Evidence receipt / prediction
Published · transcript-backedEdwin Chen: prediction
7 Dec 2025 Lenny's Podcast The 100-person AI lab that became Anthropic and Google's secret weapon | Edwin Chen (Surge AI)
“I used to work at a bunch of the big tech companies and I always felt that we could fire 90% of the people and we would move faster because the best people wouldn't have all these distractions.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Edwin Chen
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- prediction
- Recorded
- 7 Dec 2025
- Publisher
- Lenny's Podcast
Transcript context
…You guys hit a billion in revenue in less than four years with around 60 to 70 people. You're completely bootstrapped, haven't raised any VC money. I don't believe anyone has ever done this before. We basically never wanted to play the Silicon Valley game. I always thought it was ridiculous. I used to work at a bunch of the big tech companies and I always felt that we could fire 90% of the people and we would move faster because the best people wouldn't have all these distractions. So when we start Surge, we wanted to build it completely differently with a super small, super elite team. You guys are by far the most successful data company out there.…
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