The role of AI in new product development | Ryan J. Salva (VP of Product at GitHub)

We had actually created a snapshot of GitHub's public code for what we call the Arctic Code Vault. Right? Essentially this is up in, like, way in the north lands of Finland. There's a seed vault, and we were like, "You know what? Like, seed vaults are really there to preserve the diversity of the world's flora in seeds in case of some crazy either natural or man-made disaster." But another really important asset to the world is our code, our open source. Like, this represents actually a lot of the collective, uh, well, certainly software, if not, like, intelligence of kind of like the modern world, right? And so we had put this snapshot of public repositories on these, like, this, like, silver, uh, film that would be preserved for thousands of years in this Arctic Code Vault. Well, we took that same data snapshot and we brought it to our friends over at OpenAI to see, like, okay, what can we do with these large language models built on public code? Well, it turns out we can do some pretty cool things. (upbeat music)

Ryan Solva is VP of Product at GitHub, where, amongst other projects, he incubated and launched GitHub Copilot, which in my opinion is one of the most magical products that you'll come across. If you haven't heard of it, it uses OpenAI's machine learning engine to auto-complete code for engineers in real time as they're coding. And I think it's one of the biggest advances in product development and productivity that we've seen in a while. I'm always really curious how a big product like this starts, gets buy-in, builds momentum, and then launches, especially at a big company like Microsoft, and especially a product like Copilot that has surprising ethics challenges, scaling challenges, business model questions. Also this came out of a small R&D team that GitHub has, and it's so interesting to hear what Ryan has learned about incubating big bets within a large company and then taking them from prototype to Microsoft's scale. Ryan is also just super interesting as a human. He's got a very non-traditional background, and so I am excited for you to hear this conversation. And so with that, I bring you Ryan Solva. (upbeat music) If you're setting up your analytics stack but you're not using Amplitude, what are you doing? Amplitude is the number one most popular analytics solution in the world, used by both big companies like Shopify, Instacart, and Atlassian, and also most tech startups. Amplitude has everything you need, including a powerful and fully self-service analytics product, an experimentation platform, and even an integrated customer data platform to help you understand your users like never before. Give your teams self-service product data to understand your users, drive conversions, and increase engagement, growth, and revenue. Ditch your vanity metrics, trust your data, work smarter, and grow your business. Try Amplitude for free. Just visit amplitude.com to get started. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I've been hearing about AG1 on basically every podcast that I listen to, like Tim Ferriss and Lex Fridman, and so I finally gave it a shot earlier this year. And it has quickly become a core part of my morning routine, especially on days that I need to go deep on writing or record a podcast like this. Here's three things that I love about AG1. One, with a small scoop that dissolved in water, you're absorbing 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens. I kind of like to think of it as a little safety net for my nutrition in case I've missed something in my diet. Two, they treat AG1 like a software product. Apparently they're on their 52nd iteration, and they're constantly evolving it based on the latest science, research studies, and internal testing that they do. And three, it's just one easy thing that I can do every single day to take care of myself. Right now, it's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition. It's just one scoop in a cup of water every day, and that's it. There's no need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health. Make it easy. Athletic Greens is gonna give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/lenny. Again, that's athleticgreens.com/lenny to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. (upbeat music) Ryan, welcome to the podcast.