How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Jump to the best parts:

• (08:07) → CEOs should become “IC CEOs”— leaders who roll up their sleeves and engage directly with building, coding, and experimenting

• (21:38) → Airtable reorganized into two groups: a fast-thinking AI platform team shipping bold, weekly product releases, and a slow-thinking group making deliberate, long-term infrastructure bets

• (40:20) → Why Howie urges PMs, engineers, and designers to play with AI products daily, not just read about them

🎧 Prefer audio? Apple → | Spotify →

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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)

Where to find Howie Liu

• X: https://x.com/howietl

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howieliu/

• Email: [email protected]

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-masad

• Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

• Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika

• Runway Game Worlds: https://play.runwayml.com/login

• Sesame: https://www.sesame.com

• NotebookLM: https://notebooklm.google

• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com

• Andrew Ofstad on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aofstad/

• Stripe: https://stripe.com/

• Eames chair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eames_Lounge_Chair

• OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai

• Anthropic’s CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-cpo-heres-what-comes-next

• IDEO design thinking: https://designthinking.ideo.com/

• Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach

• The Studio on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-studio/umc.cmc.7518algxc4lsoobtsx30dqb52

• Silicon Valley on HBOMax: https://www.hbomax.com/shows/silicon-valley/b4583939-e39f-4b5c-822d-5b6cc186172d

• Self Edge: https://www.selfedge.com/

• Studio D’Artisan: https://www.selfedge.com/studio-dartisan

• Whitesville T-shirt: https://store.toyo-enterprise.co.jp/shopbrand/ct48/

• Guest Series | Dr. Paul Conti: How to Understand & Assess Your Mental Health: https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/guest-series-dr-paul-conti-how-to-understand-and-assess-your-mental-health

Recommended books:

• Thinking, Fast and Slow: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555

• The Three-Body Problem: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Body-Problem-Cixin-Liu/dp/0765382032

• Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic: How Trauma Works and How We Can Heal From It: https://us.amazon.com/Trauma-Invisible-Epidemic-Works-Heal/dp/1683647351/

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

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My biggest takeaways from this conversation: