Today we live in the era of Microsoft DOSs um interfaces for AI and there will be something more very visually um enticing something gooey based think of it as there was Microsoft DOSs and then Windows or Mac OS appeared so there will be a different I I' I'd almost [music]
say operating system a different interface layer on top of AI that will allow people to use all software not just apps but also AI models in this completely new different >> [music] >> Welcome to Access the Tech Industries inside conversation part of the Vox Media podcast network. I'm your host
I'm your host Ellis Hamburger here with my co-host Alex Heath.
And today we've got Eugenia Kua, the founder and CEO of Wabby, a new app for building apps. Apps inside your apps.
>> Apps inside your apps.
one of my favorite most thoughtful founders and we jammed a little bit on the Wabby launch which we go into a bit but I just feel like she has an ethos for what she's building that a lot of founders don't have. You know what I mean? >> Yeah, she's got cred.
What did she do before this?
>> She created Replica which was like the OG AI chat companion app.
I think they definitely treaded into the romance territory a lot faster than many others did.
Now 10, 15 years later, Elon Musk is trying to build your new AI date or side piece.
How how how would you describe it?
It's becoming mainstream finally.
She's ahead of the curve.
[laughter] >> Elon's going in a totally different direction, I think. Um yeah.
No, uh she's uh very interesting.
Like I I Replica was a very interesting company when it launched and it still has a ton of users.
I think it has millions of users just flies a little more under the radar relative to like character and chatbt obviously but yeah definitely an OG in the AI space and WAB is a super interesting product.
Did you work on this manifesto that they put out? >> Yes, we did. Uh my bread and butter. You actually liked it. >> I do like it.
I like the play on like the there's an app for that and you know personalized software and all that.
I mean it's a theme we've been having on this show really since we launched is this idea of personalized software. >> Yeah.
It's kind of funny because every single founder I've ever worked with and ever will work with wants to make their own think different or Apple 1984 ad or maybe like subvert it or riff on it in some way and it almost never works.
But this was the kind of occasion where pushing off of app for that to do an app for you >> actually made some sense cuz there's a real tension there assuming that Apple doesn't uh cancel them before they can >> they can get off the ground.
But I guess there's some new rules that that she's privy to that they're following.
And so yeah, she seems confident they're going to be okay. >> Yeah.
Before we get into that, everything else good with you.
Did you have a good weekend?
>> Yeah, you know, uh kids sick again, getting me sick again. Round and round it goes.
Uh, I've been playing the new Final Fantasy Tactics game >> for Switch.
Leveling up my mages when I have 18 minutes of toilet time in privacy.
Makes you think about your life like an RPG in some ways.
Like, I think I'm going to I think I'm going to level up my podcast skills with this new microphone.
Did you ever think about your life that way?
I I don't know if if you were ever a gamer. >> Absolutely.
>> What are you What are you leveling up at the moment?
Uh, well, I haven't had time to game.
I would say the last game I played all the way through was The Last Zelda on Switch, the sequel.
Um, those two games are my favorite games. >> Yeah.
That I've played as an adult.
Those are my favorite games by far.
Uh, and definitely like had a lot of dreams about those games when I was playing them a lot.
But I haven't in a while.
I've been so still heads down in just like a new media startup mode, man.
Um, going to New York next week.
going to have a sources launch party with the fine folks at Human Ventures. Wish you could come.
We will uh >> human or human. >> Human human ventures.
>> Kind of like Humid Ventures.
[laughter] >> Human Ventures. Uh no, they're great.
It's going to be a great group.
Uh pretty like interesting mix of media and tech folks.
And um we're going to have poker too, so that'll be fun.
Um >> are you plugging this?
Are invites open or is this a VIP thing?
I mean, I didn't hear about it, so I guess it's pretty exclusive.
>> I knew you were going to be in New York, man.
Uh, if you can text me, you can still come.
So, if you have my number, reach out if you're going to be in New York.
Um, but we are pretty much at capacity, which was awesome.
I spent a lot of time this week with the new leadership team for GitHub at Microsoft.
So, keeping with our vibe coding theme, uh, interviewed their new head of GitHub for sources.
news, uh, will have been out by the time this drops.
um and about how they're thinking about the uh AI kind of developer ecosystem.
So, if you're interested in that stuff, check it out.
And uh had a pretty big scoop about Snap uh actually last week and >> Oh yeah, we got to talk about that.
>> Yeah, we can just talk about real quickly just uh man Evans out there looking for some money for for specs.
>> Snaps ties in the Middle East deepen.
>> Well, I think the most interesting thing is this idea of making specs like Whimo.
also positioning it as this subsidiary that could be funded with outside investors like a alphabet style other bet.
Uh basically >> I think the most interesting part is not that but the original pictures of uh Snap CEO Evan Spiegel uh participating in falconry with the Saudi crown prince.
>> Oh well that's what you do when you go out there. They love falconry.
[laughter] You don't know that's that's like a right of passage when you're when you're visiting uh the the royal family.
speaking from experience.
>> Uh, you know, no comment, but um [laughter] but no uh yeah, just if you're into this AR glasses, you know, um uh race and you know, we talked about it with Samir last week.
Check that scoop out about Snap's glasses plans and how they're restructuring. But, uh yeah.
>> Yeah, that was a good scoop, Alex. >> Thank you. Thank you. I'll try.
>> Give yourself a little pat on the back for that one. >> Yeah. No, thank you.
I feel like, you know, it's one thing when you're at a website like The Verge and you see traffic bumps when you get scoops and whatnot.
I mean, how's that been so far with with the newsletter?
>> It's subscriber bumps or >> Yeah.
I mean, it's the thing that converts, you know, it's the thing that converts someone to paid.
Um, it's pretty easy to get free, you know, high churn, low engagement users, right?
Um, with like a sign up, you know, chum box.
But the thing that really builds your subscriber base is information people can't get anywhere else.
you know, whether it's like an interview or a scoop.
And I've known that just working behind pay walls for much of my career that that's how it works.
So, everything I'm doing right now with sources is like it I'm trying to keep the quality bar really high and it'd be something you can't get anywhere else.
And um it works if they cite you, right?
I know they don't they don't all and then you get a little mad on Twitter, which I always like to see. >> Oh, well, yeah.
