Inside the AI startup frenzy: ‘Everyone’s pivoting, then pivoting again’
On this episode of Decoder, Ellis Hamburger — former journalist at The Verge, early Snap employee, and founder of the brand strategy studio Meaning — joins guest host Alex Heath to share why many AI founders are missing the bigger picture.
Links:
Meaning | Ellis Hamburger
Social media is doomed to die | Verge
I used the ‘cheat on everything’ AI tool and it didn’t help me cheat on anything | Verge
Hideo Kojima sees Death Stranding 2 as a cautionary tale | Verge
Apple heard your complaints about the Liquid Glass | Verge
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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Are AI Browsers the Future with Josh Miller
Here we have it! This is the full interview with Josh Miller of The Browser Company where Marques, Andrew, and David ask him about Arc, Dia, and the future of browsers in general. Enjoy!
Music provided by Epidemic Sound
Shop the merch:
https://shop.mkbhd.com
Social:
Waveform Threads: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast
Waveform Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waveformpodcast/?hl=en
Hosts:
Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd
Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli
David: https://www.threads.net/@davidimel
Adam: https://www.threads.net/@parmesanpapi17
Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin
TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast
Join the Discord:
https://discord.gg/mkbhd
Music by 20syl:
https://bit.ly/2S53xlC
Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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Is This Really the Chrome Killer?
This week, Marques, Andrew, and David discuss some of the big news of the week including One UI betas, a new Dyson vacuum that Andrew is hyped about, and a Pixel 10 leak (shocker). After that, they chat with Josh Miller from The Browser Company about what is going on with the the AI browser wars, what's really going on with Arc, and what does the future of the new Dia browser look like. Then they wrap it all up with trivia and the Crown and Clowns of the month. It's a long one but we learned a lot and we hope you will too. Enjoy!
Vox Media survey!
Links:
Verge - Samsung One UI 8 Beta
Dyson vacuum announcement
Tom's Guide - Apple to launch dedicated gaming app
MacHash - Mobile gaming on iPhones
PhoneArena - Pixel 10 leak
The Browser Company - Dia browser
Climate Town x Waveform Episode
K.A.E Sports Talk
Music provided by Epidemic Sound
Shop the merch:
https://shop.mkbhd.com
Social:
Waveform Threads: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast
Waveform Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waveformpodcast/?hl=en
Hosts:
Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd
Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli
David: https://www.threads.net/@davidimel
Adam: https://www.threads.net/@parmesanpapi17
Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin
TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast
Join the Discord:
https://discord.gg/mkbhd
Music by 20syl:
https://bit.ly/2S53xlC
Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Arc creator Josh Miller on why you need a better browser than Chrome
Today, I’m talking with Josh Miller, co-founder and CEO of The Browser Company, a relatively new software maker that develops the Arc browser. The company also has a mobile app called Arc Search that does AI summaries of webpages, which puts it right in the middle of a contentious debate in the tech industry around paying web creators for their work.
We’ve been talking about these topics pretty much nonstop for last year here on Decoder. So I was really excited to have Josh on the show to explore why he built Arc, what he hopes it will accomplish, and what might happen to browsers, search engines, and the web itself as these trends evolve.
Links:
Researcher reveals ‘catastrophic’ security flaw in the Arc browser | The Verge
The Arc browser is the Chrome replacement I’ve been waiting for | The Verge
Arc’s mobile browser is here — and it’s not really a web browser at all | The Verge
Arc is getting better bookmarks and search results, all thanks to AI | The Verge
Arc Search combines browser, search engine, and AI into something new | The Verge
Judge rules that Google ‘is a monopolist’ in US antitrust case | The Verge
Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to be Safari’s default search engine | The Verge
One startup's quest to take on Chrome and reinvent the web browser | Protocol
Scenes from a dying web | Platformer
Perplexity’s grand theft AI | The Verge
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/24011410
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Callie Wright. Our supervising producer is Liam James.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Josh Miller on How The Browser Company Started, How to Hire, Arc Search, and Building in Public
Josh Miller is CEO and co-founder of The Browser Company, which is building a new internet browser. He explains why effective hiring requires caring a lot and trusting your taste and why Arc Search, a default mobile browser, could be The Browser Company’s next act.
TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:02:35) Working for Obama
(00:03:55) Giving up 8-figures in Meta stock
(00:08:19) Barack Obama’s favorite web browser
(00:09:02) Why Arc released a mobile browser
(00:10:03) How Josh met Josh Kushner
(00:11:26) Becoming an EIR at Thrive Capital
(00:12:09) How The Browser Company got started
(00:15:51) Why they named it The Browser Company
(00:18:49) Pivoting to consumer when COVID hit
(00:20:37) Leaving Thrive to join as a Co-founder in February 2020
(00:21:05) Why COVID made browsers relevant
(00:22:42) How to hire a great team
(00:25:02) Hiring Josh Lee to edit their videos
(00:26:52) The biggest difference between Josh as a first-time and second-time founder
(00:28:46) Learning to delegate
(00:34:03) Why Thrive gave up double-digit equity back to the founders
(00:40:18) Launching
(00:40:52) Why build a web browser
(00:42:17) This history of browsers
(00:43:36) Why they’ve gotten worse over time
(00:50:26) The reasons people use Arc
(00:53:23) How Arc will make money
(00:56:45) Why Arc’s existential question is getting people to care about their browser
(00:59:47) The story behind Arc Search
(01:00:45) Arc’s potential growth flywheel
(01:09:17) Why Arc bet big on building in public on YouTube
(01:10:16) The publisher backlash to Arc Search
(01:11:33) Why praising your team publicly is so important
(01:13:39) How Josh hired Nate Parrott
More on The Browser Company:
https://thebrowser.company/
https://arc.net/https://
www.youtube.com/c/TheBrowserCompany
Where to find Josh:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshm
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-miller-b31259106
Where to find Turner:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/
Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
How AI will change phones — and the whole internet
Today on the flagship podcast of anti-glare coatings:
03:58 - Josh Miller, CEO The Browser Company, joins the show to chat about the Arc Search mobile browser.
Arc Search: a new iPhone app combining browser, search, and AI
The Arc browser is the Chrome replacement I've been waiting for
48:34 - Allison Johnson shares her review of the flagship Samsung Galaxy S24 phones.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review: all that and AI
Samsung Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus review: smart choices
1:18:54- David Pierce answers a question from The Vergecast Hotline about the Apple Vision Pro.
Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not
Meta’s Quest headsets add spatial video and pinch controls to compete with Vision Pr
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Is Social Media Doomed To Die? — With Ellis Hamburger
Ellis Hamburger is Snap's ex-head of marketing strategy, where he spent seven years before moving to The Browser Company. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss his view on why social media apps inevitably move from differentiated, and at times delightful, to something where all of them look a lot like TikTok. Hamburger breaks down the cycle: start with a novel format, scale, try to justify expectations, and then capitulate to market forces. Join us for an insider's perspective on the past, present, and future of social media.
---
You can read Hamburger's article here.
Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice.
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Questions? Feedback? Write to: bigtechnologypodcast@gmail.com
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The next gen web browser has no tabs, only spaces
Today’s guests from Browser Co. are software engineer Victoria Kirst and design lead Dustin Senos of The Browser Company
The Browser Company is building a new kind of browser designed to keep users “focused, organized and in control.” Arc, their browser, is “full of big new ideas about how we should interact with the web” and has been called “the best web browser to come out in the last decade.”
For an introduction to and first look at Arc, start with this video. You can also join the waiting list or subscribe to the Substack.
Follow The Browser Company on Twitter.
Connect with Victoria on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Connect with Dustin on LinkedIn or Twitter.
