Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:49:23 · Lenny Rachitsky, Anish Acharya
[00:49:23] S0: Yeah, my example is so dumb now that I think about it. It feels like the thing we have to unblock in our brain is like, "Okay, AI, solve cancer." That's where we can start to think now, and it's so unnatural to us, especially as product people that always have to think about the MVP and the constraints. Now we have to think big. Okay, what's the 10X, the 1,000X version of this? [00:49:46] S1: Yes. I know, right? In a way, we have to think small because this thing that ... Our whole lives have been built around how precious software and intelligence is, and now it's totally not precious, that probably will be a harder change for you and I. [00:49:58] S0: Yeah. So, all these new little habits I think a lot about on the Claude Code team, they have a principle. "You know what's better than me doing it? It's Claude doing it." And that just created this habit in everyone on the team, "How do I have Claude do this thing for me?" And I feel like that's a thing we all have to start to build in our head, and Grok Bot's really good at that. And not an investor, no affiliation, but it's just so simple and good at this stuff.
00:49:58 · Lenny Rachitsky, Anish Acharya
[00:49:58] S0: Yeah. So, all these new little habits I think a lot about on the Claude Code team, they have a principle. "You know what's better than me doing it? It's Claude doing it." And that just created this habit in everyone on the team, "How do I have Claude do this thing for me?" And I feel like that's a thing we all have to start to build in our head, and Grok Bot's really good at that. And not an investor, no affiliation, but it's just so simple and good at this stuff. [00:50:22] S1: I also think that there's so much learning that happens through doing. It's funny, if you look at the number of people that are talking about vibe coding versus the number of people that are talking about their projects, people are a little embarrassed. I'm a little embarrassed to talk about a lot of my projects because they don't seem important or substantial enough, but so much of it is learning through execution or shipping, or being fulfilled through execution and shipping. I don't think we can underestimate that either. [00:50:45] S0: I have a guest post coming together from someone at Google that works on a lot of their lab stuff, and I don't want to give away the goods but just broadly her concept is that building is now the new reading, where you build to learn and infuse and experience, and it's totally okay for most of it to get thrown away because that's still building your muscle. [00:51:07] S1: So well said. Yeah, it's building as an activity rather than an outcome, right?
00:51:07 · Anish Acharya, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:51:07] S1: So well said. Yeah, it's building as an activity rather than an outcome, right? [00:51:13] S0: Which I think a lot of people feel bad. "I shipped all these things, but no one's using it. I never use it." And I think that the key here is that's actually okay, that's totally fine. [00:51:21] S1: Oh, man. And it happens in every other domain. I make a DJ set and three people listen to it, and I listen to it 100 times, and it's very fulfilling. It doesn't matter. [00:51:31] S0: We're going to talk about your DJ stuff later. [00:51:31] S1: Okay. Okay. [00:51:35] S0: Okay, let's come back to consumer stuff. So, you focus on consumer at a16z. What's happening in consumer these days? What's the landscape? What are you excited about?
00:51:45 · Anish Acharya
[00:51:45] S1: So, I think there's three big areas. We're very early, as we kind of discussed. The labs have done a good job, but there aren't as many sort of independent mass market consumer products. Coding agents are awesome and I think a total lightning bolt. I think it's easy to say most people don't want to make code, but the big change in my thinking is that coding agents are a way to interact with the world generally. And you've seen a lot of this on X, people use Claude Code to edit videos, or Codex to create a game that they play with their kid on an airplane ride. It's sort of this general problem solving tool that consumers can use in very unique ways. And probably the best example company we've invested in is Wabi, where it's sort of a platform for many apps. People can create them, consume them, share them. So, coding agents is one big area I think that's important. Personal agents, we had this incredible moment around OpenClaw, but guess what? OpenClaw is a dev thing. And Hermes, of course, and Moltbook, all of that is now getting distilled into mass market consumer and enterprise agents that people understand, which is what we discussed previously. And then the last is, I'm going to call it entertainment, though that doesn't fully do it justice. I think that it's a lot of creative tools. Suno has done such an amazing job. It's companionship products, all that. That entire area is uncomfortable to talk about so I think it's under discussed, but there's some huge fast-growing products there. So, I think those are the three big areas that we're watching right now.
00:53:13 · Lenny Rachitsky, Anish Acharya
[00:53:13] S0: That's really interesting. Just thinking of these three buckets, coding agents, AI assistance, OpenClaw but much simpler and easier and more reliable. Sounds like basically the three described there that you're excited about are Instinct, Grok Bot, and ChatGPT Work. [00:53:30] S1: That's right. [00:53:31] S0: And then, Wabi I guess would fit in that first one. It's like a personal coding agent that can build whatever you want for you. [00:53:36] S1: Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. [00:53:38] S0: And then entertainment is the third bucket, like AI girlfriends and that kind of stuff. Yeah, those companies, it's crazy. You guys put out these market maps and five of them are these different companions. [00:53:47] S1: That's right. Though actually, to be accurate, it's more boyfriends than girlfriends actually. The majority of people using companion products are women that are in their 40s and 50s actually. [00:53:58] S0: Interesting. Okay, cool. So, those are the three areas you think the biggest opportunities will come from. And it's interesting that they connect to this idea of loop, I don't know, make me happier. Yeah, they're just kind of like the jobs to be done for humans. Make me happy, make me healthier, make me live longer, that kind of stuff. [00:54:18] S1: Yes. Yes. Give me a channel for my ambition, a channel for my fulfillment, and then a thing to do when I'm not doing everything else.
00:54:18 · Anish Acharya, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:54:18] S1: Yes. Yes. Give me a channel for my ambition, a channel for my fulfillment, and then a thing to do when I'm not doing everything else. [00:54:27] S0: That makes sense. Okay. The other question I have for you along these lines is there's so many companies and so many startups, so many products everyone's launching. The speed at which companies and products are shipped is 1,000X-ing. How do you think about durability and moats when you look at a startup? Because a lot of founders get that question. Everyone's getting that question. "How am I not a rapper?" What are signs that tell you this might be a durable thing?