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Start free trial →Y Combinator Startup Podcast · Startups & Venture · November 2026
Masad reminded Graham of what he said when he first backed Replit: there is a super-linear relationship between how easy programming is and how many programmers you get. Graham confirms the principle and generalizes it.
Yeah, I know, I know, because I, the way I program, is the exact opposite of this. I like, I program, you know, I spend three years writing a thousand lines of code. And if I can get it down to 980 in the next month, so much the better. But you
give me the principle for all of this, which is when you first invested in Replo, when you first backed Replit, you said there's a super linear relationship between how easy it is to program and how many programmers you get.
Yes, that's true. That's not just true for programming. That's true for anything consumers use. If you make it 10% easier, you don't just get 10% more people. You get twice as many.
Yes.
Yeah, I remember that. I didn't mean make it this easy.
It went too far. I mean, you just talk