Special thanks to Ellis Hamburger, owner of the best username, for facilitating this terrific conversation with Victoria and Dustin.
Congrats to Lifeboat badge winner Todd for answering How can I name a @Service with multiple names in Spring?.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Competing with giants: An inside look at how The Browser Company builds product | Josh Miller (CEO)
Brought to you by Writer—Generative AI for the enterprise | Dovetail—Bring your customer into every decision | Linear—The new standard for modern software development
—
Josh Miller is the CEO and co-founder of The Browser Company, where he helped build Arc, my go-to web browser. In today’s episode, we get an inside look at the unique structure and values of The Browser Company and how their company culture has helped them land some of the best talent in tech. Josh shares ways that his company embraces experimentation, including their “optimizing for feelings” approach to building, and explains why extreme transparency is at the forefront of everything they do.
Special invite link to skip the waitlist: https://arc.net/gift/lenny
Where to find Josh Miller:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshm
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-miller-b31259106/
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
Referenced:
• Early access to Arc: https://arc.net/gift/lenny
• The Browser Company: https://thebrowser.company/
• Arc: https://arc.net/
• Hursh Agrawal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hurshagrawal/
• Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/
• Scott Belsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottbelsky/
• Notes on Roadtrips: https://thebrowser.company/values/
• Shahed Khan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/_shahedk
• Paper by FiftyThree: https://www.hellobrio.com/blog/digital-drawing-paper-fiftythree
• Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/
• Peter Vidani on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pter
• The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/
• Ellis Hamburger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellishamburger/
• Airbnb’s Snow White project: https://uxdesign.cc/how-airbnb-proved-that-storytelling-is-the-most-important-skill-in-design-15d04ac71039
• General Magic: https://www.generalmagicthemovie.com/
• Linear: https://linear.app/
• Raycast: https://www.raycast.com/
• Cron: https://cron.com/
• Thrive Capital: https://thrivecap.com/
• Tuple: https://tuple.app/
• Figma: https://www.figma.com/
• Harold and the Purple Crayon: https://www.amazon.com/Harold-Purple-Crayon-Crockett-Johnson/dp/0062086529
• Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Forgetting-Name-Thing-Sees/dp/0520256093/
• God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State: https://www.amazon.com/God-Save-Texas-Journey-State/dp/0525520104
• The Last of Us on HBO: https://www.hbo.com/the-last-of-us
• Adam Curtis documentaries on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLStWlBRkr0N_aYjPmbrrjm_rsstpkUBLc
• Notion: https://www.notion.so/
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Josh’s background
(03:56) Arc and the metrics they use to track growth
(04:42) Arc’s retention numbers
(08:22) Josh’s product-building philosophy and why he believes in optimizing for feelings
(18:57) How The Browser Company’s values create a culture that allows them to ship so quickly
(22:46) The “Notes on Roadtrips” doc about values
(27:48) How Josh is able to hire such amazing talent
(37:29) The good and bad of building in public
(45:16) Some of the odd teams at The Browser Company and why Josh calls it a prototype-driven culture
(46:01) The membership team
(48:07) The storytelling team
(52:00) Why The Browser Company doesn’t have traditional PMs
(54:07) A case for adding PMs
(57:32) The role of data, even in a company that optimizes for feelings
(58:30) Airbnb’s Snow White project
(1:02:14) How impactful moments in Josh’s life influenced values at The Browser Company
(1:03:08) How the film General Magic has inspired Josh
(1:04:32) The value of novel names
(1:06:50) Why The Browser Company’s approach works for Arc
(1:12:47) Why you need to nail latency and why Josh loves Tupl
(1:14:33) The shift to cloud computing and the ultimate vision at The Browser Company
(1:23:15) Lightning round
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Supper Club × Arc Browser with Hursh Agrawal
In this supper club episode of Syntax, Wes and Scott talk with Hursh Agrawal of The Browser Company about Scott’s favorite browser, Arc. How do you make a browser in 2022? Will there be a Windows version? And who is the target market for Arc?