That's just, you know, that's just inside journalism baseball stuff.
But yeah, people people know who know when they're not linking and I love to prod them.
>> Is there any is there any person or publication that has cited you the least >> relatively? How deliberate is it?
>> There's a couple I'd have to go back and count. Um it's very deliberate.
>> There's some like make it a practice like what is it like the New York Times like deliberate?
>> The New York Times has actually gotten a lot better.
They used to be really bad about linking out but they've gotten a lot better.
Um, it's actually um some of the more digital first publications that are increasingly petty about this stuff.
I I don't know if it's wise for me to name names.
I'm not trying to like get into another um another minefield there, but uh I'll keep uh subtly jabbing at at vague people that they know who they are on social [laughter] media. Uh but yeah, man.
No, otherwise things are good.
Excited for this convo with Eugenia. >> Awesome.
Let's kick it to Eugenia.
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[music] Eugenia Kuida, my friend and collaborator. Welcome to the show. >> Hey, Jennio. Nice to meet you. >> Hi, Alex.
Nell, it's still good to uh see her.
>> How does it feel to be doing a podcast when you should probably be preparing launch materials for your public launch next week?
>> Well, it feels pretty hectic.
We're really uh we've just been heads down and it's a little bit tough because I'm used to just building one app and now I feel like we're building an app that builds a million apps.
So, it feels like we're launching, I don't know, a million different apps, which is exponentially harder than just one app because now everything can go wrong.
Like every single uh there like basically gazillion bugs that could happen.
>> I was going to say that's a lot of bugs and a lot of app store guidelines to follow when you have apps inside of apps.
>> That is true, but there are many apps.
They're not really big apps.
So, you know, for for the app store, uh the app store has a curveout for many apps and with Wabby, you cannot use them outside of our platform.
>> She's saying this to the app review gods right now in Certino. It's many apps. It's mini apps. >> I'm I'm trying. I'm trying.
I'm a little You know, >> they are the gods.
They are the arbiters of truth as we've had it for uh how many years now?
Like literally two decades.
And um yeah, I think that's like one of my favorite parts of your teaser website that you just went up with and we should get into Wabby and your history with replica when we were together.
I just love that line we came up with like not there's an app for that but there's an app for you and I think that came from an insight that like you had.
Can you tell us about the origin of this thing?
Like like all of us I have a gazillion apps on my um iPhone and for most of them I just forget what what they are.
I use maybe 10 uh daily or weekly and then the rest is just basically a graveyard of forgotten apps.
Uh some of them char still charge me.
Some of them I don't even know what they do.
Um and so it felt like today when you can spin up an app so quickly with AI using any of the you know existing tools.
Why can't I just kind of use apps like that versus like I have to go to the app store and so find something and it's all one sizefits-all.
it's all trying to get me through this kind of onboarding that tries to influence me to pay and then forget to cancel and this and that and really relying on all these dark patterns.
So, it felt like there should be um a new platform, a new platform where people are creating apps uh quickly sharing with other people, other people are discovering apps, maybe remixing them and so on so on so on.
Um it does feel that all of our lives are pretty unique um and problems are pretty unique.
There there are definitely a lot of common issues but still we have very unique uh preferences and it just feels like we need specific solutions for our specific problems uh throughout the day.
>> Well, I have a specific problem and this morning I made an app on Wabby called how many poops and here's what it does.
The pediatrician always wants to know, as you know, Eugenia, how many times your your baby pooped, or as as I prefer to call them, BMS for bowel movements.
And I'm like, this does not deserve Burning Man.
[laughter] >> Not this time. Not this time.
And so all it does is it has one button and I'm like, I also want average poops per day.
And I hit go and I closed out Wobbby.
And then 5 minutes later, it was done.
And it's got like nice little icons and everything.
And I'm like, "Yeah, this does not deserve to be an entire venture-backed product, but it does deserve to to exist for me."
So, uh, thank you for that.
And I mean, there are so many alternatives when you're a parent, but they're just filled with constant upsells.
Like, would you like to upgrade to Baby Poop Pro that includes length, girth, and weight tracking of the BMS? >> Sounds helpful.
>> I don't really need that, do I?
And so, yeah, that that definitely appealed to me about your vision is that it's not that you're trying to replace like Airbnb or maybe that is your vision, but for all the little things that we didn't even know could be software every day. Pretty cool. >> Yeah.
Like the other day, I was putting my daughter to sleep and she wants to play puzzles.
Like basically, I just tell her something and she tries to guess what it is.
Um, she wants to also look at pictures and she likes Princess Jasmine and Princess Ela.
So, took me 3 minutes in Wobbby just to make that puzzle app where where I read it out to her and she can look at different pictures and click on them and that's a constant hit.
So, she's learning something and then we made it in Italian because she goes to Italian preschool and now she's also learning Italian and it took us basically 2 minutes.
We were doing it while in bed together.
Um so these are really the uh the use cases and I don't even know whether an app like that exists and looking for one going through on boards trying them out downloading it actually was longer than just building it quickly to my spec on Wabby.
And then I also found out that certain times like for example I've been trying to do weightlifting.
So I'm trying to log log my workouts.
I I've been using um just notes on my iPhone.
Before then, I tried a bunch of different apps.
Again, they did just had so much different functionality that I didn't need or I didn't like how it was working.
So, I built I just built a simple one on Wobby.
And what I like about is that I go to the gym, I work out, and every day I every time I work out, I find something else I want to add to my app.
First, it was just for tracking workouts.
Then I wanted to add um suggestions.
So now it basically creates automatically a workout that I can track based on like progressive overload and based on all my different things that I'm trying to achieve based on on all my goals.
So like every time I go and then I wanted to made it a little bit more minimalist and black and white and then I want to change the app pack and so now it feels like a little almost like a little garden a little project that I continue to work on but it's not really work.
It's literally I'm doing it in between sets.
I don't have anything to do.
So I just add a little prompt in chat and wait how my app is changing and improving all the time and I keep republishing it to the Wii app store.
Um so that why you know other users potentially can use that and I feel there's something about it.
There's really something about having your own very personal software that you're taking care of that you're using it uh constantly improving and all that.
And hopefully just like we really think Wabby could be sort of the the YouTube moment for apps.
Um, and for many people, they won't even be creating anything new.
They will just be discovering, maybe remixing a little bit or just using apps that other people built.
>> Eugene, I love what you're doing because I do think personalized apps are kind of where everything is headed.
At the same time, it feels like Wabby is a little contrarian because if you talk to people at Meta or Google, they will tell you that according to their data, the average person downloads zero new apps per month.
So there's this idea of app saturation where everybody's, you know, got their home screen in order.
Yeah, maybe there's a Sora or something once a year that pops up and, you know, resets things a little bit or gets people to download, but for the most part, people have settled into their rhythms and there's just not a lot of buzz in like the traditional app world anymore.
Um, so I'm curious like, you know, you founded Replica, very successful early chatbot platform.
Um, how did you decide on this idea as what you wanted to do next?
Because I imagine when you started it, it probably felt even a little more contrarian than it does now where you're seeing a lot of vibe coding going into mobile and people realizing that you can actually just make apps on the fly on mobile, not even on desktop. >> So, I'm used to that.
So, when we just when we started replica and in fact we started something that prior to replica which was basically um technology so models to generate dialects.
So conversational tech uh kind of chatbot builder thing but this way and when we started that the the feedback we got from some of the VCs we met was well you got to build it for Google Glass and then maybe we'll >> oh my gosh >> the best because we can't figure out any other use case.
This will never be useful for anything but maybe maybe for Google Glass.
>> Those VCs really know what's coming next, don't they? >> Yeah.
So wise always seeing around corners.
Yeah, they're very, you know, VCs have great insight, but sometimes they just engage in this crazy group thing.
I remember in 2022 once tragic came out, the obsession was like every consu product company needs to raise a gazillion dollars and build their own foundational model because if you don't have your own foundation model, you're basically gone.
You're like, you should be dead.
You're just like some rapper.
You have to have that data flywheel or whatever that meant to train your foundation model.
And all of that was completely wrong.
So all the of course but that was the obsession then.
So sometimes VCs get into this I remember in 2016 it was all about well chat bots are the new apps and now you know because they saw we chat I guess and then like everything needs to be in the chatbot format.
So they were weather apps that you would talk to to get a weather update which was if you think about it pretty crazy but um >> your own personal weatherman >> and same goes to bigger companies.
Sometimes they see the future, but sometimes if you think about the use cases they show sometimes in some of these videos, it's it's always some sort of restaurant reservation use case. Like who has that? Like I don't know.
>> VC I'll tell you who has a lot of dinner reservations. It's VCs.
>> It's always it's some dinner reservation problem.
I'm like I don't have any dinner reservation problems.
I go to restaurants but I also have two toddlers and I don't really have any problem choosing a restaurant.
Of course, our very first product with a replica pre-repplica was a demo of a restaurant recommendation app.
So, I'm of course on myself.
I do remember it was last year of Paul Graham at Y Cominator.
We met him for office hours and he looked at us like, "Sir, you're building what restaurant recommendation app? Who got you in?
I need to go and fire that partner."
And then, of course, he, you know, figured we're building conversational.
And he said, "Just never say, never ever talk about restaurant recommendations. This is awful."
>> [snorts] >> And so going back to your question like why did I decide to to work on this idea?
I was just talking to replica users all the time and I would always ask ask them do you use other AIs?
ask ask them do you use other AIs? do you besides replica and I always thought they'll of course tell me yeah of course I'm using a clot or chup or this or that and oftent times they would tell me that they don't really use other AIs that much and I started to look more into
what people use chip t for of course there are tons of users almost a billion users and uh basically the use cases are pretty much just writing as a writing tool uh search asking general questions and that's sort of that and of course for all of us working in AI we know how much more these AI models can can do. Um, and so we started looking to that
Um, and so we started looking to that and I feel like really it's the problem of the interface.
When you look at a command line, which is what every chatbot, every Chadupti, Gemini, all of them are just these command line interfaces.
When you look at a command line for a regular person, the affordance of that interface is pretty much just that search writing tool or you can talk to it or messenger.
Um and of and and I and I do think there a lot many more use cases are just basically being trapped behind that command line.
Um so we thought of it that today we live in the era of Microsoft DOSs um interfaces like the uh for AI and there will be something more something very visually um enticing something much more exciting interactive something gooey based think of it as there was Microsoft
DOS and then Windows or Mac OS appeared so there will be a different I I' I'd almost say operating system a different interface layer on top of AI that will allow people to use all software, not just apps, but also AI models in this completely new different way. And if you
And if you think about it, right now we talk about separately apps that you download from the app store and separately how we use chip or prompts.
But in reality, it all should be the same.
Like if I'm using chip as a therapist, for example, or a lot of people use it to track calories, I kind of want a specific interface.
I don't want to be doing that in chat.
don't want to be doing that in chat. I want maybe a little app that is fully powered by the same tragic tea or whatever the model of your choice but has a little bit of like what I ate yesterday some trans maybe a streak or whatever you want but you sort of want a
little bit of an interface on top of that you don't just want to be doing that in chat um and so this I think our wave vision I do think combines the use how you use AI models and just the new type of software it all becomes kind of what part of the same operating system. [music]
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[music] One interesting thing you've done is in kind of imposed some type of design system on all the different apps you could generate with Wabby and I think on the one hand it's kind of constraining and maybe can look generic but on the other it's like most vibecoded apps look like How did you make that decision?
How early did you make that decision that you needed to kind of enforce some type of design system with the buttons and icons and all that stuff?
So we actually give a very loose design system to the models.
So they're not being overprompted by that.
So they can still create a very, you know, very they can be very free in what they create.
If you want it to look like the Harry Potter themed app, you can still create that.
But we do create a bunch of components that we show to the models that they can use and then edit.
And the reason being for us the vision was like if this is going to be another place that where you can create tons of very ugly looking similar vibe coded apps with beige oatmeal background and blue buttons.
Uh it's just going to look so boring and awful.
In the end of the day, people do respond to better design.
Uh but they also like but you also have to always balance it with the fact that they want their own thing.
If you ever um go on the subway and you know you sit with a person with an Android phone, you'll see some crazy fonts that people [laughter] choose as customization options.
I iPhone doesn't allow you to do that. >> That's right.
