logo
episode-header-image
Jan 2025
43m 28s

How To Build The Future: Parker Conrad

Y Combinator
About this episode

In this episode of How to Build the Future, Garry sits down with Parker Conrad, Co-founder & CEO of Rippling, the all-in-one HR, Finance, and IT software company that’s valued at $13.5 billion.

Parker is the co-founder of two unicorns and has one of the more dramatic startup journeys in recent years. In this interview, he shares his origin story, the lessons learned from his first two companies, how AI is changing the game, and why he thinks the future will be defined by "compound" software startups.

Up next
Mar 16
Building A Global AI Startup From India
In this episode of The Lightcone, we talk with Mukund and Madhav Jha, the founders of Emergent - an AI platform that lets anyone build and ship production-ready software. In just eight months, users have created more than 7 million apps on Emergent, with the number doubling in ju ... Show More
39m 32s
Mar 9
The Future Of Brain-Computer Interfaces with Science's Max Hodak
YC alum Max Hodak is the co-founder of Neuralink and founder of Science, a company building brain-computer interfaces that can restore sight.Science has developed a tiny retinal implant that stimulates cells in the eye to help blind patients see again. More than 40 patients have ... Show More
53m 20s
Mar 6
How To Avoid AI Design Slop
As no-code design tools become more common, so do the pitfalls. You know what they look like - the purple gradients, annoying hover effects, sections that fade as you scroll. So how do you avoid a site that feels vibe coded while still taking advantage of these new tools? In this ... Show More
37m 26s
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2024
Future of Business: Reid Hoffman on Managing Technological Change and Innovation
Reid Hoffman is one of the most prominent and recognizable voices in Silicon Valley, and after predicting some of the biggest trends that have shaped our world in the last 25 years, he is sharing his thoughts on the future of artificial intelligence. In this interview with HBR Ed ... Show More
29m 41s
Sep 2025
The FDE Playbook for AI Startups with Bob McGrew
Bob McGrew helped build some of the most influential technologies of the past two decades. Bob was an early engineer at PayPal, an early executive at Palantir, and was recently Chief Research Officer at OpenAI - where he led the development of ChatGPT, GPT-4 ,and the o1 reasoning ... Show More
50m 42s
Jul 2025
The Future of Humans, AI and Intelligent Technologies
Dr. Ja-Naé Duane talks about her book, coauthored with futurist Steve Fisher, SuperShifts: Transforming How We Live, Learn, and Work in the Age of Intelligence. Ja-Naé is a leading behavioral scientist, an MIT research fellow, and an innovation strategist with deep expertise in e ... Show More
28m 2s
Sep 2025
Why experts writing AI evals is creating the fastest-growing companies in history | Brendan Foody (CEO of Mercor)
Brendan Foody is the CEO and co-founder of Mercor, the fastest-growing company in history to go from $1M to $500M in revenue (in just 17 months!). At 22, he is also the youngest American unicorn founder ever. Mercor works with 6 of the Magnificent 7 and all top 5 AI labs to help ... Show More
1h 6m
May 2025
Windsurf CEO: Betting On AI Agents, Pivoting In 48 Hours, And The Future of Coding
Varun Mohan didn't set out to build one of the fastest-growing AI developer tools. He just knew his company had to change, or die.After initially betting on GPU virtualization, he saw the writing on the wall: if there was a future for his company, it would be at the AI applicatio ... Show More
52m 35s
Sep 2024
Bret Taylor - The Agent Era - [Invest Like the Best, EP.386]
My guest today is Bret Taylor. His resume is absurd. He built google maps--famously rewriting the whole thing in a weekend. He was the CTO of Facebook in critical years. He founded Quip. He was the chair of the board at Twitter. He was the co-CEO of Salesforce...the incredible li ... Show More
1h 29m
May 2025
Inside Devin: The world’s first autonomous AI engineer that's set to write 50% of its company’s code by end of year | Scott Wu (CEO and co-founder of Cognition)
Scott Wu is the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, the company behind Devin—the world’s first autonomous AI software engineer. Unlike other AI coding tools, Devin works like an autonomous engineer that you can interact with through Slack, Linear, and GitHub, just like with a remote ... Show More
1h 32m
Aug 2025
Anthropic Co-founder: Building Claude Code, Lessons From GPT-3 & LLM System Design
Tom Brown co-founded Anthropic after helping build GPT-3 at OpenAI. A self-taught engineer, he went from getting a B-minus in linear algebra to becoming one of the key people behind AI's scaling breakthroughs. And his work is paying off.Today, Anthropic's Claude is the go-to choi ... Show More
35m 56s
Aug 2025
Throwback: Shaping the Future of Leadership with Praxis Lab’s Elise Smith
We’ll be back soon with a new episode. In the meantime, enjoy this throwback conversation with Elise Smith, Co-founder and CEO of Praxis Labs. Earlier this month, Praxis Labs was acquired—marking a major milestone in the company’s journey. This episode offers a look at the vision ... Show More
26m 21s
Jun 2025
AI for Good: Innovating People-Centric Solutions
In this episode of the Data Science Salon Podcast, we are joined by Praveena Dhanalakota, the Founder & CEO of Soopra.ai, a San Francisco-based startup that is revolutionizing industries with AI-driven solutions. Praveena is an AI expert, tech evangelist, and a passionate advocat ... Show More
27m 45s