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Eugenia Kuyda

Things Eugenia Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Eugenia Kuyda writes a16z Podcast . They have also been a guest on The Cognitive Revolution" | AI Builders, Researchers, and Live Player Analysis (3 times) , TBPN (2 times) , Lex Fridman Podcast , Mostly Human with Laurie Segall , Pioneers of AI , Equity , This Week in Startups , Platformer , TED Tech , Decoder with Nilay Patel , FT Tech Tonic and Big Technology .

Recently: “Meta and Instinct are racing to build your AI assistant. Wabi has a different idea.” on Equity (October 2026); “Why this founder isn't hiring junior employees anymore” on Platformer (June 2026); “AI 2025 → 2026 Live Show | Part 1” on The Cognitive Revolution" | AI Builders, Researchers, and Live Player Analysis (December 2025); “Seeing The Future from AI Companions to Personal Software” on a16z Podcast (November 2025); “Seeing The Future from AI Companions to Personal Software” on a16z Podcast (November 2025); “Timeline in Turmoil: Elon Clashes with Altman, Perplexity Offers $34.5B for Chrome, Apple in Elon's Crosshairs | David Risher, James Cadwallader, Devin Bhushan, Demi Guo, Eugenia Kuyda, Alex Danco, Isaiah Taylor” on TBPN (August 2025).

What They Said

“One of the bigger insights that we had over time, especially after having built Replika, is that most people actually don't care that much about saving time. ... Look at the most popular apps, obviously, TikTok and Instagram. They're not there to save anyone's time.” — Eugenia Kuyda, Equity

Kuyda was explaining why her new company, Wabi, isn't built as a pure productivity agent. She argued AI should help people spend time better with people they love, and criticized the "my agent will talk to your agent" pitch as making people even more disconnected.

Equity · 2026-10-21 Permalink → Listen →
Equity Around 06:13 into the episode
Eugenia Kuyda

…and understanding exactly what you're trying to get done, will build an app that you need. And you can always change it or prompt it or build another app, but you don't have to. And I think that's the main difference is that amount of productivity that we put into it with this evolution of the app.

Rebecca Bellan

…demo and one thing I thought was really cool, like you showed me your, you and your partner's chat. And then across the top of the chat, there was the different apps that related to, you know, your life and like what you two might want to talk about or whatever long-term goals you might be setting.

Eugenia Kuyda

…the get-go. But I think one of the bigger insights that we had over time, especially after having built Replica, is that most people actually don't care that much about saving time. I mean, it's nice, but a lot of people really want to spend, you know, are looking to spend time, spend quality time, figure, you know, do things ideally without. Kind of spend the time you have well. And, you know, look at the most popular apps, obviously, TikTok and Instagram. They're not there to save anyone's time. And so to us, AI shouldn't just be about saving time. It should help people spend it better, doing more of what they love with people they love. We believe that AI agents should bring people together, not give people more reasons to spend time alone with AI. And what I saw that, you know, over and over again, like people are launching these AI products that are really focused on the…

Rebecca Bellan

Did you guys both come up with those apps yourself? Did you decide like, oh, these are the apps we want? Or is that something that the agent decided? Or is that something you guys were like, this would be fun?

Eugenia Kuyda

Mostly, it's either us saying what we want to achieve, so more talking about the goal and not the app itself, or Wabi just looking into our shared accounts and saying, hey, like you seem like you guys are going on this trip. I made you a little widget to keep track of everything. Or it seems like…

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