Best of the Pod: Would You Shut Down Your Most Successful Product? The Arc to Dia Story

Last year sucked. We were running a company with 70 people, millions of people using the product every month. Now we're starting over. Oh, cool. What are we doing? We don't really know.

>> We had this realization that all of software needs to be rewritten for this new world because primary interfaces we have with computers are going to change.

>> What feels like your computer in 5 or 10 years is actually going to be this layer that sits across all of your devices. This personal intelligence layer that is a wild invention in humanity that's going to help you do all sorts of things. and it's going to be miraculous. But don't forget the browser is just the enabling technology underneath.

>> Josh Hirs, welcome to the show. >> Good to be here. >> Thanks for having us. >> Of course. So good to have you. Uh so for people who don't know uh you are the co-founders of the browser company um

you are the makers of Arc and now >> Dia >> um and I'm psyched to talk to you about Dia talk to you about the journey to get there. Um as as you can see if you're watching the show uh me and Hersh are

together. We're we're in upstate New York in a little in a little uh cabin. We've been friends for a long time and and I think one thing that people should know coming into this is like we have

together. We're we're in upstate New York in a little in a little uh cabin. We've been friends for a long time and and I think one thing that people should know coming into this is like we have

been uh sort of like on parallel journeys together as you've started the browser company. Um I started every around the same time as you guys started and um we've been close for a long time.

So it's it's been really fun to um get to watch the journey uh from afar and yeah I'm just really excited to get to talk to you about it. So thanks for coming on. Well, I'm just gonna say for

the record, I'm not there because I didn't get the invite. So, >> we're not that close, Dan. I'll say, >> I'm kidding. No, it's awesome to be here. >> I didn't organize this. You can you got

to blame Paulina Hersh's wife. >> Yeah. Honored to be here. Excited to do this. We've listened to so many of your podcasts and obviously you have so much history.

>> Yeah. Yeah. So, um another a couple other disclaimers. Um I'm a small investor in the browser company. Um, so people should know that I also spoke at your wedding. Um, so we'll we'll put up

a little picture of me speaking there. Um, and another like really interesting little bit of history that uh that is fun for me to remember now is I actually like there was a point at which I was

considering or you guys were considering me to be the CEO of the browser company. Uh, which is crazy to think about that now. Um because uh you know you would come up with the idea to to incubate at

the time it was superhuman for browsers was the pitch as I remember um and I was working on super organizers which is a little newsletter which would become every um

>> oh did that turn into every I didn't even realize that Wow. >> Yeah. And so there was there was a moment in time where uh where we were we were discussing working together on on

this. So, it's really fun to come full circle five and a half years later and be like, "Wow, I'm we're both we're all so much older. We have so much so many more wrinkles. I have a I have a big

this. So, it's really fun to come full circle five and a half years later and be like, "Wow, I'm we're both we're all so much older. We have so much so many more wrinkles. I have a I have a big

beard. I think I was pretty clean shaven when when when we were doing that." So, yeah, that was a crazy moment. >> Wow. So, Super Organizers is like your arc. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah.

beard. I think I was pretty clean shaven when when when we were doing that." So, yeah, that was a crazy moment. >> Wow. So, Super Organizers is like your arc. >> Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Well, I hope Dia goes as well as every like fingers crossed like I'm into it. Thank you. I think uh we all have a lot to learn from each other. Um so I think

the the first thing I want to talk about is I watched this pivot from Arc to Dia. >> I think we were in Thailand together when we were first starting to get like really psyched about AI and

>> I just watched Hersh's eyes just like he had this like spark. It was like a sparkle. It was like, "Oh my god, this is crazy." Uh, and I was like, "Yes." I was like the little devil on his

shoulder being like, "Yes, you get it. Oh, it's your fault, Dan. I always wondered where that came from." Um, and and what's what's been really interesting to me to see is

I' I've obviously been watching this journey from ARC to Dia and um watched the decision happen to be like, "Okay, we're not going to do ARC anymore." and then watched the public reaction which

was so negative. Um I think people just loved Ark so much and then watched you guys have to like bear that while you were building Dia and I just want to know like what was that like? Um

honestly it was a little unexpected. Um I don't think we had predicted the reaction that we got when we announced that especially because we had been in this headsp space for quite a while. You

know, we've been trying to all throughout 2023 or so trying to figure out how do we get from early adopters to the mass market with ARC and ARC had this problem which we call the novelty

tax where uh there's so much new stuff in it which really attracted early adopters but made a lot of the mass market uh sort of more hesitant to try ARC because it just took a lot to get to

learn and use. And so I don't I mean Josh can probably say more. We tried so many things to figure out, okay, how do we make ARC uh sort of approachable to the mass market. Um and then simultaneously AI had been taking off and I think uh Josh has this video last year of uh act two, we had this realization that actually browsers are going to change pretty dramatically and

how we use computers are going to change pretty dramatically from a user computer interface point of view. You know, where we're going to talk to our computers are going to do stuff because this new Plato allows you to like speak in English and they can use tools and suddenly computers are something completely different. And so, uh, we went through

our own evolution over many months to be like, how do we nudge ARC in that direction? And for a while we called it ARC 2.0. Um, and we were like, okay, how do we evolve it? Uh, and we just ran

into a lot of problems internally too where we loved Arc so much that we were hesitant to change it, you know, like the the internal discussions about like, oh, what do we do with the sidebar was like at the wrong level, you know, when we have this new Play-Doh, we had we really had to start from from scratch. And so maybe I you know I' I'd be curious for your take Josh actually on

like how do you feel about the external messaging because for us it was over such a long period of time and so obvious you know that we had to okay we have to start from scratch if we're going to build this thing from the ground up to use AI and to be accessible to the mass market but I think it was probably a shock to the external uh folks that oh my god we're building a

whole new browser. Yeah, I mean I think I think I the thing I would say is you're catching us two weeks after we really released DIA to this private beta. And I'd say in terms of Hersh and

my hopes and expectations, I don't think the first two weeks could have gone better. We feel so so proud. And so I think I felt an adrenaline release and I think it's safe to say

last year sucked. Like it it really did. And I think it's one of those things like many things that I I think are most fulfilling and rewarding in life that if you knew what you knew now, would you

have done it? And yet at the same time in retrospect, it so obviously was the right call. But I think a thing for especially listeners to know, and you alluded to this, Hirs and I, I've never

made software really without Hersh. I met Hirs when I was 20 years old. We both left university barely knowing each other to start a company together. I think flash forward over a decade now.

If I'm being really honest, I think it felt so obvious to me and Hirs intellectually emotionally the thing I think we both underappreciated was it's not just me and him anymore, >> right?

>> I mean I mean we knew that, but at every moment that Hersh and I looked across a proverbial table and said, "Hey, should we should we do this? Should we make this thing?" It was me and him, right?

And we we we share value. Like we it's just a different relationship. We were running a company with 70 people, you know, millions of people using the product every month. And we definitely,

I think, underappreciated the public reaction. I mean, when we started this company, Dan, I, you know, we when we were trying to recruit you to be the CEO, one of the questions like, how do you get anyone to care about their desktop web browser? In fact, I've never even thought about my desktop web browser before, let alone have an opinion on it was the the what we saw

the most. So, I think we were very surprised by the reaction for sure and wanted to do some things differently. But then maybe more importantly, definitely more importantly, is our team

the most. So, I think we were very surprised by the reaction for sure and wanted to do some things differently. But then maybe more importantly, definitely more importantly, is our team showing up to a company where at that point in the company's evolution, people came cuz they loved Arc themselves. They joined for Arc more than the browser company. Be like, "Hey, that thing we

poured our hearts into for years. No, we're starting over. Oh, cool. What are we doing? We don't really know, but it'll be great. We're just going to go that way, right? Sounds like a great

plan, right? You know, like so it was a it was a winding journey, but very proud at this point. >> That's Yeah. Okay. This is There's a lot here. I really want to go into Tell me

plan, right? You know, like so it was a it was a winding journey, but very proud at this point. >> That's Yeah. Okay. This is There's a lot here. I really want to go into Tell me

about the initial moment where you guys were coming to the decision of like, oh wow, there's something totally new here. And not only is Ark maybe not working in the way that we want it to, but like

there's something new that we need to go play with that we can't even really describe what it is. Like what what was that like? Like how did that whole thing come together?