>> But you know, Android does and you know a lot of things there people that just set like Comic Sense as their default font and just live with that and they love it.
Um and nothing bad about it.
Just people want their own >> Who are we to judge, right? >> Who are we to judge? We're not judging.
Just don't bring a comic sands uh deck to Y cominator unless you already have 85,000 followers and then they're like, "Wait, what do they know that we don't know?"
Okay, we're funding them. >> Exactly.
So, I do think and I don't think there's one good taste or whatever.
It's just that there's some taste that's good for a lot of people that people think, oh, this is kind of well produced, but then there's also personalization and people want what they want and you got to give it to them.
you can't just say, well, it's everything is just going to look like this iPhone generic sort of whatever app or some material design app.
So, we tried to find that balance, but I do think there's absolutely I think this is just about to come where we'll see um AI generated apps that look better or just like the best designed apps uh made by humans.
And I think this makes just the usage of these apps a lot more exciting.
Um, if you think about it, but also I would also say that add one more thing to that.
There's, for example, my apps, I make them all black and white, uh, minimal and just kind of very clean just cuz I like it this way.
I'm I have a little bit of OCD.
I want everything to be in its own little container.
So, I like when they're all kind of the same color and there's nothing uh special about them.
If you think about it, I would never launch an app like that on the app store because people it's people are not going to convert. They won't like it. It's too boring.
There's not, you know, it's not some cool dopamine thing.
It's not jumping at them.
But I want my software to be the way I want it.
I don't want it to be whatever dopamine kind of inducing stuff.
That's I I want it this way.
And maybe some other person wants it in a completely different way, colorful or all styled like, you know, Windows 95 style. whatever they want.
Or retro pixelated or crazy, vibrant, eccentric, whatever.
>> I'm one of those dudes who still wants all my apps to be felt, leather, or wood. Is that permitted?
>> Oh, >> you and Scott for stall, buddy. >> That's very wobbby. >> Yo, Scott's the goat.
>> Yeah, >> if we get him on, I would uh be able to retire happily. >> Oh, for sure.
>> Do you know him, Eugenia? >> No.
>> I feel like you know everybody. >> I don't think so. >> We got to get SC. You can work on that.
>> I I want to work on that. Okay.
>> Can people make companionship AIs with Wabby?
Does this tie back into what you were doing before at all? >> They can.
And there's a whole kind of the chat apps is like a big type that you can totally create and do whatever you want.
And in fact, I think this is where Wabby really shines.
Think May therapy app or a companion app.
Uh with Wabby, we wanted to for everyone to be able to see if there's anything AI generated.
You can see the prompts and you can ch choose the model.
It's never something hidden from you.
So if there's any agent flow or any AI flow, you can see the prompts even if it's not your app, change it, do whatever you want to to that.
So, I think it makes this um a really good way to kind of for everyone to own and kind of not have companions that may that maybe have some dark goals.
You can always see what the goal is in the prompt.
You can always change it.
It's like a container for containers, like a sandbox for all these different prompts.
Did you share something the other day that called it like a platform for prompt containers?
I thought that was an interesting way to think about it.
Like there are a lot of prompts that you could ask chat GPT or other AIs, but not only do they not have a UI, but most of these tools don't have ways to save them and reuse them.
>> Yeah, I think one of the uh use cases that for me is very important is people today share prompts.
Uh and how do they do that?
They put it on, you know, text on Reddit or Twitter or threads or whatever and they say this is my perfect prompt to do this and that on Chad and then people have to copy that prompt, paste it into Chad or wherever and then do something with it and that just feels so archaic.
We're dealing with this technology that's pretty much godlike and what we need to do is copy paste some big, you know, text paragraphs and put them somewhere. Uh, this was crazy.
So instead of that, we felt like with Wabby, you can just create a very simple mini app and just to share that.
So the prompt is right there.
You can always find it and change it and see it.
But you don't need to do anything.
You're already presented with the app where you just have to click click click and immediately, you know, do whatever you want to do with that model.
You don't need to go anywhere and copy paste anything.
Uh and so for me that's one of the most exciting use cases because that combines the two big sort of um the two big um things.
One is by coding apps and one is using AI models to talk to them and get something.
So all together it Wabby basically brings both of these use cases together.
How do you treat data in this context then?
Especially if people are going to make, you know, therapy apps with Wabby.
Uh people at least have some semblance of an idea of how their data is used with OpenAI or whatever.
But how how do you treat that with WIB?
>> Well, so I think the only way for uh people to use VIcoded AI therapy apps uh by some other people is to create a platform to create some organizational layer.
Um, and here Wabby takes care of all that. All the data is private.
Of course, we we we already took a bunch of steps with security because it's not our first rodeo and we've we've done it with replica by the way.
Replican 10 years, never been hacked. Knock on wood.
Never had any data leak problems and so on. Here are the same.
We believe this is super critical.
And one of the biggest problems with VIP coded apps, say you created an AI therapy app and you send me a link.
I don't know if I'm going to use it really because first of all, you can see the data and I don't know if you're going to read it or what.
Second of all, you're not a professional app developer. So, I don't know.
Maybe tomorrow something just leaks.
One of the vi famous vibe coded apps, whatever the tea, was that the tea bag? >> Yeah, the tea app.
Yeah, it got taken off the app store recently. >> Oh, it did.
It was VIP coded and it was taking all the sensitive data from women that were sharing basically uh their stories with Yeah.
did review whatever was sex offenders and stuff and then of course all that data got leaked because it was vipcoded not because the person who built it was a bad actor but he didn't know and didn't work on security of that app.
So I believe for vip coding if you're building anything that has to do with any sensitive data of any kind it's almost no one's going to use someone else's vibe coded app where the person is in charge of the database and kind of supporting the app.
There needs to be a platform because we're not thinking, well, you know, if I'm watching YouTube, um, I kind of just agree to YouTube's terms of services.
I'm not like really sending my data or whatever to >> Yeah.
You don't think a certain YouTube video is going to like prompt inject your your Mac or something, right? >> Yeah.
So, you sort of have to have this platform that provides all of that like everything comes with it.
Um, and it also maybe even nothing leaks, but then you just forget to update your whatever payment information on Replet or lovable and your app's just gone and then all my therapy logs are gone.
So that's also not great.
So I feel like without an organizational layer though, people are never going to be using other people's bipoded apps.
That's kind of my big uh without some platform, we're not going to be using, you know, we're not I'm not going to be taking your AI journaling link and starting to keep a very private journal.
Um somewhere somewhere there.
>> What else does that platform include?
Uh are there payments, social graph, what else is kind of added to the SDK if you will uh for each of the vibe coded apps?
So super important thing is on Wabby you can't download any apps you have to only use them there.
So that comes with that's a constraint but it comes with so many benefits.
First of all, data security.
The fact that there's a persistent backend like your data is always there.
You can come back and use it uh a year from now.
It's every all the history is still there.
But it also comes with a bunch of different uh powerups. Call it this way.
Integrations with all sorts of um AI models, image gen models, um voice gen voice uh models and so on.
As well as integrations with all your apps and services.
So you can connect your Gmail, you can build apps on top of Apple Health, on top of um your calendar, on top of your bank account, whatever you want.
You want an app that generates an action figure uh out of your based on your bank account activity. Sure.
You know, it's like whatever you want.
You can come up with really creative ways of of doing things.
>> A broke superhero, >> a a broke.
[laughter] Um so all of that plus of course the social graph.
So you can also see if you think about the app store, it's actually really not social.
So this week we're uh pushing a big social update on the app store.
You can't see what your friends are using, what apps your friends are using or um you know, you can't see comments to any apps.
You can see the reviews, but review is sort of like a >> it's pretty crazy when you think about it that way. >> Yeah. And it's a whole thing.
Instead, on Wabby, you'll be able to like any app you want.
You can see how who is downloading these apps like any of your friends or any of the people you follow downloaded this app and you can see comments.
So apps could create mini apps could become a conversation starter a start for a small community.
Um people can show off what they're creating with different mini apps in comments.
They can also ask the creator for a certain update.
Um and there's also like if I want for this you know for for a new feature in this app I can remix and build myself or I can ask the creator to update it for all of us.
So, it's going to be even more fun.
We can all continue to use it with the community.
Um, and so on, so on [clears throat] so on.
And of course, multiplayer.
So, something else we're working on um now is being able to use all of these apps together with your friends.
Invite invite your best friend, invite your partner, uh, whoever you want to, I don't know, uh, write great grocery lists or packing list.
who will play a little game against each other or come up with movie recommendations for the evening u and so on so on.
>> Are you saying we could do an access super fan wobby app where they can interact with us? That's possible.
>> That is my most interest for for me one of the most exciting use cases is being able to create sort of like a multiplayer app where there uh kind of tons of viewers sort of our content.
So, like you said, where people can interact with the creators and talk to them and stuff like that.
>> Do you guys want to know about the dumbest article I ever wrote?
But that is actually maybe the smartest. >> Yes, >> of course.
>> I wrote an article for The Verge a long time ago about this app called Yo.
>> Do you guys remember that? >> Of course. An article about that. >> You did? >> Yes. >> Wow. You're the goat.
>> I was kind of fascinated by Yo.
This was kind of >> Yeah.
Well, so was I because the idea started with just being able to yo your friends, but then they were talking about adding this developer platform where you could get yo for almost any event, whether it is a sports score or a website update or this or that.
And that sadly uh was just a figment of my imagination.
But now I feel like with Agentic AI and an app platform that allows you to create notifications for whatever you want, I feel like that is finally coming true.
You know, like your bank, for example, only allows you to set up notifications for certain very specific things like, oh, if you have a low, you know, your risk of overdraft or you take out more than $100 from the ATM.
But I feel like there's huge potential there to be able to just set up push notifications for almost anything, right? >> Yeah.
I thought, you know, OpenAI did some cool thing with those tasks.
I was a super user of tasks in the beginning of the year, but they took it out where you could basically just say, run this prompt every day or every week for me or whatever, every month.
And it could be, you know, check in with me about what I'm grateful for, or it could be, show me what to do with my kids over the weekend.
And I don't think people figured it out how to use it in uh chat.
I thought this would have such a strong response but it didn't.
But I was a heavy user and I do believe in that with Wabby again any app you can set up push notifications.
You can make it you know generate content whatever content you want for you every day.
I think this is sort of another big thing.
Um and we also made it transparent so that people can actually change the prompt for the notifications themselves.
So for example, if you have a a workout app, you can create a push notifications that um will be generated in like David Goen's voice for tone of voice, for example, if you want it to or however really you want it um to be generated.
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You talked about this being the YouTube moment for apps.
That to me suggests you're thinking about a YouTube like business model.
Are you thinking like creator revshare on ads or payments down the road?
How are you going to monetize all this?
I know it's a question a founder loves to get asked the week before they launch.
>> I love those questions.
I also love when investors ask for business models.
Um I haven't been asked for one for a long time, but I guess like 10 years ago it was still happening here and there.
Like can you >> is that the ultimate founder bragging right?
I don't get asked for business models anymore. >> Well, no.
>> Well, no. I mean like at pre-launch when you don't even have any like still you still figure it out and then they're like you know create a business model for the next two years or something with like forecasts and um and I went to business school so I I can do that but I
always >> but you're like I don't know I'm going to disrupt the app store I don't know what to tell you trillion dollars sign here >> I just yeah [laughter] it just feels so arbitrary just whatever it's like I just put some numbers in I don't know I guess >> welcome to late stage capitalism. Eugenia, just put some numbers in.
Eugenia, just put some numbers in.
>> Just put some numbers in. Um I don't know.
I It's probably bad to say that out, you know, on a podcast.
I should not say that, but it's okay.
>> I don't know how it could be meaningful for like a preede startup.
>> Oh, just like how do you put a price on something when it launches, right? >> Yeah.
Like how do you assess what's going to be there?
But for Wave I think so with replica we're monetized um and we had very strong revenue growth and for for a while we got really wooed by the you know number goes up.
the you know number goes up. It was very exciting because you can kind of tweak something the product and next month it's like you know AR or whatever it is or revenue goes up and up and up and it's very exciting to work on that but I feel like when you do that sometimes you
lose track of product and sometimes you overoptimize for revenue as with any metric and so with Wabby we felt like this is such a big change in uh user behavior we want to see what happens if we give it out for free for a and only when we figure out when we're really confident about the business model we're going to slap one on. But
But this time around we decided to just focus on engagement, retention and providing something that's really useful for users and also seeing what apps what many apps stick with our users cuz ultimately you can build anything and it's a little bit maybe too vague, too free, too much, too wide and before we know that I feel like coming up with any business model would would be a little bit premature.
