Lightcone · 3 min · Nov 7, 2026

Masad expects agent use to move work into the cloud

Amjad Masad · Co-founder & CEO, Replit

Amjad Masad predicts agent use could scale from one agent to 10,000.

In this episode

22:32 Replit is replacing some $10 million software projects for $250,0006 min
1:53 Replit automated the copy-paste loop between ChatGPT and codePro pick 4 min
14:44 Replit’s infrastructure gave its agent a head start4 min
32:50Masad expects agent use to move work into the cloud3 min
40:13 Masad uses exponential compute trends to predict what comes next4 min
6:18 Replit's original deck proposed learning from coding sessions3 min
20:03 Early users paid $1,000 instead of $100,000 for an app3 min
30:21 Replit advances its strategy through customer-led increments3 min

“our prediction internally is that you go from everyone using one agent to 10 agents, to 100 agents, to 10,000 agents at some point.”

Amjad Masadat 34:16 · Lightcone

Takeaways

He forecasts a rise from one agent to 10,000.
He says a MacBook cannot run that many agents.
He expects work to move from local machines to the cloud.

About this segment

Amjad Masad predicts agent use could scale from one agent to 10,000. Since a MacBook cannot run that many, he expects work to move off local machines and into the cloud.

Amjad Masad is co-founder and CEO of Replit.

Co-founded and leads Replit, a browser-based coding platform letting anyone write and deploy code.

PG
Paul Graham, Host

From “How To Build The Future: Paul Graham & Amjad Masad”, Nov 7, 2026. Watch the full episode

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

33:02
like, you know, Steve Jobs tried to do an iPad in the 80s, you know? Yeah. Because he knew that something like that would be good. Yeah. The technology just wasn't there yet. And so when you read the story of Apple, it was like, oh, the iPhone was totally obvious, especially, you know, after it liked it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if it was so obvious, how come nobody else did it? Right, but it was sort of incremental inside Apple, but for everyone in the world, that was like a totally transformational moment.
33:27
But also, if you know the story of how the iPad happened, or the iPhone, originally they were making this tablet, and he already knew what he wanted. He'd been thinking about this, and so as soon as he saw it, like, okay, this is it. Let's make this, right? And you too, whenever something happens, whenever something happens within a company, it's gonna be something that you've been thinking about for 10 years and be like, okay, this is the thing to build.
33:54
More than other companies though, I think you guys have been living in the future, right? Don't you think that's true? I think that's true, yes. That's almost, if you had to say like, what's the real DNA of Replit? It is living in the future, for sure. More even than AI specifically. It's often frustrating. Like, I think that- Because stuff doesn't work. Well, stuff doesn't work, and people change so slowly.
34:20
So, for example, cloud developments. Are people convinced about that now? Not yet. Still, how are they going to use AI? It's crazy, exactly. So, our prediction internally is that you go from everyone using one agent to 10 agents, to 100 agents, to 10,000 agents at some point. You can't run 10,000 agents on your MacBook. It's like there's no way you can do it. Yeah, Robert proved that back in the 1980s.
34:45
Yes. So eventually we're going to get away from local work in general. But there's like the people still predominantly do work on their desktop. Maybe this is what will finally convince them. Yes. Right. That stuff has to live in the cloud. Yeah. But it's also fun. I think it is, you know, working at Replet just ends up being a sort of a weird set of existence. Like you go into this company and you're like, oh, my God, I'm seeing it.
35:16
Well, the weird thing is you know what everyone's future is going to be like.