>> Yeah. And one of the things I think I want to be more forthright about here, I don't think we've really said publicly before is I almost think blaming Ark is

a scapegoat, right? If if if really Hirs originally and then myself didn't get so inspired by this new material that are LLMs, we would not have pivoted Arc to something else. You know, it wasn't it's

it's easy in retrospect to be, oh, it's growing literally the novatity tax. And I 100% agree with her that that is true, but our first instinct was actually just

to make ARC better. So, I I really think the origin story here was that like you can't stop thinking about it. you're staying up till 3:00 a.m. every bone in your body is just like this is why we

got into software. But I I really got to credit Hersh. I think I have this part of me that is very anti Silicon Valley hype, which honestly for people that follow me on Twitter or something,

they're probably like, I think of you as like a hypy dude and and yeah, let's have a therapy session later about that. Um but for me I just the crypto wave uh was the one that came before and just

for me it just it felt icky to me even even though I agreed with idealism. So here comes around AI and my knee-jerk reaction is like this is a bunch of hot air but really like when I think about I

didn't not thinking about this interview before we came in you know when you just said that with the origin story I think of a conversation I had with Hirsh in San Francisco that to me was a like oh

we got to do this thing. So I mean Hersh when you you really were first to see this world that was coming and and feel it in your bones like do you remember even for you where it came from and when

>> he's giving me a lot of credit I think it was probably I came at it from my own perspective I think realizing part of it was excitement about the Plato but part of it also was the realization that like if if we don't go this route I think you know we're going to get obiated you know all of software needs to be rewritten for this new world

because again the the primary interfaces we have with computers are going to Uh but I think a lot of it also came from your experimentation with arc search right and like actually playing

with LMS and realizing oh we can build something cool here this is play we're really good at using arc was extremely popular amongst the kind of uh limited corner of the world that knew about it

and the number one request for arc was I need a mobile app but the browser is very different on mobile than it is on desktop so we said okay let's just build a companion app you can have your spaces

and your tabs on your phone and you know in the backdrop of launching this kind of Arc mobile app is when all these kind of AI tools started popping up and there as much as we wanted or I wanted to

resist the hype I'm an intellectually curious guy that loves new technology and so there was some part of me especially driven by Hirsh that was like okay but if you really just tried to

make the best kind of AI browser experience you could what would it look like but it would have been a huge distraction for the team to do that on desktop. So I we actually hired a

contractor externally. I was living in Paris at the time. Uh and kind of hired him to the skunk works project. Was like, "Hey, just for funsies, it's not going to be a big deal. What if we build

contractor externally. I was living in Paris at the time. Uh and kind of hired him to the skunk works project. Was like, "Hey, just for funsies, it's not going to be a big deal. What if we build

a mobile browser that only does one thing?" Again, we had a little bit of the like PTSD from Arc already. What it only does one thing really well and it has something to do with AI at its core,

just to prototype and learn. And so the idea was what if in this mobile browser instead of pulling back links we made you the perfect web page. So instead of typing in a query and trying

to find the right link from the worldwide web that is the closest approximation to what you're asking for but not exactly what you're asking for. Let's understand the intent of your

query and just make a web page on the fly for that thing. Just very simple idea and it was so not a big deal or meant to be a big deal. I tweeted it on a Sunday before boarding a flight, which for our

company is not how you launch new products and it just exploded more than anything we've made so far. And so, you know, we had a number of takeaways from from that, but one of them that really

influenced DIA was what Hersh is referencing as the novelty budget. Keep it extremely simple, extremely focused. Change one thing and have that one thing be the thing you talk about, which I

realize in retrospect is like, yeah, duh. welcome to like making consumer products for real human beings but is the antithesis of arc as you know in terms of the product philos philosophy >> I think arc search also gave us sort of a strategic realization which is if you think about what a browser is it has sort of a desktop browser especially it has two components one is it's sort of a

funnel for intent you know the the omni box is where you type in all your search queries and if you have a certain intent uh it goes to search and then you can go

find that thing uh and uh and secondly it's an application platform uh and so you run all your web apps and it's sort of the web 1.0 and 2.0 sort of uh portions of what a browser does and both

I think arc search made us realize that the intent portion is going to be drastically changed by AI because a lot of our intent is going to go to these models that get a bunch of data and then

you know spit out the actual answer. Um and because uh AI can use tools and uh the browser has access to all your apps, it can also really support the application uh component. And so I think

arc search was our first foray into realizing browsers are going to change you know and so we need to rethink what our strategy is because the entire ecosystem has changed uh and uh the browser's place in that ecosystem is going to change drastically >> and so that was sort of our first moment of like oh we got to rethink you know what product is >> and I think the bit about search is

really key here that came to influence Diaz you know keep in mind our kind of approach to building arc was really as much about, you know, urban planning and interior design as software and that our

our recognition was you spend hours a day in this rectangle in the space and people don't have any feelings about it. Could we change that? And so the sort of conversations we had is like okay, can

we enumerate where those minutes and and hours are spent? And arguably the core action in a browser is and was search. But up until arc search, we sort of said you can't touch that. You know, we're

not Google. there even though search opening a new I mean the command t text box is the most popular text box on your desktop computer according to Apple and I'm sure Microsoft as well but we kind

not Google. there even though search opening a new I mean the command t text box is the most popular text box on your desktop computer according to Apple and I'm sure Microsoft as well but we kind

of said no we're we're not a search company we couldn't possibly do anything with that you know that's Google's domain look even Microsoft threw tens of billions over many years and Bing sucks

so what are we going to do so I think it also opened Pandora's box of saying oh wait as Hir said this is this is the choke point for the internet. This little box routes you to places and does

that mean we can now route you to new places and new things? So that was also the big like eye opening moment from Arc Search which was not the intention at all at the time we started the project.

>> So So take me from that moment from like okay you make some realizations from around ARC search to um probably okay we're going to do AR 2.0 but actually maybe this is a totally

new product. like what happened in between there? >> I' I've never said this before. I think indecision and a lack of, you know, excellent leadership on at least I'll

new product. like what happened in between there? >> I' I've never said this before. I think indecision and a lack of, you know, excellent leadership on at least I'll

say my part in that I think Hersh and I knew deep down in that moment what we had to do whether it was from the Ark perspective of like Arc Search feels so simple and clean and resonant with

people. I mean that was the first time we had people telling us that like hey I I really don't like Archon desktop. Sorry, I just like too much. Don't get it. But I love arc search. So I think

people. I mean that was the first time we had people telling us that like hey I I really don't like Archon desktop. Sorry, I just like too much. Don't get it. But I love arc search. So I think the combination of hir and then my kind of increasing conviction that this was going to change all of software as bombastic as that sounded combined with the bottoms up resonance and simplicity

and focus of arc search. Hersh and I think in our heart of hearts knew what we had to do. But what happened next was that was in probably February of last year and it was in June at a companywide

offsite that we said we're gonna build something new. But then even then it was like it's going to be ARC 2.0 like we don't even know like TBD. So I think it probably wasn't until Septemberish of

last year that we made the call to say it is a completely new product called something completely different with no connectivity to Arc. And you know, I I am so proud of actually a lot of what Hers and I have done over the past year or two as leaders, especially in this moment. But I'd say that period is the one that I regret the most in terms of just like not calling a spade a spade

and just like ripping the cord, you know, and to our point earlier, especially with a team that large and a team that joined postprime marketing fit, you know, like getting the teams buy in and get aligning with everybody and figuring out what are we doing and it took a little while. Dan, one thing I'll add too is like, you know, I I love every one of my favorite publications.

Not an investor. Wish wish I was an investor, but it's it's fantastic. And one of the things that is remarkable actually even reading your coverage is keep in mind where AI was

14 months ago. you know, it was, you know, chatbt was, you know, long in the market and and and I think for most people paying attention, you could kind of pull the curve forward, but there was

also a lot of technology macro risk at the time as well, which is like, are the scaling laws really going to continue? Like, are we going to figure out hallucinations? you know, even this

concept of memory, which is core to what we're doing, I I mean, I I can't remember the time stamps, but I don't think was part of the conversation and now is like arguably the most central

idea behind DIA. And so, yeah, it's easy in retrospect, I think, to be a little like, you know, self-deprecating and it was not obvious to everybody or anyone. And I do remember we put out a video

that was like, we think AI browser is the future and everyone's like, what are you talking about? Like, like you're being a hype boy. what are you talking about? And you know, literally today there was a, you know, MG Seagler last night wrote this whole article that's like, yeah, AI browsers are definitely going to be a thing and everyone's definitely going to build them. Like

Apple's going to make one. Opening eyes is going to make one. And so I don't say that's a gloat. It's actually, you know, competition that we have to wrestle with. But in the moment in which I'm

like, oh, the indecision, there were so many reasons why you would not do what we did. So it was not that clear. I totally I totally remember all all of those things like how

uh if you're really using those tools every day, you were like, "Wow, there's something here." But if if you weren't, you were like, "This stuff is like not good. No serious person could ever use

this for their work." Um, and that has completely shifted at least for for a lot of people over the last like 18 months. And um I would even say six months, Dan. Like I one of the things

that I remember in the moment was again it's almost like it sounds like a love story or a relationship like me and Hersh and quiet moments together and the conversations we would have about this