Yeah, that makes sense for consumer.
Uh, it's interesting to hear like, yeah, you can make anything.
I guess the the interesting thing about what you're doing is you're building this app platform, many app platform, but you're still constrained by the app stores that you have to be distributed by on mobile phones, right?
So, you can make anything within Apple and Google's content rules for the stores.
I would imagine that's that's what you mean by that.
So, how do you think about that?
Like, it sounds like enforcement of that will be tricky if this is a UGC platform.
Like, there's a lot of weird edge cases.
It's like if Apple takes down like the ice tracking app or whatever like they did recently.
Does that mean Wabby can't have an ice tracking app?
Like there's a lot of interesting moderation questions for a platform like this.
I'm not sure how much you've thought through them, but I'd be curious to hear if you have how you think about that in relation to the the stores that you have to operate in.
>> If you're successful, this could take up 99% of your time.
So, you should develop a plan. >> That is true now. Plan now.
But uh you know we have I have a lot of experience with kind of users safety and all sorts of regulatory things with replica.
It did take a lot of our time there cuz and also we were creating something new and the rules changed all the time and continue to change.
When we started replica it was kind of one situation people were big companies were really scared to even launch any generative AI chatbot.
I don't know if you remember, but for Google and Facebook, they would never launch anything after Microsoft Tai, they were so scared of launching anything that was powered by deep learning models.
>> God, that seems like a million years ago already, doesn't it?
>> Yeah, but they were sitting on those transformer models for so long and they weren't launching anything.
They've had it way before, you know, even OpenAI had, but OpenAI had the guts to put it out there >> and Google just sat, you know, and waited because they were too riskaverse.
And then of course everything changed.
So all I'm trying to say is with replica we saw the landscape change so many times from people just being scared of gender chatbots all together.
It was a big no no for any big core corporation to then kind of being okay with gender chatbots but not being okay with um any romance then to not being okay with any kids using that.
Then now all of a sudden romance is great again.
sudden romance is great again. like it's unclear what's you know what's really now ch you know chedek has erotic features it's very wild I would say and kind of the same companies even not just regulars but companies themselves change
their minds on what's pos what's what's allowed what's not allowed every day and so I think with this new era of vip coding and vipcoded apps AI generated apps um we're about to find out what are the limitations but I wouldn't be surprised guys, if those rules change every like all the time. >> I know. I feel like the the elephant in >> I know.
I feel like the the elephant in the room though, I mean, we've talked a little bit about Apple.
I remember being at Snapchat several years ago and we were trying to build an app platform and there were insane sensitivities and rules from Apple about how you can't you can do it, but it has to be a list view.
It can't be a grid of icons. It can't have this. It can't have that.
What's changed in that department?
I mean, are they are they going to approve you guys?
>> We're past re, you know, some parts of review on the apps already.
Hopefully, yes, there is a mini app carve out which we're kind of uh sitting pretty neatly in.
There are some apps that are already gaining traction that follow a very similar model.
Uh, one of them I'm a huge fan of.
It's called Gizmo and actually I think by people from Snap that Snap Josh and other Snap alum. Yep. >> Great. I love this app.
Um, you know, I really kind of just love the creativity of it.
And I think to a certain degree, it's really following some of that.
It's very close to what we're doing at the end of the day that these mini apps just more on a creative side.
I think the most important thing for us is like you cannot download these apps.
They're not monetized in any way and they're really just think of it like workflows living inside uh Wabby.
There's another popular platform called World Worldcoin.
They have mini apps and I'd say ours is even kind of the most mini app of all mini apps because all of Bobby mini apps you always see the kind of app header.
They always sort of like integrated inside the platform.
You don't really see them without the Wii header.
It's not like there's some app and you feel like you're in you always know.
I think that's an important piece for Apple is where you always know that you're inside some app that you downloaded from the app store in our case Wobbby.
And it's just one little kind of workflow.
>> That's risk containment for Apple. They like that.
>> It's risk containment. >> Yeah. You never know though.
I mean, they do seem to care like what words you use.
It's like, oh, you called it a gizmo. All right.
That's pretty cool of me.
But you called it an app.
It's like, all right, henchmen are banging down your door with the battering ram.
>> We're trying to call them mini apps. So, >> yeah.
Sometimes they'll be like, as long as you change your app store description to not include the word app or whatever word they don't like, they're like, "Oh, cool. Thank you.
>> [laughter] >> I think the workflows framing is smart though.
It's just kind of like the next evolution of shortcuts with some new primitives, right? >> I think so too.
And I really think these are really mini apps there.
No, there's no authorization.
There's no I don't know like social graph that's inside the app.
It's all in Wabby platform layer.
They don't function as separate apps.
They really are part of a platform and you can't take them out in any way even if you wanted to.
there's just too much on the platformware that's kind of around it even compared to some um mobile apps right now that create apps.
Uh there's some really, you know, new coming out platforms that are really great like VIP code app or ROR.
Um I met the founders of both of those.
They're really amazing founders, amazing people.
They're focused more on kind of vibe coding, creating new apps.
Um mostly for developers, for people that want to develop an app and then put it on the app store.
app store. So that is very different where basically on those apps you're creating a full-fledged app with authorization with whatever you want even if you want to create like a social network app whatever it's all there um and so that feels very different that feels truly like an app within an app
but those are developer tools so I feel like we're much more on the kind of Gizmo side where you're just creating you never think of a gizmo outside of Gizmo you don't think oh I can download Gizmo and relaunch it on the app store even although some of those could be
totally mini apps just like small you know maybe could be published separately uh but that's not about it and I feel like that perception is a big part for for all these platforms in the end of the day we want to play by the platforms rule rules and the rules are that you can create mini apps as long as they're
truly mini apps you're not trying to like circumvent the app store or do something about it >> Ellis did you have anything more on this point >> oh yeah how do you compete with game center the most innovative social platform ever produced >> in this galaxy or otherwise I actually quite like it. I don't know. I don't know.
