Amjad Masad, CEO and co-founder of Replit, recently appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast on July 2, 2025, to discuss the company's significant growth and his vision for the future of software development. The appearance, highlighted by a tweet from homanp, provided a platform for Masad to elaborate on Replit's role in democratizing coding through artificial intelligence. He affirmed Replit's recent achievement of surpassing $100 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), a substantial increase from $10 million at the end of 2024.
Replit, an online integrated development environment (IDE) founded in 2016, aims to make software creation accessible to everyone, regardless of technical background. The platform boasts over 40 million users globally, with India noted as its second-fastest growing market after the U.S. Masad emphasized that Replit abstracts away the complexities of traditional development, allowing users to build and deploy applications directly from their browsers.
A cornerstone of Replit's strategy is its AI-powered "Agent" technology, which enables users to generate functional software from natural language prompts. Masad described this as a shift towards "vibe coding," where the focus moves from intricate coding to rapid idea generation and iteration. The company's Agent v2, rolled out to beta users, has shown significant improvements, being 50-500% better on key metrics, with new users twice as likely to deploy an app.
Masad articulated a vision of a future with a "billion developers," where AI tools empower a much broader population to create software. He explained that by lowering the barrier to entry, Replit allows non-technical individuals, including product managers and business owners, to build custom applications and automate tasks. This, he believes, will fundamentally change the economy by enabling widespread software creation and wealth generation.
The discussion also touched upon the strategic implications of AI for the tech industry, with Masad noting the rapid evolution of AI models like Claude's Sonnet, which Replit utilizes. He underscored the need for companies to remain agile and adapt quickly to new AI capabilities, often requiring a complete re-evaluation of roadmaps. Replit's continuous innovation includes a forthcoming "Assistant" product, designed for faster, more controlled iterations on code.