>> handle it you know. >> Yeah. Like uh looking each other's eyes glistening about our our future intelligence or whatever. Uh um but keep in mind like I Hersh and I are are both

people that um you know really care about the people in our lives outside of work and put a lot of effort into those relationships. I'm really close with my family and um the people in my life in

that moment were not into the idea of AI. You know, keep in mind the discourse that was that was peak this thing is going to ruin humanity and it's stealing artistic works and all that stuff which

I'm not saying doesn't have merit, but you go to the dinner table, you know, with my family showing a demo of this chatbt thing that I'm staying up till 3:00 a.m. and just finding deep inspiration in and they're like, "What are you talking about?" And so that's just like another moment where you're like, "Okay, the story of Arc at that point was great. You made a

great product for tech people. Anyone that's in the software industry loves what you did or at least respects it. But your problem is you didn't build something fundamentally mass market and

essential for everyone that uses their laptop. And so to the extent we were going to build a new product, it was only if we thought we could achieve our original mission of changing the way the average laptop person uses the internet in a moment where the dinner table conversations with the people we deeply love and care about were often saying you are too in the tech world, man,

you're telling me that like the thing that comes after Arc is this like AI nonsense that's spitting out gibberish. So it's a real act of like introspection to say am I have I lost it? Have I

become disconnected or are we do we just see what other people don't see because of what we're doing? And at least for me was this constant back and forth in my own head and with Hersh of like

what is reality? I don't know. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean not only from our friends but also employees, you know. Uh so that was that was tough. >> Yeah. What was that like um when you had

that company meeting and you were like, "Hey, this is a new product." Do you remember Josh, was that at the offsite? >> Yeah, I will say since narratives get kind of added in

retrospect, it really was more of a gradual evolution. So, there were some key moments. There was this offsite in Montreal where we definitively said we're at least going to try to build the second product whether or not it's ARK 2.0 you know or not. There was a moment when we said it is going to be a second thing but it was obviously more gradual. I think one of the saving graces and I

do not think we could have done this with a different company in a different moment was that you know really to Hersh's credit we founded this company with some core values that we really

live by and one of them is assume you don't know. So we have this culture of no one has any idea what they're talking about and we'll have no idea until we try it right and so that's why we have

such a prototype driven culture experimental culture for better for good and bad reasons and so I think in general at the browser company if anyone says I got this wacky idea and I'm really excited about it I'm not you know let's try it the people's first reaction is like cool prototype it and let's talk about it after that and so I think that

was one of our saving graces is that we could just sort of frame it as what it was at the time, an inclination, a hunch. And again, I think as you built more and more things, I think became

clear to more and more people over time. And I also think we just built up a lot of trust. Right at that point, we'd been building ARC for a number of years. People loved it. People joined the

company cuz they loved it. And I think, you know, we had uh added some trust points to our bank account. and Hirs and I drew them down to maybe a negative balance, you know, up until Dia got

further along. But, you know, credit to the team, you know, it's not like there was an organ rejection. There were people that had their own concerns um and anxieties as as is normal. It was a

further along. But, you know, credit to the team, you know, it's not like there was an organ rejection. There were people that had their own concerns um and anxieties as as is normal. It was a

a big call that was existential for the company, but in general, we had this culture of like, all right, let's see, you know. Yeah. And one thing I'll add is we also built the capabilities over

time. So as we were prototyping we were getting a better sense of like both where the value is here but also like what are the things we need to get better at like evaluating you know from

time. So as we were prototyping we were getting a better sense of like both where the value is here but also like what are the things we need to get better at like evaluating you know from a technical perspective from a design perspective how how like how do chat interfaces work are chat interfaces the right mechanism LLMs all of that and so again as we gradually built that

capability our our confidence grew what do you say to people because I think this is probably on someone's mind if they're listening to this um and it certainly was like it was a thing I was

thinking which is okay I totally understand that maybe it's not going to be like this gigant is just not going to be this gigantic mass market consumer product or whatever but like it had

millions of users um that's pretty good >> um and is isn't like VC distorting your um like what you count as good and aren't you kind of like killing something that so many people love um

just because you it's not like billions of users and like talk to me about that cuz yeah I want to understand how you think about it. >> Well Dan actually it relates the origin

story when we asked you to be the CEO. So the origin of the browser company was I was working at a venture capital firm and I was just shocked that all of the coolest fastest growing Silicon Valley

companies that were coming across our desk were all of a sudden desktop web apps and they're desktop web apps for work. I mean you started a newsletter called super organizers. This was the

moment of productivity software, right? And so the idea was like let's make a enterprise browser for work and as you said take the superhuman, the notion, the Figma playbook and and run it. And

so uh Hersh was going to be the founder and we were looking for a co-founder CEO and the first he's like I call Dan. He's my best friend. He does this newsletter

called Superorganizers. It's perfect. Uh and maybe it would have been perfect. Maybe we'd be having a different podcast about uh how wildly profitable ARC is. Uh um but the reason I say that is cuz

called Superorganizers. It's perfect. Uh and maybe it would have been perfect. Maybe we'd be having a different podcast about uh how wildly profitable ARC is. Uh um but the reason I say that is cuz

the reason I ended up joining the browser company CEO in addition to really just wanting to work with Hersh again was this aha moment that actually the browser is arguably the most

consumer piece of software in the world. Like there are very few pieces of software that your mom and your second cousin and your partner all use. Like four billion people use Chrome every

month and nobody cares about it. And most people don't have like a second browser for Netflix and shopping. And so if you care about what I personally have always cared the most about, which is

how we as a society broadly use technology, then the motivation for me and I think the origins of the company was to build something at that level of ambition, even if that's not the idea

that we pitched you initially. And so that was never part of the calculation honestly for me and Hirs when we talked about like oh do we want to build a product with millions of people we I

would have we would have capitalizes company completely differently if that was the goal. We would have done so many things differently. So I think the idea of like why wouldn't you be okay with a

you know couple million people browser that you know makes decent money. It just comes back to why I personally got into software uh and what motivates me and her. So I will say hopefully you

know people have heard there are a lot of things that were hard. There are a lot of things that were unclear. The why are we here? Why did we start this company has been consistent and

unwavering from uh our perspective. I also like again were sort of fixating on ARC but the reason for this was was not just what do we do with ARC and how do we grow it was also how do we meet this

moment you know and like we were just so inspired by oh my god like it's this platform shift is happening and what software is and can be is can be so different and so much more uh capable

and look very different and and we have a specific skill set and team that's capable of building that interface future And so I think part of it was also just a deep inspiration for what's possible. And again, we didn't start with the idea we would start from scratch. We started with this idea we would evolve Arc in that direction. And then that ended up being much more

possible. And again, we didn't start with the idea we would start from scratch. We started with this idea we would evolve Arc in that direction. And then that ended up being much more difficult than we thought. And so we did with DIA. And I also think as Hersed, it's like as the technology was evolving, as we were getting more familiar with it, uh it was getting more

clear to other people what was valuable about it and where the points of leverage were. We also started to realize that the browser layer was going to be very central. Yeah. You know, at first it was sort of like, wait, we don't want to be that company that's just because we got inspired doesn't mean you should pivot your company, right? They're inspiring things I see

all the time. I'm not like, hey, let's go start like an indie film company, right? So, the thing that really did it was okay it feels really disconnected from everything I'm doing every day. I'm

spending a lot of time copy and pasting and context switching and exporting tabs as PDFs and weird stuff like that. So being able to meet people where they are. Again, the idea of memory and context, like people didn't say context was king a year ago. Maybe you did, but most people >> Yeah. There you go. This is why you got to subscribe to every you would have

been a year early. But you know, starting to realize that, okay, the more that you tell these models, the more useful and personal they get. And I'm spending hours a day in this thing. And

then as Hers said too, hey, we don't know anything about agents. This is sort of out of our wheelhouse at the time at which was coming up, but it seems like the big promise is they're going to do some things and tools for you, but wait a minute, that's not useful unless they're your tools with your authentication and we have your cookies. So, it was also again to Hersh's point

of inspiration realizing that structurally, it honestly felt like we had like you know been at the end of the rainbow before the rainbow came and all of a sudden like a pot of gold appeared and so it was sort of like all right, I feel like we should probably try to open this pot. like this feels like the thing to do, you know. Well, let's let's talk about what what you found when you

opened the pot. Like you guys made Dia and um I will say and I think this is this is an interesting testimonial given my uh my relationship to both of you and my relationship as an investor is like I

I was always an Arc user, but it was never my default browser. >> Safari was always my default browser and DIA is now my default browser. I switched from Safari. Um, >> hey.

