Latest news with #20VC
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
The '10x engineer' is old news. Surge's CEO says '100x engineers' are here.
As the Silicon Valley saying goes, the "10x engineer" is capable of producing 10 times the work of their colleagues, developing projects and writing code at a quicker pace. In the age of AI, a top-end engineer's multiplier is itself getting a multiplier, according to Surge CEO Edwin Chen. Chen boot-strapped his way to $1 billion in revenue. The CEO of Surge self-funded his company, taking no VC money — though he's now reportedly looking to raise up to an additional $1 billion in capital. On the 20VC podcast, he said a 100x engineer is now possible — and could help lean startups reach new heights. "Already you have a lot of these single-person startups that are already doing $10 million in revenue," Chen said. "If AI is adding all this efficiency, then yeah, I can definitely see this multiplying 100x to get to this $1 billion single-person company." Efficiency gains can be vital to startups looking to stay lean. Chen said that Surge was already "so much more efficient" than its peer companies like Scale AI, Surge's biggest data labeling rival, which reportedly brought in $870 million in 2024 after multiple rounds of funding. Chen also said that Surge's lack of a sales or PR team helped keep it lean. While the "10x engineer" dates back to a 1968 study about programming performance, the term was later popularized among Silicon Valley executives. In his book "Zero to One," Peter Thiel coined the "10x improvement" rule, claiming that startups needed to improve on existing alternatives by a factor of ten. Chen is a believer in the " 10x engineer." Some are 2-3x faster at coding, or work 2-3x harder, or have 2-3x less side tasks, he said. Multiplied together, engineers can reach 10x productivity. "2-3x is often actually an understatement," Chen said. "I know people who literally are five times more productive coders than anybody else." The advent of generative AI and coding tools supercharges Chen's math: "Add in all the AI efficiencies that you get. You just multiply all those things out and you get to 100," he said. Agentic AI coding tools have taken over much of software engineering, writing code for developers, sometime with minimal human editing necessary. But these tools still need a prompt, which Chen said makes them most useful to those who have high-level ideas.
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
The '10x engineer' is old news. Surge's CEO says '100x engineers' are here.
A "10x engineer" isn't cool anymore. You know what's cool? A "100x engineer." As the Silicon Valley saying goes, the "10x engineer" is capable of producing 10 times the work of their colleagues, developing projects and writing code at a quicker pace. In the age of AI, a top-end engineer's multiplier is itself getting a multiplier, according to Surge CEO Edwin Chen. Chen boot-strapped his way to $1 billion in revenue. The CEO of Surge self-funded his company, taking no VC money — though he's now reportedly looking to raise up to an additional $1 billion in capital. On the 20VC podcast, he said a "100x engineer" is now possible — and could help lean startups reach new heights. "Already you have a lot of these single-person startups that are already doing $10 million in revenue," Chen said. "If AI is adding all this efficiency, then yeah, I can definitely see this multiplying 100x to get to this $1 billion single-person company." Efficiency gains can be vital to startups looking to stay lean. Chen said that Surge was already "so much more efficient" than its peer companies like Scale AI, Surge's biggest data labeling rival, which reportedly brought in $870 million in 2024 after multiple rounds of funding. Chen also said that Surge's lack of a sales or PR team helped keep it lean. While the "10x engineer" dates back to a 1968 study about programming performance, the term was later popularized among Silicon Valley executives. In his book "Zero to One," Peter Thiel coined the "10x improvement" rule, claiming that startups needed to improve on existing alternatives by a factor of ten. Chen is a believer in the " 10x engineer." Some are 2-3x faster at coding, or work 2-3x harder, or have 2-3x less side tasks, he said. Multiplied together, engineers can reach 10x productivity. "2-3x is often actually an understatement," Chen said. "I know people who literally are five times more productive coders than anybody else." The advent of generative AI and coding tools supercharges Chen's math: "Add in all the AI efficiencies that you get. You just multiply all those things out and you get to 100," he said. Agentic AI coding tools have taken over much of software engineering, writing code for developers, sometime with minimal human editing necessary. But these tools still need a prompt, which Chen said makes them most useful to those who have high-level ideas. "It often just removes a lot of the drudgery of your day-to-day work," Chen said. "I do think it disproportionately favors people who are already the '10x engineers.'"
