We hire people that have this innate motivation, this kind of burning desire, almost artistic desire to express themselves and express their craft. And almost leave their mark on something that they make. Not in a selfish way, but in a way of the pride that you feel, just like the best craft people feel pride of for something. I think art feels, some people say soulful or well crafted or like there's beauty and attention to detail, it's honestly because, not because of some product management strategy, it's really just we have
higher people care really deeply about their work and the impact it has on people's lives and that shows up in hover states and transition and attention to detail. But it comes from a value of higher people that just have this innate heartfelt intensity they bring to the office every day. My guess today is Josh Miller, co-founder and CEO of the Browser Company. Josh and team built ARC, an amazing AI native browser that's reinventing the way that we use the internet.
Josh and I spoke about how the Browser Company crafts quality products and hires top talent, how the team built ARC search, a mobile browser that uses AI to browse for you, and why Josh thinks most consumer AI starves will struggle and how he plans to be different. Josh is an incredibly authentic and genuine founder who's betting it all to transform how we use the internet.
If you enjoy our conversation, please like and subscribe to support the podcast. All right, Josh welcome super glad to have you here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so why don't we start this, why are you trying to reinvent the browser, let's start that. Yeah, that is. And it's not the most sexy category of software involved, but we ultimately got excited about working on a web browser or what we hope is successors of the web browser.
Because you spent a lot of time in it, been a lot of time in this rectangle that is your web browser. Some people spend more waking hours in their web browser than anywhere in the physical world should better for worse. And so got really excited about the fact when you tell someone you're working on a desktop web browser, you ask them what browser these they could not care less.
They think it's like the most boring thing to talk about them. They're even aware of what browser they use and the fact that that many hours every single day in this rectangle. Yet you don't care. And then you think about the kind of love you have for the your favorite products or your favorite physical spaces in the real world.
We spend a lot of time or the things you use a lot the delta between those two facts that was really excited to mind with a lot of kind of macro trends happening the technology industry at the time. The God is excited about what the browser would look like. But I think at its core it was we spend a lot of time in these rectangles. They don't inspire us. They don't feel great. I feel like it's like, you know, I use Comcast for my internet, but I don't feel any loyalty to worse that company.
Yeah. I remember the first little like phone I got when I was in middle school just to call my mom that is ready for pickup after I played. And I like my calculator to and then you think about how I feel about the iPhone today and what it means that's the delta we want to bridge with the browser. We want to be to the browser. What the iPhone was to the cell phone. So we're not there yet for that. That's the idea.
Got it. So I mean playing with the arc browser. And the reason I'm really excited to talk to you is like it's very clear that it's been craftive of a lot of care. And like the people who made this clearly like gave us it about the product. So can you talk about some of the core values at arc and like how that guided you and your team to build products. Sure. So we have five value. I won't bore you with all of them, but one of them which you reference is show up with heartfelt intensity.
So what it essentially that means is we hired people that have this innate motivation this kind of burning desire almost artistic desire to express themselves and express their craft and also like leave their mark on something that they make not in a selfish way but in a way of the pride that you feel just like the best craft people feel pride of for something.
And I think so the reason thank you for the compliment that I think our fuels some people say so full or a well crafted or like there's beauty and attention to detail is honestly because not because of some product management strategy or some company, you know, hit gone in market. It's really just we hire people who care really deeply about their work and the impact that I love people lives and that shows up in upper states and transition and attention to detail.
But it comes from a value of higher people that just have this and the heartfelt intensity they bring to the office every day, something motivates them beyond just what we say here. And I think show it shine in the product. And I think you mentioned that's like one of your superpowers, right? Just like hiring great people.
And you know, you've hired both like I think you hired an ex designer of Safari, but also I think you hire someone called Nate who has never been a design like officially being a designer before. So like how do you find people out how do you like bring them on board?
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, as you're referencing, we've hired people that have res maize that will intimidate you and make me wonder if I can lead them because they have done such a remarkable thing that I feel like I should be reporting to someone the reports to them, the reports to them. And we people that you know work a couple of years at a school that have made a tremendous impact here. And I wish I had a clean answer other than to say you know an original in your seat.
I don't know. There's just you look at the work that they've done the things that they've done in their life the way they. You just kind of know. And so for example, Charlie, who is the Safari designer you reference that again has that resume that is intimidating. I overlapped with him at a previous employer. He was always working on these really interesting side projects, but weren't going to make any money.
There was more like artistic projects. He had this app that showed you the current state of the moon. That's all it did. You open the app, you saw them move in a representation and it was gorgeous. Like the lighting was gorgeous. And it's like the sort of person that just does that for fun and does it with that attention artistic detail. And then you think that you know, you also mentioned Nate.
Nate was had never held the title of designer before we hired him as the designer as a couple years at a college. But here is this kid that was making web browser for fun after hour and doing it in a really quirky, creative way. You know, a personal website that was like a lot machine gamified kind of making fun of the social media environment. It's just his personality and the soul of both Charlie and Nate's work that even other resumes are very different.
You can't not feel that kind of unique spirit in them. And so I know that probably here listening to this and you're wondering how to get a job to come in a browser company. It may not feel as actionable or tactical as you would like from a podcast. But I wanted to be honest that just we I gravitate and we gravitate towards people that have an authenticity and have a character that they're really they're they show up with. That's just unmistakably then and unmistakably original.
I think it's actually pretty actionable. I mean, you can kind of tell if someone is doing something to get promoted or like to get more money or just someone's just building something because they want to make something really good. And it sounds like both examples. Yeah, I get emails. Look, this is where mileage may vary and I know that's not true at all companies. I give emails and DMs and tech all the time for people.