>> Which like and and that's not like I love both of you, but like a browser is too personal >> for me to switch my browser because I like you >> clearly, Dan. >> So, this is this is totally not for

podcast purposes or anything like that. like I just switched to it because I think the and this is maybe gets to your point. One of your points about Arc is like I used Arc for certain like heavy

research tasks and for podcasting specifically cuz like Riverside uh doesn't work in Safari. You have to use a Chromium browser and I'd rather use Arc than Chrome. Um, but Safari is so

lightweight and fast >> and Arc was never like that and uh and DIA is so fast and I was like this is really good and then it has the AI stuff in it which uh it it opens up a whole new way of

using web pages for me that I I really love. So it's like it's coming it's definitely I think a lot of what you're saying is coming through for me. Um, and it's been really cool to to see it like get launched and get the reception it's gotten. >> Well, Hers, it's honestly it's worth talking about the architectural decisions cuz that was a whole another thing. We decided to just be like, why

don't we do this completely differently too while we're at it? >> Yeah, we really had a so ARC was really built around how do we prototype as fast as possible? And we made some shortcuts in the architecture to enable that which had some performance impact. >> Interesting. >> Uh, and so we were really optimizing for how do we prototype and build new

features. um and in a way that we can do them quickly. And >> what was it? Just quickly, what was the architecture? >> Uh it used a kind of Redux type state- driven architecture which is a little

features. um and in a way that we can do them quickly. And >> what was it? Just quickly, what was the architecture? >> Uh it used a kind of Redux type state- driven architecture which is a little

crazy for a uh desktop app, but allowed us to move really quickly. Um over time it became really complex to manage uh which was an issue but also performance uh was a big concern. And re redux is

like the the meta like react like framework or way of thinking about how to pass information from a UI layer to uh to the back to the server and all that kind of stuff.

>> Exactly. Exactly. Um, and so, you know, we had a a real choice last summer on when we're building DI, do we build it on the same architecture or do we build something uh new that's really fast? And

I think part of the I mean, certainly the engineering team was really excited about an architecture that we were excited about that uh fixed a lot of performance problems uh that arc had uh

but also it it was ced strategy. you know, if the strategy was a mass market browser that uh people would ideally use irrespective of the AI features that it had to be fast and it had to be uh you

know, just be a really really good browser. What did you figure out about how to make something performant? >> Um I honestly a lot of it has been swift. Um Swift has this new uh

structured concurrency uh mechanism that allows you to just move a lot of stuff off the main thread. So just leaning uh really heavily into that has been helpful. And then shout out to uh some of our incredible architects, Max and Adam, who built this entirely new architecture that allows us to move faster than ARC, but also deals with a lot of the performance problems. So,

>> Oh, so you figured out a way to still do prototyping quickly. >> Yes. Yeah. Exactly. >> And the reason I think it's relevant is one of the ways I think we got the team

really on board is we sort of went to a bunch of our best, most creative people and said, "Hey, you get a blank page, too." So, you know, this had been a topic that's these architectural challenges

and latency. These have been themes we talked forever. So, we just sort of went person to person and said, "Hey, start over. You got to do your most be your most abundant self dream. Come on. What

and latency. These have been themes we talked forever. So, we just sort of went person to person and said, "Hey, start over. You got to do your most be your most abundant self dream. Come on. What

are the things that you always regret? This is the moment to do like you know." So I will say once the ball started rolling people were able to find their kind of corners and pockets of what we

were trying to do to either fix mistakes we made with Arc or do that thing they always wanted to do. You know you can you can feel it in DIA. There are parts of it that there I hope there's some kernels of the browser company that are consistent across it. But there are also some things reek I think you can feel a group of people that said no we're really going to flex on this one and

we're not going to flex on this one in a way that's like arc coded but in a way that is what this should be right now. Um, so I think you can feel that intentionality personally in the product relative to ARC. >> And one discussion we had uh when we were building this out also was it's it's funny seeing NGClar's uh post now about how AI browsers are going to take

off and we're like sort of kicking off this race. But that was a discussion we had about the architecture which is like we have so much conviction in this route that when we launch this if we are the

first ones we're going to kick off a race and so how do we build an architecture from the ground up that allows us to >> move quickly in that race >> by the time we launch this. Uh and so

that was a lot of the input as well. >> Yeah. Hersh and I had a very seminal conversation for us at least on that San Francisco trip I mentioned and Hir flew out um the next day before me and sent

me this long long essay in a way that you know I don't get long long essays from hers you know uh and one of the things that Hirs had the foresight to see in this new world was that it's not

about the browser the browser is almost incidental right the real opportunity and I think the language her used at the time was this truly personal assistant. I think all of us right now are grasping for what the right nouns are for the work that we're doing. But Hersh had the foresight to say, "Hey, it's not really about the browser part. That is necessary, but that's not what the where

the value is going to come from. That's what's going to enable the thing you're turning to it for." Almost like the iPhone isn't really a cell phone. I mean, it is, and you get that utility

out of it, but that's not why the iPhone is so powerful. And I think in the moment for me I was like seems a little far-fetched but hope he's right. And as time has gone on I think his his his

instincts were in retrospect absolutely correct. You know even the original uh vision video we put out for ARC talked about this idea of an internet computer. And we very much said, "We have no idea

what that means." But based on the trend lines in our industry, it seems absolutely certain that what feels like your computer in five or 10 years is actually going to be this layer that sits across all of your devices of all shapes and sizes because all of your apps and files are on the web now. And so I didn't really connect it at the time, but what Hersh was saying was

essentially this is the internet computer. You're going to have desktop browsers and mobile apps and all sorts of things. And on top of it is going to be this personal assistant or this intelligence for you and it's going to benefit from the fact that it can intercept your queries on the new tab page and that it sees the docs you're writing in your browser tabs and it

remembers the things you did last week. But you're not turning to it for the tabs. You're not even turning to it for the desktop part. What you're turning to it for is this personal intelligence layer that is a wild invention in humanity that's going to help you do all sorts of things and it's going to be miraculous. But don't forget the browser is just the enabling technology

underneath. It's not the main event. So you can imagine how getting in front of the browser company of New York's employees, makers of a popular web browser called Arc that helps you with

underneath. It's not the main event. So you can imagine how getting in front of the browser company of New York's employees, makers of a popular web browser called Arc that helps you with

tab management in novel ways couldn't really nail that messaging in the moment. But in retrospect, I think that long email hers was extremely precient regardless of if we win this race, if

it's even zero sum. But it it it he had the foresight of connecting it to the internet computer idea that kind of underpinned Arc. That's that's a couple things that I think are interesting here

about like lessons that it seems like you guys have learned about building the future and and some things that I've definitely seen at every uh like trying to do the same thing is um one when GP3

was first a thing everyone was like this is going to be an incumbent enabling technology >> like Google and Microsoft they're just going to like put a chat bot put a chat box on the on the right side of Chrome and like they're going to put it in Google Docs and like everything is just going to be like for the incumbents. And I think one of the things you were

saying earlier is just getting to go to people at ARC and be or people at the browser company and be like you have a blank page. The the level of creativity that you get there is so high and the

level of power that you get is so high that it's actually I think impossible for most incumbents um unless they're starting from scratch which is really hard to do to just like slap AI onto

this and actually build that layer that you're talking about. And another thing that I think is really interesting that I've definitely found as both a builder and a writer is um it can be really hard

to pitch the future to talk about the future in a way that anyone understands. Um you have to build it. You have to like prototype it. You have to like feel it and see it. And that's the only way that that that then you can talk about it in a way that people understand. And it sounds like that's that's sort of what you found is you had this sense that you could express but any way you

expressed it, everyone was like you're crazy. Um but then once you started to actually like prototype it, that's how you found a way to talk about it in a way that people can understand.

>> Yeah. And two stories actually that come to mind that are very relevant. So Hers and I, our first company was uh aqua hired by Facebook when we were I don't know 22 or something. And I'll never

forget this all internal >> RIP branch. >> RIP branch. RIP branch. Uh, for the real ones out there that remember, uh, I will never forget this internal all hands at

Facebook where Zuckerberg stood up and had this whole presentation about how in 5 years everything was going to be video. Social media was going to be video. And I thought he was nuts. I was

like, this disconnected billionaire, does he know how slow it is to watch a video on your phone? And then like even if you could fix the buffering issues, why would you pick a tiny little screen

in your pocket like what is he thinking? And in retrospect that proclamation and honestly others that he made even if he didn't capitalize on it, he was right. You know, I remember 5 years later it's like, yep, Tik Tok's definitely a thing. And so I think part of what Hersh and I took from that experience in different ways and similar experiences like hey if you're going to start a company one of

the you mentioned branch me and Hersh's first company the origin story was a hackathon prototype and my takeaway from that and that experience was like if you start a company based on a prototype you

don't have a kind of fundamental internal guidepost when inevitably your prototype is going to fail and so the intention of the browser company inspired by our experience with branch observations of Zuckerberg forget Facebook was don't pretend like you have all the answers, but even just directionally. Are you heading you're in LA? You're going on a road trip. You're

going to New York or Miami. You may not know how you're going to get there and you may hate Miami and Miami might be not be as cool as you think, but pick a destination that is 5 10 years out and

run towards it. And so the internet computer idea was that for us um and was pretty central I think to our ability then with DIA as well to to kind of just go for it. What I think is interesting

too about that is just to just to push on it a little bit because I think there's a thing that if you're a builder listening to this um you might take away that I don't know is actually what you

actually mean um is that you can see the future in front of you and you're just going to go figure out how to build it and yeah you don't know the route but like you know you're going to San Francisco or you know you're going to New York or whatever but I think what's interesting about the internet computer idea is what the internet computer meant changed Yeah.

