

That is very, very kind. Now, uh, normally we start with like, "Oh, the founding moment of the company," but you have a pretty awesome background. There's not like, "Oh, I grew up in Silicon Valley, and surprisingly, I founded a startup."

(laughs)

Um, and s- (laughs) such a surprise. Um, but y- you actually grew up in Jordan. And so-

Mm-hmm.

... I wanted to ask, what were you like growing up as a child in Jordan, and, and how were those early years? (laughs)

I, I was a big troublemaker. I was, um... I looked very different. So I'm like a redhead. Um, my family's actually sort of, um, split right in the middle, where m- some of my uncles are, you know, extremely dark complexions, and, like, a couple of, uh, parts of the family, like, we're extremely, like, bright redhead. I'm actually, like, fairly, um, you know, on the, on the sort of not too intense sort of redhead, but we have, like, really intense sort of, uh, gingers in the family. But I, I look fairly different, and there isn't a lot of gingers in Jordan. Um, and at the same time, I had a bit of a temper. Uh, I had a bit of, um, you know, a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, sort of rebellious angle to me. And w- we grew up in a, you know... My father was, like, at this... Uh, he worked in government, and he didn't make a lot of money. He was an engineer, very kind of low-level engineer in government. But, um, he really put a lot of money behind our education. And so we went to school in a good part of town. And so coming from a bit of a, let's say, a challenging part of town, where you sort of had to fight and you had to, uh, grind and hustle to, to kind of, uh, to just play and, and be just a kid. And then when we go to school, we're, like, a little bit odd ones out, and again, like I said, my appearance was a little different. And so I always got in trouble, like nonstop. Like, since, since I was, uh, six years old, I would, uh, get in trouble for running away from school or, or sort of inciting my whole class to do something strange or, or weird or, like... Um, and so I was just seen as a, as a sort of a troublemaker, uh, my entire childhood.