FireHydrant - Sponsor Incidents are hard. Managing them shouldn’t be. FireHydrant makes it easy for anyone in your organization to respond to incidents efficiently and consistently. Intuitive, guided workflows provide turn-by-turn navigation for incident response, while thoughtful prompts and powerful integrations capture all of your incident data to drive useful retros and actionable analytics.
Gatsby - Sponsor Today’s episode was sponsored by Gatsby, the fastest frontend for the headless web. Gatsby is the framework of choice for content-rich sites backed by a headless CMS as its GraphQL data layer makes it straightforward to source website content from anywhere. Gatsby’s opinionated, React-based framework makes the hardest parts of building a performant website simpler. Visit Gatsby.dev/Syntax to get your first Gatsby site up in minutes and experience the speed. ⚡️
Auth0 - Sponsor Auth0 is the easiest way for developers to add authentication and secure their applications. They provides features like user management, multi-factor authentication, and you can even enable users to login with device biometrics with something like their fingerprint. Not to mention, Auth0 has SDKs for your favorite frameworks like React, Next.js, and Node/Express. Make sure to sign up for a free account and give Auth0 a try with the link below. https://a0.to/syntax
Show Notes 00:34 Welcome
HurshAgrawal.com
@Hursh
02:53 What is Arc and why create another browser?
Arc browser
The browser company
05:36 What is different about Arc?
08:20 Who is the target market for Arc?
09:30 Sponsor: Auth0
10:39 How do you make a browser?
13:38 Will there be a Windows version of Arc?
15:57 Where did the CMD-T functionality come from?
19:27 Sponsor: FireHydrant
20:39 How do you build on top of the Chrome engine?
24:17 How does The Browser Company make money?
27:26 Do you mess with the user agent?
29:05 Why do you require account set up to use Arc?
32:58 Sponsor: Gatsby
33:59 How did you come up with your theming engine?
36:15 Supper Club Questions
Warp
Hacker News
Changelog
Every
Ben Thompson Bundling and Unbundling
42:59 SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ×××
××× SIIIIICK ××× PIIIICKS ××× Jabra speakerphone
Tweet us your tasty treats Scott’s Instagram
LevelUpTutorials Instagram
Wes’ Instagram
Wes’ Twitter
Wes’ Facebook
Scott’s Twitter
Make sure to include @SyntaxFM in your tweets
Product Hunt Radio: Episode 4 w/ Josh Miller & Ben Yoskovitz
Last week Josh Miller (Product, Facebook & Partner, betaworks) and Ben Yoskovitz (VP, Product at GoInstant/Salesforce) joined me, Ryan Hoover, at the Everywhere Else Conference in Memphis, TN. We all happened to be speaking at the event so I thought it would be a great opportunity to pull away into a makeshift studio[1] to chat about products. We talked about the awesome story of 17 year old 4 Snaps creator, Michael Sayman, Snapchat’s big Chat update, and (yes, again) anonymous social apps, Secret and WUT. Listen in. :) [1] Apologies for the embarrassing audio quality. It was the best we could pull together last minute! Products mentioned: - 4 Snaps - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/4-snaps, Michael Sayman's story: http://pando.com/2014/04/30/how-a-florida-kids-stupid-app-saved-his-familys-home-and-landed-him-on-the-main-stage-of-facebooks-f8/ - Snapchat Chat - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/snapchat-chat - Potluck - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/potluck - PhoneTag - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/phonetag - WUT - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/wut - Secret - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/secret - Rumr - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/rumr-app - Interlude - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/interlude - Monument Valley](http://www.producthunt.co/posts/monument-valley-2 - Codacy - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/codacy - Ouija - http://www.producthunt.co/posts/ouija Subscribe on iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/product-hunt/id862714883.