>> And um so you're you're sort of you have this broad sense that there's going to be um a different way of interacting uh with computers and that you wanted to build that. But what you thought that

was going to be is actually very different than the thing that you ended up building because you had no idea that AI was going to be such a thing when when you started five and a half years ago. Um, and I think that's really interesting, too. And that's definitely been consistent with my feeling about every um, you know, like when we were when we were talking about super

ago. Um, and I think that's really interesting, too. And that's definitely been consistent with my feeling about every um, you know, like when we were when we were talking about super

organizers, I was like, I want to build this newsletter and then I'm going to like launch products this to the newsletter. >> We're doing the same thing now, but it

looks so different. And and why it works is so different because of AI. And I think that's a really interesting thing is to watch that vision unfold and fill in the the details of what that actually

means as the world evolves and your product evolves and you learn new things. >> Yeah. And I think that that that uh point applies to that video story that I told you where at the moment Zuckerberg

was saying you're going to share the same types of uh personal vulnerable updates that you do today in video now. And while there's some of that, I remember I the the moment I made the

connection back to what Zuckerberg said at the all hands and even realized that video had become a thing was I had the opportunity to uh meet Evan Spiegel from Snapchat. I think it was in like 2019 and I was like all right I got to ask him one question. So my question for him was like what's one thing that's really inspiring you right now? And he told me about this app from China or called Tik

Tok which again it was pretty popular at the time but I hadn't really come across it and I was like oh why is it inspiring? He's like, "It made it so anyone can be a celebrity for a day."

And I remember being confused by the description, but you can kind of see that he was right and and kind of capturing what was unique about TikTok. That was very different than what

Zuckerberg said. That is not friends sharing intimate videos with each other in a news feed. And so the point of being able to say where the world is going directionally is definitely not,

Zuckerberg said. That is not friends sharing intimate videos with each other in a news feed. And so the point of being able to say where the world is going directionally is definitely not,

you know, the details. Um, but it's still I think you know really important and it's tricky. One of the things especially in our media cycle is you know we built Arc in public but we also built it with prototypes and buil you know sharing everything and so when we shared the internet computer video I honestly remember people internally being like man this seems kind of like

why are we adding this branding? What exactly does it mean? But at least we had built a little bit of trust to say for people to say like okay I like the things they're putting out so I don't know maybe they know it. At the time with DIA, it was even more of a kind of high conviction bet on where the future was going. But we did not have an audience that wanted any proclamations

from us about AI. And again, ourselves sort of questioned like, you know, were we right? And so, one of the interesting things about DIA was there was a larger disconnect developing it than Arc

between the internal feelings uh and beliefs that we had and like what we could say publicly. And so that was also kind of an interesting part of building Dia versus versus ARC.

>> What made it trickier also was because we bet on the scaling laws and the curves and so a lot of our conviction wasn't even possible last year, >> you know, and so

>> Oh yeah, GBT40 made DIA work. Like when we started working on DIA, I might get my dates slightly off, but I distinctly remember messaging our person at OpenAI and being like,

"This model made our thing happen." >> Yeah. >> It's crazy. Like we we've had that same thing where you're you're working on something, you're trying to build something, it's not working, you're doing all this prompting, you're doing all this like architecting to like spring string different models together. And then we had this happen with Autous 4 recently like >> it just worked. >> Yeah.

>> And it was like okay we can throw out three months of work because now it it just like it just one shots it. >> Yeah. I mean I really a really a great example of that from Dia is you know to

me the core idea of DIA is this idea that it should get better with every tab you open. Just like every time you swipe a video in Tik Tok it feels like it's getting to know you and it's more useful

to you. That's how Dia should get feel and get better with age. And Hirsch had the foresight to know that context and memory and personalization were going to be the thing that ended up

to you. That's how Dia should get feel and get better with age. And Hirsch had the foresight to know that context and memory and personalization were going to be the thing that ended up

differentiating when all of the models and intelligence commoditized or looked that way. It was going to be the thing that was most personal. So Hirs and a team worked on memory for 9 months and

at some point we killed the project. We just tossed it away. We're like guess it's not going to have memory. And then 6 weeks before launch it was like wait a minute. I think the fact that had this

context window over here like well no no let's try this approach let's do memory one more time and oh my god that was a thing to deal with internally that project that we just tossed away after 9

months having this high like top down conviction like we're going to do it again right before this big launch we've been working for for a year and again I don't want to say it's worked because

it's too early but like it's looking pretty preient again from Hersh um but but again that was enabled by in a span of 6 months the fundamental building blocks changed enough and our

understanding of how to wield them that a thing that we smart people banged against for 9 months didn't happen and then it happened pretty much overnight uh >> and cost and latency and yeah >> all that stuff. >> Um tell me about yeah you've gotten it out in the wild. You have this thesis that it's going to get better with every tab you open which I love. I think

that's such a clean way. That's such a Josh like >> Joshism like >> perfect. I love it. Um >> awesome. Means a lot coming from you. >> What are people using it for that has

surprised you or you know what have you what have you learned getting it out in the wild that you didn't know? >> Curious your take, Josh. >> I think I am surprised that people see

what we see as quickly as they did. I thought this was going to be a really painful moment for us and I prepped and hers and I prepped the team for that. Hey, it's going to be a somewhat tricky,

brutal summer because DIA is so basic. Cuz again, keep in mind the idea of DIA is not the browser bit. It's not the tab management. It's not the things you can see. It's all these capabilities that Hers and the team have built under the hood. They were like, "Oh, if we just like then piece them together, we can build this application platform for AI." But that wasn't what we released two

weeks ago. You know, we released the building blocks under the hood, but the hood was pretty basic. And we thought it was useful, but we thought it was going to just get trolled.

weeks ago. You know, we released the building blocks under the hood, but the hood was pretty basic. And we thought it was useful, but we thought it was going to just get trolled.

>> Yeah. I kept asking Hersh for access and he was like, "Oh, like later, like soon." >> And he didn't need alpha for what it's worth. We got absolutely trapped.

>> My friends and family were so nervous about me because my style of of of friendship and working on what I do is I enthusiastically want them on early in their feedback. admission, my wife, who I've been with for, you know, over a decade, didn't try DIA until launch. >> That makes me feel so much better because I was like, hers is just like, I don't know what's going on, but like,

are we growing apart? >> And and and that shows you I actually felt like an artist, not in terms of an artist in terms of our, you know, quality or, but just like the nerves to put this like personal work out in the world. So the biggest surprise is people got it right away despite in its biggest in its current state in terms of what it's useful for.

>> What do you think they get? >> I think MG's post really captures it which is you can sort of feel the new latent possibilities underneath the surface by fusing these things together.

Like really what Hirs and the team did is they broke apart the browser and they rebuilt it, put the pieces back together with models in every core part. And so you can't visually see that, but as you start using the product, like this morning actually I saw uh someone shared that they're they clearly been using DIA for a couple weeks. So people like discover like these little Easter eggs

like, "Oh, I can do this." And what they found is when they look up songs on YouTube, they can ask it for the tab chords so they can play it on their guitar. That's sick. I wouldn't need to use that. I I actually do this all the time where I like send YouTube videos to Gemini and then have it tell me the like the transcribe the piano. Um so I'm going to have to that.

use that. I I actually do this all the time where I like send YouTube videos to Gemini and then have it tell me the like the transcribe the piano. Um so I'm going to have to that.