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Robinhood CEO says the majority of the company's new code is written by AI, with 'close to 100%' adoption from engineers
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev estimates that "a minority" of the company's new code is written by humans. On the 20VC podcast, Tenev said that it's become difficult to distinguish human-written from AI-generated code. He said the company has used tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Windsurf, and nearly 100% of his engineers use an AI editor. At Robinhood, nearly all of the engineers are vibe coders. That's according to Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, who said on the 20VC podcast that the company's human-written code was hard to distinguish from AI-generated code. Among the company's engineers, "close to 100%" are using AI code editors, he said. When asked what percentage of Robinhood's new code is AI-generated, Tenev said that it was around 50%. That's a higher percentage than what Microsoft and Google have previously said, with CEOs Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai estimating around 30%. Tenev acknowledged that the 50% metric was imprecise, thanks to the upgrowth of "agentic" code editors. "We've moved from GitHub Copilot, which is an autocomplete system, to Cursor, and now things like Windsurf, where nearly all of the code is written by AI," Tenev said. "It's hard to even determine what the human-generated code is." Taking a guess, Tenev estimated the "minority" of new code at Robinhood was written by humans. Robinhood's stock price has been on a tear, trading up over 177% since the start of the year, with multiple factors driving its recent rally. Robinhood expanded its crypto venture by launching US private-stock tokens. Retail investors on Robinhood remain active, and the company continues to roll out new products like a predictions-market hub. On 20VC, Tenev said AI had contributed to the company's cost and efficiency stabilization, he said. "We have been pretty mum on how much we've been using it internally," Tenev said. "The impact that it's had on internal teams, ranging from software engineering to customer support, the really big internal teams, has been huge." Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
7 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Robinhood CEO says the majority of the company's new code is written by AI, with 'close to 100%' adoption from engineers
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev estimates that "a minority" of the company's new code is written by humans. On the 20VC podcast, Tenev said that it's become difficult to distinguish human-written from AI-generated code. He said the company has used tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Windsurf, and nearly 100% of his engineers use an AI editor. That's according to Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, who said on the 20VC podcast that the company's human-written code was hard to distinguish from AI-generated code. Among the company's engineers, close to 100% are using AI code editors, he said. When asked what percentage of Robinhood's new code is AI-generated, Tenev said that it was around 50%. That's a higher percentage than what Microsoft and Google have previously said, with CEOs Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai estimating around 30%. Tenev acknowledged that the 50% metric was imprecise, thanks to the upgrowth of "agentic" code editors. "We've moved from GitHub Copilot, which is an autocomplete system, to Cursor, and now things like Windsurf, where nearly all of the code is written by AI," Tenev said. "It's hard to even determine what the human-generated code is." Taking a guess, Tenev estimated the "minority" of new code at Robinhood was written by humans. Robinhood's stock price has been on a tear, trading up over 177% since the start of the year, with multiple factors driving its recent rally. Robinhood expanded its crypto venture by launching US private-stock tokens. Retail investors on Robinhood remain active, and the company continues to roll out new products like a predictions-market hub. On 20VC, Tenev said AI had contributed to the company's cost and efficiency stabilization, he said. "We have been pretty mum on how much we've been using it internally," Tenev said. "The impact that it's had on internal teams, ranging from software engineering to customer support, the really big internal teams, has been huge."
Business Insider
7 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Robinhood CEO says the majority of the company's new code is written by AI, with 'close to 100%' adoption from engineers
At Robinhood, nearly all of the engineers are vibe coders. That's according to Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, who said on the 20VC podcast that the company's human-written code was hard to distinguish from AI-generated code. Among the company's engineers, "close to 100%" are using AI code editors, he said. When asked what percentage of Robinhood's new code is AI-generated, Tenev said that it was around 50%. That's a higher percentage than what Microsoft and Google have previously said, with CEOs Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai estimating around 30%. Tenev acknowledged that the 50% metric was imprecise, thanks to the upgrowth of "agentic" code editors. "We've moved from GitHub Copilot, which is an autocomplete system, to Cursor, and now things like Windsurf, where nearly all of the code is written by AI," Tenev said. "It's hard to even determine what the human-generated code is." Taking a guess, Tenev estimated the "minority" of new code at Robinhood was written by humans. Robinhood's stock price has been on a tear, trading up over 177% since the start of the year, with multiple factors driving its recent rally. Robinhood expanded its crypto venture by launching US private-stock tokens. Retail investors on Robinhood remain active, and the company continues to roll out new products like a predictions-market hub. On 20VC, Tenev said AI had contributed to the company's cost and efficiency stabilization, he said. "We have been pretty mum on how much we've been using it internally," Tenev said. "The impact that it's had on internal teams, ranging from software engineering to customer support, the really big internal teams, has been huge."
