Amjad Masad on Going Direct, Building Replit, and the Future of Software

Being canceled is a choice. You can choose to get canceled and retreat from the public eye, but I think if you're still out there, at some point, honestly, the haters kind of give up. So some people ask, hey, how should I think about x versus other platforms? You have to understand the meta because the way to go viral is to dress up your argument, your world view in the current confirmation. Twitter's influence is amazing, but it tends to be elite's kind of inside group influence. I think Instagram, Facebook still, YouTube is where you get to the early majority. Does every CEO need to become an influencer now? Look, I think there's so many paths to success. I don't think there's one. Rafa would have probably died if I wasn't telling a story that is larger than the company itself. Dario is an example where he's not playing a social media game. The product sort of speaks for itself. So I think it comes down to the For years, Replit wasn't the overnight success people see today. Long before the company's recent growth, Amjad Masad spent years communicating a vision that many people thought was too ambitious, too early, or simply unrealistic. That experience shaped his belief that for founders, storytelling isn't separate from company building. In some cases, it's a prerequisite. Recorded live at the New Media Summit, Amjad and I discuss why founders should build in public, how to develop a public voice, and what it takes to communicate a vision before the rest of the world can see it. We also talk about authenticity, social media, founder led media, and why some of the most important company building happens long before the business itself is obvious. Amjad, thank you for joining us. Of course. So Replit is a ten year old company. For the last two years, it's gone absolutely vertical. But there was a period of time well before that where the company was in the zeitgeist, partially because of your go direct efforts. I mean, you're one of the best CEOs on x. You're also now getting big on Instagram and other platforms. What is the business impact been of your efforts going direct? And does every CEO need to become an influencer now? Or how have you sort of conceived this? Yeah. I think Reffle would have probably died if I wasn't telling a story that is larger than the company itself. The company wasn't successful commercially, but we've been very successful at fundraising, recruiting. And I think if you build a company that's successful right out of the gate commercially, you might not need to do all of that. But if you're trying to meme a dream into reality, I think you have to play that game. And so, yeah, I think otherwise, we would have not existed because we had to do that for so many years before I mean, turns out everything I said was true. But …