>> And so I think people finding the like it's subtle but it's so much more convenient and so much more powerful to do it when the 1 plus 1 equals 3. The big surprise on the product side was

sort of that observation taken to its extreme which you would never put hey you know what you can do in DIA on our website you can look up the tab chords for the guitar when you're watching a

video on YouTube it's so personal it's so the tam of that is tiny and a couple weeks before launch because our big vision for DIA is that actually it's this kind of application platform that

people will build things on top of was like we should gesture at that just a little bit right so let's we have this concept skills which are effectively AI apps. Um we have a couple that are first party but they're really basic. >> Just for people who are listening that that haven't used it like what is a skill in DIA? >> Yeah. Uh a skill India is the equivalent

of an or we hope will be the equivalent of an application on an iPhone or on a on a computer. But in this kind of AI world, what it is is it's a uh a system prompt uh a model or number of models uh

tool use uh and stringing those things together to do something for you. So, uh, someone might make a skill that is my job is to do sales and I look at leads on the internet every day and, uh,

when I see a lead, I have to look up X information about them and extract Y information and consider Z framework and they kind of put that logic and framework and tool use into a skill to kind of aid them in what they do every day. But in the current version of the product that we released, the the platform is still extremely limited. And so we weren't going to let anyone make

their own because we were waiting till later this summer when we could actually expose those the really cool building blocks, reasoning models, memory, and the like. But we're like, okay, we got to gesture at it because that's why we're here. We w this big internal memo about the app strategy. And so we expose the ability to make the most basic custom skills possible that are

basically just little prompts and >> added a week before launch. it has exploded in terms of what people are doing and is now essentially the whole company is just building out the skills

platform now. And the reason that that relates to the uh tab cord example is that one of the things we used to say with ARC was that you know no one cares about their browser but they spend hours

platform now. And the reason that that relates to the uh tab cord example is that one of the things we used to say with ARC was that you know no one cares about their browser but they spend hours

a day in it. It should feel like your home on the internet. Why do we all live in these like drab hotel rooms online where all of ours look the same run by Google? It should feel as cozy as this

background you're in right now. And you're seeing that principle play out whether it's the first party features like chatting with your tabs and people finding use cases that um are new and

very personal to them to people be like, "Wait a minute. You're saying I can make my own one of these that like when I'm doing my workflow for my job can do exactly what I want it to do." It's

almost like the normie and I'm saying that for myself. I'm a sociology major that does know how to code. Everyone's looking around and seeing cursor and replet and lovable and these companies just explo wow you can make new things and there people like me being like wait I I want to make new things and I think we're tapping into something there of like almost like handmade software like

people wanting to make things for themselves like me that I I literally had to hound hers at a hackathon in New York when I was 20 and beg him to make something with me because it was the only way I could express my ideas in software was to hope that someone like Hersh would want to make something with me and so I think I think it's starting to tap into

that nerve and while that observation is old did not expect that this early in the product development since we felt like that was like to come and to be revealed. This was an amazing insight by

Josh actually that uh AI enables sort of a new class of software where uh rather than us thinking about what is software we can create that is useful for a large TAM instead we can build software that

allows people to make their niche software just in time you know whenever they need it. And so it's it's just a different way of thinking about what software can be and that's because of

AI. Yeah, I think there's a couple of other examples of I mean chatbt is maybe a good example um where Excel is a good example, maybe notion where it's not one big use case. It's not one job to be

AI. Yeah, I think there's a couple of other examples of I mean chatbt is maybe a good example um where Excel is a good example, maybe notion where it's not one big use case. It's not one job to be done. It's like millions of tiny little ones. Yeah.

done. It's like millions of tiny little ones. Yeah.

>> SAS product where you're like well we solve this particular problem for a user and a little bit more like um creating a language where you're creating building blocks and then anyone can use the words and the language to express whatever they want in whatever situation they have. And that's like a a uniquely powerful type of product and also b it's

a uniquely challenging type of product because getting that language right and then communicating it to people that you can speak in this language is really hard.

>> Yeah. I I I think we're particularly excited about it. A because uh we love human computer interaction problems and design problems. Uh and b uh the browser just knows so much about you. Yeah,

>> it's such a personal piece of software and if we're building this memory system and it's getting more and more personalized to you, it can help you with that. >> Yeah,

>> Dan, it's funny you say that. Uh I'm I'm looking at my phone because uh late last night uh Dustin, our head of design, the the basically he was so inspired by these custom skills being created.

Dustin's an extremely humble, soft-spoken Canadian, uh he doesn't do things. He turned to me a week ago. I was like, "Josh, I need a week alone to prototype. I know what to do. And that

sounds like something I would say. That's not something that Dustin says. So when he said that, I was like, "Uh, yeah, okay, cool. Go." And he texted me last night um about what he's been prototyping and and kind of showed me. And and I sent him a text back. I said, actually, I would have written it differently if I knew it was going to be a podcast, but uh Dustin, you're legit

inventing a new programming language. Uh non-technical people like me want to feel technical. I aspire to know Swift. I don't. give me a language to learn and I don't mean language like complicated

anyways it keeps going but so I guess that's the surprise the idea that AI and the power of it is when it's going to be extremely personal to you with ex very minimal work was the idea of dia and

this idea that actually the applications or agents whatever we call them but the tools that sit on top of the base are going to be more powerful than the base itself that was consistent

the idea it's going to skills and it's going to be really jumped to kind of the third party not first party and it's going to actually require this kind of new programming language thing. It's not

programming like it's kind of like the internet computer. We struggle with the words but the sensation is so obvious which goes back to what we've said before. It's like one of those moments again where it's like okay entire company we're going that way 100%. Come on a podcast like what what is this skill? What are you talking about? is it's like I I don't know if the

listeners are like what are they like these guys are crazy but like in my bones right now it's like that is so clearly where the world's going so like let's try our best to run that way and I

will say we thought this was 6 or 12 months away uh a while away and because of this launch and just with the incredibly basic version we have in there and how people are using it I

think we've been inspired I want to get down into like I think we've we've traced the whole, for lack of a better word, arc of of the company. Um, so thus far, which is like do ARC

big success, but maybe not the kind of success that you guys were looking for. Um, announce that you're pivoting like a year of just pretty much hell was I maybe >> getting punched in the face,

>> maybe a good description. And now you're like, we're we're back, baby. We're so back. Um, >> there are a lot of problems, too. But yeah, and um I just want you guys to get as

real as possible with me as if there was no camera and no mic here like the way that we would if we were just hanging out about Yeah. what that what that has been like. Like I've watched you hers

like and sitting down with you and you're like there's like dark circles around your eyes and you're just like like what did I do? But but even in that moment being very like but I know that

this is right but also this sucks and I hate this. Um yeah, tell me about what has that been like? Like I've seen I've seen a lot of the ups and downs. I've seen um I think people probably don't

realize how much for example when you're pouring your life into something and everyone on Twitter and maybe people internally are like you're making the absolutely wrong decision. you're this

is awful. Like, and on the flip side, now everyone's like, "This is amazing." Like, what what has that all been like? Uh, it's tough. I think Josh said it best. You It really feels like you're

getting punched in the face a lot. Um, and it's this weird dichotomy cuz, uh, as you said, we kind of like at every moment we were like, "No, the strategy feels correct." You know, it feels right

and everything that's going on in the industry and as we are making progress, we're like making good time on it. But yeah, when your family and uh your friends and the outside world and your

employees are are uh maybe less than enthused uh about the direction, it's really difficult to sort of manage the two. I think there's probably two aspects to it. There's one just like the

the head game of being like okay as as founders we have conviction here and to credit all of you know so many of our employees were on board and excited as well. U but like a lot of it was just

trust in us. Um, and that dichotomy of like, are we crazy? You know, are we just like completely full of it? >> I mean, you are, but you're right about this. >> Um, and then there's just like the

day-to-day tactical stuff where it just hurts a lot. You know, I think, uh, press and then managing morale, people leaving and attrition, you know, hiring becomes way more difficult. Uh, and so,

uh, it just feels like you're on very hard mode, uh, during that that transition. >> And you had a kid a year agoish. >> Yeah. I mean, and Josh has had two kids, so I just And on no sleep. So, that's

been I You're just >> Yeah, it's it's a meditative exercise to stay present and just get through every day, I think. >> Yeah. I I will say there was uh one session I had with my coach where he was

asking me something about the product strategy. No, no, no. He he asked me how I was doing and I gave him one of these kind of excited genuine takes on this whatever the equivalent of

the Dustin prototype was, which was Earnest. But he said, "No, Josh, how are you doing? How do you feel?" And I was like, "I've been waking up every morning with a pit in my stomach."

