How we restructured Airtable’s entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)
Howie Liu is the co-founder and CEO of Airtable, the no-code platform valued at around $12 billion. After a viral tweet declared “Airtable is dead” based on incorrect data, Howie led a radical transformation: reorganizing the entire company around AI, becoming an “IC CEO” who codes daily, and achieving over $100 million in free cash flow.
What you’ll learn:
- The “fast thinking” vs. “slow thinking” team structure that lets Airtable ship AI features weekly (inspired by Daniel Kahneman)
- Why Howie uses AI hourly (not daily) and is Airtable’s #1 inference-cost user globally
- Why CEOs must become ICs again in the AI era (and how to restructure your calendar to make it possible)
- Why “playing” with AI tools should be mandatory—Howie tells employees to cancel all meetings for a week to experiment
- The specific skills product managers, engineers, and designers need to develop to succeed in the AI era
- Why evals can kill innovation (and when to use “vibes” instead)
—
Brought to you by:
LucidLink—Real-time cloud storage for teams
DX—The developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers
Claude.ai—The AI for problem solvers and enterprise
—
Where to find Howie Liu
- X: https://x.com/howietl
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howieliu/
- Email: howie@airtable.com
—
Where to find Lenny:
- Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
- X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
—
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Howie Liu and Airtable
(04:05) The “Airtable is dead” viral tweet controversy
(08:07) The rise of IC CEOs
(10:57) AI’s paradigm shift in product development
(16:27) Specific changes Airtable has made
(21:38) Fast- and slow-thinking teams
(32:57) The emergence of new form factors in AI models
(34:48) Airtable’s vision and philosophy
(40:20) Empowering teams with AI tools
(46:50) Encouraging experimentation and play
(50:55) Cross-functional skills in product teams
(01:03:35) The importance of evals and open-ended testing
(01:08:06) Key strategies for AI-driven success
(01:12:43) Counterintuitive startup wisdom
(01:22:21) Don't step away from the details that you love
(01:25:50) Advice for aspiring engineers and designers
(01:30:00) Lightning round and final thoughts
—
Referenced:
- Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/
- All In podcast: https://allin.com/
- Nikita Bier on X: https://x.com/nikitabier
- Figma: https://www.figma.com/
- The AI-native startup: 5 products, 7-figure revenue, 100% AI-written code | Dan Shipper (co-founder and CEO of Every): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-every-dan-shipper
- Every: https://every.to/
- Cursor: https://cursor.com/
- The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell
- Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/
- Building a magical AI code editor used by over 1 million developers in four months: The untold story of Windsurf | Varun Mohan (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-untold-story-of-windsurf-varun-mohan
- Rippling: https://www.rippling.com/
- Omni: https://www.airtable.com/lp/ai-psu-plp
- How ChatGPT accidentally became the fastest-growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-turley
- Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/
- Harvey: https://www.harvey.ai/
- v0: https://v0.dev/
- Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch
- Replit: https://replit.com/
- Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masa
