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Amjad Masad ⠕ Profile picture
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Nov 23 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
I don't think people understand the monumental changes coming to software this decade. Quick thread:
Last century making software got progressively easier going from machine code to assembly to higher-level and then scripting languages. The last major productivity boost in software was OSS. Each of those steps was 10-100x boost but then it stopped...
AI is the next 100x productivity boost. Copilot/Ghostwriter is just the early innings bringing 30-50% improvement. The next generation coding AI will not be mere text complete and will lead to rapid change in how we make software.
At Replit, we're building an AI pair programmer that uses the IDE like a human does and has full access to all the tooling, open-source software, and the internet. In the next few years, programmers will operate at a higher level than mere code.
Crucially, it won't be "prompting" -- we believe that's more a bug than a feature -- it will be a combination of the AI predicting what task you want done next and doing it for you, plus a dialog-based agent that follows your commands.
Programmers will command armies of software agents to build increasingly complex software in insane record times. Non-programmers will also be able to use these agents to get software tasks done. Everyone in the world will be at least John Carmack-level software capable.
The other seismic shift will be coordination primitives for developers. Chief among them is payment primitives. Bitcoin Lightning, for example, bakes value right into the software supply chain and makes it easier to transact both human-to-human and machine-to-machine.
Driving the transaction cost and overhead in software down means that it will be a lot easier to bring developers into your codebase for one-off tasks. Lightning helps with coordination, where staking can keep participants honest and pay for the exact work.
One way to visualize this is that software will move from a stack to a network model. In the stack world, we assemble code in a repo and ship it somewhere to run and then monetization is bolted on. In a network model, code is fully monetized and running all the time.
Put these things together, one developer will have the power of an entire network of AIs, people, and services at their fingertips. I believe a 100x productivity boost is the lower bound here.
Appendix: how we’re building towards that future at Replit. Bounties:
Ghostwriter
Next gen AI pair programmer
Software creation for everyone
Bounties over Lightning

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More from @amasad

Amjad Masad ⠕ Profile picture
Nov 25
Civilizational Primitives, a thread:
At the dawn of civilization, with the introduction of the agricultural revolution, humans needed to coordinate in larger numbers, so *the hierarchy* emerged as the primary organizing tool.
People organized into pyramid-like structures with ranks and different entitlements and responsibilities. This structure proved useful and spread to apply to every aspect of civilization: we had kings and peasants, owners and serfs, clergy and laymen.
Read 14 tweets
Amjad Masad ⠕ Profile picture
Nov 15
SBF always seemed low IQ to me — I’ve met him and came away even less impressed — so looking at his balance sheet it’s clear that the guy got a long in life by LARPing the aspy genius
At random sample
Read 4 tweets
Amjad Masad ⠕ Profile picture
Nov 15
It’s pretty amazing to be alive in a moment when a new kind of computer just dropped (transformers)
It’s almost like deep learning before transformer architecture is like computers before stored program architecture (von neumman) and now we have a fully programmable (in context learning) network.
You can judge new technologies by whether they give developers super powers. Classical Deep Learning because it’s static and tedious didn’t have this effect, but transformers do as judged by the explosions of apps and startups.
Read 4 tweets
Amjad Masad ⠕ Profile picture
Nov 8
For the first time in a decade, tech managers will be looking for efficiencies instead of hiring more people. Which makes it the best time to invest in or work on devtools — especially AI-powered that will provide huge leaps in efficiency!
At FB a director of engineering wasn’t happy that we are working on making developers happier and faster with new JavaScript features (primarily async) and he straight up told us: “for every developer I will get another human compiler that will write the Promise code for them”
That’s the mindset in Big Tech and that’s why they got so bloated. But that’s changing and managers will have to face scarcity and be forced to try to get more efficiencies through technology.
Read 4 tweets
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Oct 30
Many have asked for a copy of this book, here are all the pages in this thread
Read 72 tweets
Amjad Masad ⠕ Profile picture
Sep 20
Announcing: Replit 100 Days of Code – learn how to code from absolute scratch. All you need is a browser and 15 minutes a day: replit.com/learn/100-days…
Replit's @LessonHacker, one of the most engaging and entertaining teachers I've ever had the pleasure to work with, built this content from scratch. I've truly never seen a better intro-to-programming tutorial.

We've built David right into your IDE so you can watch as you code!
The lessons are fully interactive and project-based. Every day you get an app that you can share with your friends. And, of course, Replit is a community, so you'll be able to interact with others learning with you.
Read 6 tweets

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