And and he was like that. Let's talk about that. And so this year professionally was by far the heaviest I felt like in my body. And I think the things that get you through it are both

Hersh and I have we're really close with our partners and our families and each other. I think one of the things that Hersh and I have this dynamic is we both go through funks and highs and we both have the things that trigger us and we've now worked together long enough where I think there are these moments where like I'm really low and people may not know it but hers knows the telltale

signs and he knows how to pull me out of it and and I'd like to think the same is true with him but >> and vice versa. Yeah. >> Um no it's not fun uh at all. I I I

obviously there are things that keep you going and I I think for me it has really been just trying to stay present and quiet and focused on the on the internal there is something in there is making you get punched that you're okay getting punched in the face and so but no it was a year of constant doubt and and ups and downs because I think the other thing

people miss is the browser company had a Cinderella story first few years we basically had no I mean it didn't feel like this in the moment but in retrospect In fact, our biggest

challenge was at one point Arc was so popular and so taking off that we had these performance and reliability issues where it was crashing and if and that was like the hardest thing we had. We

were sort of like this darling in terms of people in our industry raving about it. The guy who ran Chrome for 16 years came to work for us as an IC. Like it was just a story book. And so it was

also after three-ish years of the experience of the browser company feeling like a not a runaway success. We had our challenges and I'm sure you remember them Dan, but it did sort of

feel almost like our divine right that it was going to go this well. And so I think all of a sudden having it so clearly feel different and never almost a never ending to the every morning

there was some new thing someone was leaving or some competitor this or whatever. Um, yeah, it's it it's it's tough. I will say it makes part of the reason I think I feel so elated right

now is not because we're out of the woodwork. In many ways, we are in the most competitively challenged market in the world, right? Like there's a lot still ahead of us, but part of what it

is is this sort of vindication might be a strong word, but like we were right. So, if anything, I don't think that will ever happen to me again professionally. Not that I won't have tough moments, but it's almost like taught me, my dad told me the one thing about getting older is like you get to like build your intuition cuz every time something happens, you can look back and say,

"Okay, was I right or wrong? What was I right about? What was I wrong about?" And you gain that confidence. So right now, I'm not this I'm not this confident that Dia is going to be the next Chrome.

But I know that what me and Hershe felt in our bones was correct. And so I'm I'm almost excited for in 20 years if I ever start another company with Hirs that moment of like okay we're gonna get punched in the face but like don't let don't waver. I definitely had a lot of moments of doubt internally privately with Hersh throughout the year that manifested in all sorts of ways. Um but

I'm grateful as a for the life experience of like what it has taught me. Um regardless of what happens next honestly. >> I feel you. I mean, I I've had not quite the same kind of thing, but a couple

moments where the company just like almost fell apart and it was like I could just stop and it could just be like things are just not working. Um, >> and I was like, "No, I think I'm going

to keep going." M >> and those definitely have been the in retrospect now that things have seemed like they're going well like big selfrust moments where you're like

>> there's something inside of me that I can listen to. >> Mhm. And that I think as a leader is really really important. And it's something you only win by unless you're

delusional, you only win by like going through that like, "Oh my god, things are about to fall apart, but I'm kind of like doing it anyway." And then being like, "Oh, it worked."

>> The doing it anyway is really feels true. You know, some days you just wake up and you have to play the part and get through the day and uh Yeah. You just get through it.

Um, I want to talk now about just like Josh, you mentioned the competitive environment. How are you guys thinking about, okay, we've got some validation. People are excited about this. It's

still really early and now there's a big target on our back. Like, everyone is starting to figure out, oh, the browser might be a really important layer to be competing at. I I will say if you've been reading every I've been talking about that for a couple years. Um but uh but if you're not reading every uh it feels like now people are sort of really starting to like starting to wake up to

it. Um Perplexity I think has a browser or they're at least working on one. There's rumors that a couple of the big AI AI labs are really paying attention to this. So how are you thinking about

it. Um Perplexity I think has a browser or they're at least working on one. There's rumors that a couple of the big AI AI labs are really paying attention to this. So how are you thinking about

how to win as a still relatively small company compared to the big incumbents? Um and then compared to other startups like yeah how how do you think about winning

>> on most podcasts I'd give you the answer that I would give a VC personally you know it's like okay we think memory is going to lock you in in this way and our application platform and our design I

think the truth is we had the same questions with ARC and I we you we've been in this industry long enough like whether it's naive enough I just feel like we have a clarity of thought and

perspective that to me from what I've seen from other companies and heard feels somewhat unique and I think we have a sensibility that like we just got to run as fast as we can but not

frantically and not out of scarcity of beating competitors but if we can stay locked into just being like yeah that most energetic like this is what we believe selves like that's the truth of how I think we're going to compete and how we've competed so far since the beginning of the company. Um, again, I don't want to like diminish all the thought we've put into the ways in which

like, okay, if someone clones our browser pixel for pixel, what can we do? And but I think at the end of the day, I think one of the things we're grappling with as an industry is what are the moes anymore? I think so many of the traditional moes for product so much about this moment is questioning these dogmas that I had just taken as natural law of how our industry works and

anymore? I think so many of the traditional moes for product so much about this moment is questioning these dogmas that I had just taken as natural law of how our industry works and

products and competition. So that I don't know, maybe I'm feeling a little bit too hippie- dippy right now, but I'm sort of just like it's all noise. It is all noise. Just like it was noise before

and it's no it's just a distraction. Like if anything, I regret spending so much time this past year thinking about things outside of our company >> instead of just like putting our head down and having fun with it. And I think everything that has resonated so far where parts of the product and the strategy, we're just like, can I curse? Like it like let's just have some fun

with it. if we're going to get punched in the face, let's just go and do this thing. Let's just be unapologetic. And the places where we did that are what people can feel it. There's like a

with it. if we're going to get punched in the face, let's just go and do this thing. Let's just be unapologetic. And the places where we did that are what people can feel it. There's like a character to it. And the places that were very like like top down and and and not even top down, just like, you know, let's let's business let's get ready for the HB HBS case study. Just like you

just feel it. >> Here's how I should do this. It's just I think you know or maybe that's maybe that's a weakness as me as a leader and but I that the answer is like Dan we're going to do our thing like we've been doing our thing my learning from the last year is when we do our thing like at least some people resonate with it and we've got some foresight so yeah I'm

excited to see the other >> I think what you're saying is vibes is the moat um and you'll figure out the rest which I I actually love. I think that that's totally right. I mean,

here's the thing that I thought a lot about. I am a DAU a I love chat GBT. I love that product. There are things some things I would personally do differently, but like I love that

product. Remember this conversation with OpenAI like a year or two ago? Uh oh, now like every you know, we got it. Google's coming in. It's like you use those products and they feel derivative.

product. Remember this conversation with OpenAI like a year or two ago? Uh oh, now like every you know, we got it. Google's coming in. It's like you use those products and they feel derivative.

They feel like someone said, "Uhoh, we got to go like that. Yeah, that's the future. Let's go do that thing too." from an intellectual perspective, but you can feel whether or not you like it or not, you can feel this is a research lab that like decided they were going to make their life's mission to do this a long time ago and now their conviction is building and those intuitions

building for what matters. And I'm not saying that CHBT is going to be the end- all beall or there won't be other things, but I think what would Sam Alman have said, you know, I'm not comparing myself to Sam Alman, but two years ago when it's like, all right, now what? It's a simple product. It's just chat. Google has all the TPUs and it's like why has Chachi PD continued to be the

fastest growing company of all time. What's their moat? So I don't know. Yeah, Vibes is definitely one. I also think there are some systemic things uh about our company that I am excited for in this

new race. Um one is I think the assume you don't know. I think we built so much of our culture and how we build products to build entirely new things which is very different from uh copying or uh you

new race. Um one is I think the assume you don't know. I think we built so much of our culture and how we build products to build entirely new things which is very different from uh copying or uh you

know seeing what's in the market and sort of like uh taking uh taking inspiration perhaps. Um and so I'm excited that we have sort of the machinery and the muscle and the people

and the inspiration to like in this entirely new world figure out what works. Um and then uh I think the second is taste. you know, I think like our Josh and our designers, um, I'm just like blown away by what they come up with on a weekly basis. >> I would also say for the for the every audience, I think there's a there conversations we have a lot internally

that I would be shocked if the perplexity team or whoever else talks about this in the context of the browser, which is when I see things from other companies in this space, and I can

say this because this is where we started too. It's like it's very engineering tech forward. Hey, there's some new computer use model and we're going to go have it do a bunch of tasks

for you and you're gonna like we're going to book that thing for you. And it's like it's it's I we we started that like I get it. I totally get it. What I found is I'm having this like very interesting I was a sociology major and I and I'm sure you've seen this too, Dan, where I I find myself talking to people not in tech. It'll be at like a party on the weekend. and I'll meet

someone somehow it'll come AI will come up to LGBT and almost to a person everyone's like yeah like it's kind of weird I think it's weird I'm kind of feel weird talking about it but like I'm like asking it for advice or like I got its help with this like health thing and like I don't know if it was right but I felt better at the end of it and there people there's like an emotional

intelligence to these models that because of the origins of what the research labs and the sorts of people that are at the forefront right now that are more driven I think by the

benchmarks and and the and the raw IQ which again is is spectacular. We're we're really excited about going back to this home on the internet like okay if we have if we know what you do every day

personally professionally and these models are can be subjective and think and give advice and joke at least give the perception of it brainstorm what are things you can do at the intersection of yes you got it you have a job you don't want a browser that's your therapist no one wants that that's not what I'm saying but actually I think okay when you think about the tasks and the

workflows that have high economic value that you get paid for that are on your to-do list there's a component that's clicking buttons for sure and we should click those buttons for you. But the

hard part about it is not checking out. That's a minor nuisance that yes, computers should solve and are on their way to solving. The thing is, all right, I'm going upstate with my family to where you guys are at the end of August. Which town do I go to? Which one would we like? What's kid-friendly? Like we don't really want something fancy fancy, but also like I'm kind of like don't

want to sleep in a tent, you know, for this vacation. And those kind of qualitative subjective reasoning in our opinion is actually where a lot of the like if the value is going to keep going up the stack in like Maslo's hierarchy I guess is another way to say it. So if we're just going to assume we have this like cheap intelligence commoditized across models

accessible can click buttons can do things for you that's important but where's the value going to be then? I think it's going to keep moving up to some of this more emotional intelligence stuff. And so I I'd be surprised if the other AI browsers have that so central to their northstar versus the like you're going to have these agents that are going to go do these things for you.

stuff. And so I I'd be surprised if the other AI browsers have that so central to their northstar versus the like you're going to have these agents that are going to go do these things for you.