I found >> You're joking. >> I don't know.
>> Are you playing dice right now?
>> That is really You're really trying to appease to the Apple gods right now.
>> I kind of It's just recently.
I just had like a nice experience with the games game center where I downloaded like a stupid puzzle app for myself and I was playing it.
I was very excited to see that my other two friends that I haven't heard from for a while are also were also playing it and kind of I'm a little and I got a little better than them.
So, I immediately texted them.
So it became a little bit of a conversation starter.
So that was my positive experience with >> Wow, we found the three Game Center users left uh in in the world.
Um Eugenia, I would love to hear what you think of the state of the chatbot market, AI companionship, how it's evolved since you started Replica again.
Replica again. you were like the OG platform for this and somehow amazingly replica seems to have stayed out of a lot of the bad headlines that like Character has gotten into and OpenAI recently with chat GPT they just put out some interesting data about you know the percentage of users that they think are
having you know suicidal really dangerous mental health conversations with Chat GBT and it's small but it's still at the scale they're at a lot of people um and I just love to know what you think of all of it gro like what Elon's doing, like did you foresee it all going this direction when you started replica or does any of this surprise you? >> We sort of started it because I started
>> We sort of started it because I started because I 100% believe there's going to be we're all going to be talking to machines and that's going to be our main most important that's going to be the future of personal computing.
That was the big belief in 2012 for me.
I sort of knew this will happen and I knew the emotional piece is going to be the most interesting because this is the new interface that and the only interface really or one of the only interfaces that can have this very strong emotional impact on users.
If you think about if I'm using Uber there's not much I mean there's some emotions involved in that but not that many.
If I'm talking to uh an AI companion like replica I might fall in love and you know and get married to it. It's very different.
I'm never going to get married to my Uber app.
So this means completely novel type of interaction means completely new levels of being able to influence people being able to influence the decisions and so we knew from the very beginning with with the very early prototypes that we built in 2012 for something else of conversational AI products we saw how much you can influence people through these AIs and that's why I decided to work on it.
Having said that, I was super surprised that it actually happened because by then I was starting to lose patience because I was like, well, I thought, you know, it's going to be a couple years, three, four years, and it was like year after year after year, the models were still until they weren't.
Uh, and of course, now it's blows my mind how like how far we came cuz we could see it in the continue.
We didn't just start paying attention now.
We were we've been paying attention and building these models and working on that for over a decade.
At this point, I think the most surprising thing is how how much of a 180 most of the companies did on safety and not on safety.
And generally I and I don't think it's bad.
I just think that for some reason safety was kind of the catchall phrase for everything.
um suicide prevention, dealing with um you know homicidal or hate speech or suicidal remarks and conversations, but also somehow romantic relationships with an AI were also part of that bucket, which I don't think it should be because it could be totally safe. Like why not?
What is the problem of like roleplaying some um some scenario being intimate with an AI with everything safe?
There's no problem there.
But all of that was in the safety bucket.
So I think I have two competing emotions for on one hand I'm very happy that people are starting to differentiate um romance with an AI intimacy with an AI is different from responding correctly to a suicidal uh teenager and I think the second piece is where I'm a little bit more cautious is the fact that I'm not hearing from anyone really what these companions should do.
The problem with the I companion is that of oftentimes there's some safety guidelines or whatever, but there's no big goal that that they're trying to achieve.
It's sort of like, well, people are lonely, so we'll just give them a companion.
But what are you trying to do?
Are you trying to substitute other human relationships?
Are you trying to compliment them?
Are you trying to get these people to feel better about themselves?
And often times there's no answer.
There's no underlying mission around that.
I think that's kind of the most dangerous.
The unintended consequences of that to me are the most dangerous thing.
You had a really good tweet back in July where you said there is more profound thinking going into AI note takingaking and customer support than the most important part. That was a banger. I I bookmarked that one.
Like you're totally right.
I mean talking to these people building these products like all the way up to Zuck.
Like >> it's big picture like people are lonely. People want to interact.
People want to interact. we can make thing they interact with but like there's no thinking through the ramifications of that or what the goals of that should be beyond like I mean it's like an engagement metric really at the end of the day is like they see that people use these things and it's probably the main way people are still using chat bots today is for this kind
of companionship stuff >> a lot of these things were already covered by have already been covered by uh sci-fi there's for example there's the book by Stenisam Congress right that shows a very dystopian future of VR are um where people are so disjointed that you know so not happy with reality where they just live in this kind of drug induced virtual reality. Um but the same
Um but the same thing goes for for companion.
Like it's so easy to imagine the world where we're so uh disenchanted in other people and lost all capacity to connect to talk to other people and we're just completely we cannot escape those AI companions that are just fully trying to get as much of our attention as possible and somehow none of that is being discussed neither for the VR future and you know kind of VR just didn't happen.
So no one just is discussing this really. though.
But if it did happen, I still have never heard that conversation.
So what what will happen if we're all sitting in those headsets.
This is eating like time with and this is it's so hard to connect in a VR headset.
Much harder than you know even if you're just on your phone and that's already a big burden.
And then the same goes for like we're not even discussing what's going to happen if we're all just stuck in those relationships and they want as much of our attention as we can.
I think this is the most important thing to uh to try to figure out.
So, we're almost out of time.
Just a final question or two.
I know you're a parent of some little ones.
What do you imagine their future will look like uh with their own software, with their own AI companion, uh with the screen always by their side?
What is what does that future look like to you being in both worlds?
>> Well, I'm worried of course cuz I think I was this the last kind of generation that didn't grow up with Instagram.
Um kind of happened when I was already out of college.
I guess or right out of almost out of college.
So, it didn't affect me that much.
Um, but that's my worry like what's going to happen to my kids. I have two girls. They're two and four.
Uh, they're the most important thing in my life by like so I don't even know like I can't no you know if you're not a parent of course you'll never I don't think anyone will understand what it means.
But so I think about it a lot and that's why I do care so much about where we're taking AI where we're taking AI companionship.
um and the emotional I guess the emotional um effects that AI can have on on people or these AI relationships can have on people.
And that's why I think it's so critical to think about whether like with any technology, AI can be a double-edged sword.
We can build something that will help us communicate, help us feel good about ourselves, help us meet other people, help us connect better.
And I can totally foresee that.
I feel like this more powerful technology can kind of help us deal with the the social networks and all that stuff that kind of maybe made us and just us being addicted to our iPhones or whatever smartphones maybe can help us with that.
>> Fight the fire with fire. Huh.
>> Well, I think that's the only way.
And I'm talking a lot to different researchers in the space and a lot of them start a conversation with me.
It's like, "Oh, no, no, no.
We should just ban everything and like people will just go and touch grass."
I'm like, but this will never happen.
We're already in sort of like a little bit of a problem.
I'm already the whole time on my phone the whole time.
I can't get it out of my I bring a book to my bed and I'm still on my phone reading tweets and doing squalling and doing whatever I'm doing.
Unfortunately, this is just too powerful.
And so, we need to build something even more powerful to get us off off this train.
And I don't believe that we're just going to all of a sudden wake up and say, "Yeah, I'm just going to go to the gym and touch grass and meditate 20 minutes a day and everything's just going to be amazing."
Like very few people can do that and they're already doing that.
And all of the rest of us, we can't. I cannot. I know for a fact.
I know in the replica years you've fielded some research about happiness.
Uh I feel like we need to do a new research study about tech built by parents versus non-parents.
I think the non-parents just build to-do apps.
The parents try and build something a little bit different with a bit more of an ethos.
I mean, there's nothing more powerful than that fear about like your children's, you know, sadness or or loneliness at some later date.
I mean, I'm sure the uh the dials are a little different for that pro uh PM at Instagram with how they tune the feeds if they have kids or not. It's got to be right. >> Oh, 100%. Skin in the game.
I was a journalist in my early 20s and all I wanted to do is write the most sensational story and I didn't give any whatever.
I didn't care whether it was hurting someone or not.
It's I'm not proud of that.
Okay, I'm not proud of that.
But I was I I remember that I was like I just need the most popular story and it has to be like this, you know, I'm just going to uncover this truth and who cares if like that's hard for the person I'm writing it about or something like that.
And so of course now it's different now that I have kids. It's like you get wiser.
I guess you don't want to be.
Um, and so yeah, I agree with you 100%.
I think one of the things that really bugged me recently, I met a few people, founders that started AI toys companies and none of them have kids.
And I was very much like, >> that's kind of weird.
>> I hadn't really feeling it.
They're really wonderful people, don't get me wrong, but I just felt uneasy because I know I know they just want to win.
And I don't want them to win if that means, you know, messing up with messing with my kids.
So that was >> Well, fortunately, they're going to fail because if you don't have kids, you can't possibly even begin to understand kids and how whack their brains are.
>> [laughter] >> So >> there's a fantastic post by um Tim Orbin, you know, and wait by Y about hanging out with the toddlers, how they're the most exciting people at the same time the most boring people when like after 3 hours you just realize you're spending a lot of time with someone with the IQ whatever of 20.
[laughter] And I and I felt only a only a dad would write something like that. Only a dad.
Like I never even thought about it this way.
>> Speaking of toddlers, last question.
You've been a founder for a long time now.
What What advice would you give to a young founder starting out today?
>> Don't make an AI tour or I'll come after you.
I'm just don't do not make an AI tour.
Um I think the main advice and I think for me that was a problem a really big problem at the very beginning when I started my first company in San Francisco.
You get so fast into the kind of red race of I just need a bigger valuation.
I need a little more revenue.
I need a little bit of those metrics.
of those metrics. you just get in that your why is being completely replaced by well I just need to get to this success in some way and that makes people so so so so miserable because that success it never really happens I feel for anyone it kind of any any step there's a yet another step to take you always feel
like a fraud somehow it's this crazy feeling of kind of having had some and lost some infinite thing like my favorite David Foster Wallace said And I feel like that makes you just so miserable and you wake up feeling like you don't even want to wake up uh at some point no matter what it'll take you to some crazy burnout. And so I think
And so I think the biggest advice and change for me was really we live in this incredible time where we can build super creative new products.
We can rethink what people do with technology.
We can we can build something completely new.
And I think if you can find happiness in building and being super creative and building something creative with a good group of people you like that is that should be the motivation.
Like if you can find some why that's not related to just getting to the next round, next valuation, next revenue number, I think this will make life very very happy and a lot less stressful.
>> And if you need help with your why, please visit meaning. comp.
That's m a n i n g company.
>> I 100% endorse this message. [laughter] >> Good.
>> In fact, I do think Alice should uh raise his prices.
>> I tell him that all the time.
I'm glad you're saying it on the show.
>> He needs to hear that a lot more.
No, I do think that this finding that why and what Ellis does is frankly one of the most important things um for that the founder can can do to themselves like realizing what's the bigger mission, why am I doing it and getting really really excited by that and if you work with Ellis, you'll get there.
>> I'm so warm and fuzzy. Thank you both.
Um well, Eugenia, so lovely to have you >> like TVPN. You should put meaning.
co go on your [laughter] hats and it >> I could increase my thirst thirstiness if I if I need to.
Um, but uh so lovely to have you.
Good luck with the public launch and the inevitable first neo-Nazi wabby app that goes viral.
Good luck with moderation and all that to come.
[laughter] >> Thank you so much guys and congratulations, you know, on launching the show. It's amazing.
I've been loving it so far.
>> Thanks to Eugenia for coming on the show.
Alex, what do you think of my uh How many poops app idea?
Is it going big or going bust?
>> It depends on the payw wall.
It depends how much you price it at.
Have you thought through your your tiers?
>> Well, it's completely free, but I will get access to all the email list of all the downloaders.
>> So, you're going to know everyone who's >> to do as I please. >> Okay.
>> For my next supplement >> to do business that starting on the side.
>> There's a doodoo joke in there somewhere. Uh, okay.
Uh, we're new here, so please follow, like, subscribe [music] everywhere that you get podcasts.
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So, please check us out there.
If you like this episode, leave a five-star review or thumbs up.
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>> You can find my newsletter at sources.
news news >> and you can find me at hamburger on Twitter and as you heard earlier in the episode at meaning.
com >> good domain access [music] is part of the Vox Media podcast network.
Our producer is Shiraz Dumé.
>> We'll see you next week. Bye.
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