And that that's important, but it's TAS is missing the force for the trees a little bit. On that sort of like emotional intelligence and sociology point, I had Nash on this podcast maybe

a year ago, who's your head of storytelling, who is incredible. And one of the things that I really loved about her perspective, which I assume Josh, you you share in in this approach is we

were talking about how she how you guys came up with like the laptop class and how you think about marketing and it was very like well I was like listening to this like Janice Joplain record and I

was thinking about like that era of of music and um and the social change that was happening and um so it was very kind of rooted in what are what are historical examples of of of moments

that are kind of like this, but also thinking about um moments in technology and um music and art as being part of a conversation and being the next turn in a conversation. One thing that I know is

true about your approach is you're always taking inspiration from really diverse weird interesting artistic sources to help inform the product direction and how you think about

things. and I'm curious what those are right now for um DIA and for the features that you're thinking about building. >> Yeah, I think you're right that we've always drawn inspiration as much from

things. and I'm curious what those are right now for um DIA and for the features that you're thinking about building. >> Yeah, I think you're right that we've always drawn inspiration as much from

places and moments outside of technology industry and today um one of the things that's interesting at the time we're recording this podcast is I think just like every week it feels like there's new breakthroughs in the AI space from a technology perspective. I feel like our own intuition and understanding is and conception of what we have in front of us is changing as well. But I'd say the

things on my mind right now, I'm going on vacation next week. So, what am I going to read about and think about? I had this conversation with uh my closest friend, my Dan Shipper, uh best man in my wedding, who is just he's not in tech, but he's always been the one that was like, "Hey, this Snapchat thing is going to be huge." So, if I ever started a VC fund, like I'm hiring this guy just

to be like the the mystic soothsayer. And he was the first one again not a tech industry guy that was like there's not a thing in my life I do Josh that is an important project for work or my

personal life that I'm not working with AI getting advice I forget the word he use advice collaborating with so to what I said before that feels like the profound shift in the world

that I see outside of the industry is happening and so that sort of new relationship with technology and with this intelligence makes me want to read about uh honestly romanticism. I wish I

could go back to college and like I you know yeah my my um someone I work with Abby uh actually dropped a bunch of books on my desk for this vacation with little notes. They're all romanticism related and what I should what chapters I should look at. So, I'm really excited to understand how in the past what that when when your relationship changed with

technology and even what it was and what was possible, how did society and art and culture react? And then the second thing I'm really excited to spend more time thinking about are what are the

objects or places in your life that given the centrality that importance if you're doing every every project in your personal professional life how do you build uh comfort a sense of safety in

those spaces even when maybe there aren't as comfortable as you wish they were or not as safe as you wish they were how do they feel like yours? How do they, you know, this is really squishy

stuff to some, but um, you know, I I played the, uh, percussions and drums growing up and I remember, you know, I got a really cheap drum set. I was a kid and at some point I was like considering

getting a new one, but it was like, man, the way that you wear in the snare and like again, I know this sounds kind of like or as a baseball player, like the mitt, I think these those sort of references are a little overdone, honestly. So, I'm excited to go like a click deeper on that. Um, you know, I picked up Christopher Alexander as like stereotypical as it is like I'm gonna go

I'm going back to Christopher Alexander. So to me that that is going to be whether it's us or someone else. I want a time stamp in 24 months. I predict that the AI interface that people feel

the deepest affinity and value from will be the one that they actually have the deepest kind of emotional connection to. and not in a way that they're like having with the bot or anything like

that. Um, but actually just from the perspective of this like intangible feeling in the same way I guess you know iPhone versus the Android at this point there's not a good reason. I don't know.

that. Um, but actually just from the perspective of this like intangible feeling in the same way I guess you know iPhone versus the Android at this point there's not a good reason. I don't know.

So anyways, you can kind of hear the answers kind of all over the place but that's honestly how we kind of do it at the browser company. >> I think this is great. I mean, I'm very

very also into romanticism and and for people who are who are uh listening and they're like romance novels. Um it's uh the reason I like romanticism and I think it's relevant and I'm curious what

your take is is like um romanticism was a movement in the 19th century that was a response to um enlightenment rationalism basically from the 17th and 18th and and 19th centuries where um

physics was so successful that it sort of took over the rest of culture and it we can still sort of see that in in a lot of ways but starting with you know Galileo and Newton And um that that re

revolution um there was a push to reduce everything in our life and our experience to things that we could explain in physics more or less um which is still the case. And romanticism was a

19th century movement to be like actually there's a lot about human experience that is more like vi vibes based >> intangible >> um intangible and that that's actually

like one of the best parts of of human experience. And so there's a lot of um art and and work uh from from that period in Europe and in the United States that are um that that touches on

that. And I think language models are a weirdly romantic coded technology because um they are so squishy. It's the first example of software we've ever had that you can't reduce to like rules in

that. And I think language models are a weirdly romantic coded technology because um they are so squishy. It's the first example of software we've ever had that you can't reduce to like rules in

the same way that you can regular software. Um and you have to work with on on vibes. And I think that's a huge shift for software and for culture generally >> and and does it sound familiar? You

know, if you if someone was listening to what you just described, it sort of describes the world today in a lot of ways. And it's one of the things I still feel a lovehate relationship with this

kind of AI industry if you want to call it. It's extremely rational, extremely mechanical, extremely the benchmarks and the capabilities. But, you know, reviewing these on every you can you can

see the sweet benchmark and then you can feel it and there's a difference there. Um, and then it's also I think very relevant in terms of the like there's what it can like intellectually do and

how powerful it is, but what do you want? I think that's what we're going to be grappling with as a society in the next five years is these sort of like almost things that sound philosophical or like you should be in university talking about them. But I think it's going to be really important again for us for the first time in a long time like what what do we want from this

life? And I know when I've heard podcasts and people talk about that, I'm like, "Oh my god, I got to turn this thing off." So hopefully people don't stop listening right now. But I I will

life? And I know when I've heard podcasts and people talk about that, I'm like, "Oh my god, I got to turn this thing off." So hopefully people don't stop listening right now. But I I will

say I it I would encourage people even if you're just going to Chachi BT or de or whatever like do a couple queries about romanticism and find and replace some of the nouns with where we are

today. And to me when Abby kind of reminded me of this. It just was I can't unsee it. Um so I'm excited. I'm going to do like a romanticism 101 class uh for the next week in the mountains. And

today. And to me when Abby kind of reminded me of this. It just was I can't unsee it. Um so I'm excited. I'm going to do like a romanticism 101 class uh for the next week in the mountains. And

you know, sorry for everyone that are all hands the Monday I get back. You're going to get like a a lecture about, you know, awe and magic or >> I love it. If you if you want to >> maybe that's what our every essay should be about. Maybe we run a romanticism essay. >> That would be great. >> I love that idea. >> How would that um well Josh H, this is

amazing. Thank you so much for for coming on and talking to us. Um and good luck with Dia. We are we're so back. >> We're back. >> We're so Thank you for having us.

amazing. Thank you so much for for coming on and talking to us. Um and good luck with Dia. We are we're so back. >> We're back. >> We're so Thank you for having us.

>> We're back. Thanks for having us, Dan.

>> Oh my gosh, folks, you absolutely, positively have to smash that like button and subscribe to AI and I. Why? Because this show is the epitome of awesomeness. It's like finding a

treasure chest in your backyard, but instead of gold, it's filled with pure, unadulterated knowledge bombs about chat GPT. Every episode is a roller coaster of emotions, insights, and laughter that

will leave you on the edge of your seat, craving for more. It's not just a show, it's a journey into the future with Dan Shipper as the captain of the spaceship.

So, do yourself a favor, hit like, smash subscribe, and strap in for the ride of your life. And now, without any further ado, let me just say, Dan, I'm absolutely hopelessly in love with you.