You know that want a job and feel really grateful that we built a company that that is true. That was an always true. And it's really interesting. I wish I could tell them I don't care where you I don't care the name of the noun that's in your email. And then, you know, versus that one, there's a woman sent me this prototype the other day of something she did for fun. And prototype is normal and there wasn't coded. It was it was it was a work factor was almost like this like slide day.
But it was just the thought was original. The effort was original. You know, and so for us it's less about where you practice or how good your resume is and more what are you showing up with in terms of that originality either in thought or in craft or kind of personality, you know, and then letting that shine through. Yeah, I love that because that limits all the gatekeepers, right? Then you just you have your own destiny under your control.
Yeah. So you also have like a surpassed community of users who love art, right? And do you kind of work with these users when you're building new features or like how do you work with them? Yeah. So my first company was sold to Facebook. And first I might now second time co-vander. I worked Facebook for a number of years.
And the thing that impressed me the most about Facebook at the time, which at the time, you know, was known for having some top talent and top crafts people were the user researcher. You were amazing. You know, they were they had doctors, you know, they were doctors and psychology and sociology from the top universities.
And it's wild that there are these researchers that were there to just help us understand these people we were building for and the ways in which they would help us understand the way that people were hacking the product and using the product. But we were intended and defied before and it was striking at Facebook. They were totally under appreciate time. It was like they were used by PM's to validate what they wanted to do. And they look, the researchers said this.
And I just remember thinking at the time, these people should be deciding. Like these people, because these people are the ones that are channeling the people we actually serve. The people that use Instagram and Facebook and what's up every day. Then when we started the browser company, one of the things we did intentionally was we wanted to flip that hierarchy. So we created a team called the membership team, which rolled up anything
that touches the people we serve, who we call member. Whether that's customer support and success at other companies to use your research and everything in between. If you're someone that uses our products, the membership team is responsible for your end-to-end relationship. And we put them right up there with engineering and design all the other disciplines as the seed of the product building table. And so, yeah, since day one, the hype caulk,
the company, you use the browser for hours every day. The only product that your mom and your little niece and you all share in common other than like texting and maybe video calls. So we cannot build a better product unless at its core are the people we're building for and that's part of our product development process. So now that doesn't mean we like do a poll and
build whatever, whatever it would be able to say. But to the extent we've had any success so far, it's been because it's been a climate process with the people who were going to work. I thank some large part to our membership team. And how did they talk to the customers? Do they have a different channel to use or like, you know, how frequently do they do this?
Yes, we're arguing to open minded in how we talk. Anyway, I mean, I messaged to read with a certain member because keep in mind, we know this product starting, you know, I, we hand on boarded the first probably 5,000 people over Zoom, one by one, you know, a handful of us. I recorded welcome videos on my iPhone for the for and texted them to the first, you know, a couple dozen people, maybe hundreds. And so, you know, for some early members,
we're friends now. We're texting, the ending. We have, we often do kind of more kind of mast. I had surveys and holes. We do very kind of like structure user research, stuff, and the resume and third party tools. We do it all. We do it all. And our approach has been like, let's actually lower the barrier. You let us know how we're good for you and our job to kind of strap away that complexity for us and figure it out. But we've actually tried to
be approachable on probably too many channels. This probably so. Yeah, I mean, like, I think too many companies are like really opinion for some reason, but like, hey, only these people can talk to customers or you have to use this official channel. And like, you know, like, customers are doing a favorite man by talking to you. So why not just like do whatever is easy for them, right? So, yeah, yeah. I think a fee, my field that's phaged my career is there's no one right way to run
a company. Every company has different goals and values and founders. But yeah, for us and how we do think I would we would not be successful at what we do if we did not build in conjunction with the people that are using your product every day. Got it. So let's talk about like us. It was a thick product that you built. So, you know, mobile browsing like the browser on a web is mediocre, but on mobile is like a really terrible man. Like, it is incredible amount of ads, poppots, paywalls,
and all this SEO optimized stuff. And recently, well, three months ago, you launched the arc search. Maybe walking through like, kind of ideation to launch like the high level, how did it come to be? Yeah. So the idea for arc features actually up, and it was a side project. Which it is hard to imagine now because it has become so successful and now a core part of our strategy and our portfolio products. But at the time, it would let it's been a long year.
We wanted to build the default mobile browser that haven't had a good strategic reason to do it. And we just had a company wide offside in November. Let's give ourselves until January to just prototype a default mobile browser for fun. But if we're going to do that since it's not strategic, we've been official to us. Let's be really ambitious. And so our ambition was to pick one value proposition. So not to build a better mobile browser, but to pick a value
prop within a mobile browser and then do it to 100. Just go wild because it was kind of a freebie project. And so what we decided was look on on our phone, as you say, mobile browsers you use all the time. It's probably when you're top five apps in terms of opens, but they're kind of a tritious and at the very least they're all the same. And what we realized is like, when we use our mobile browser, we're almost always looking something. We're on the go, we're with it brand,
and we just got to let something up really quick. And so we said, let's turn it up to 100. What is the absolute fastest way to look something up on your phone? And don't worry about are you a browser or you search engine or you're, hey, I don't know that. Think about it for me, human person. They want to get this random fact super quick. And that's how we got to our kind of tent pole feature, which was, which is called browse for me, which is, look, we, you know,
we did small things like, let's have the keyboard up so you can just watch them typing. Let's get rid of block ads and trackers and cookie pop up so there's no BS in the way. So we did kind of small things around the edge. That one we realized, no, it's really time consuming, opening a tab in the search results page, waiting for it to load, scrolling down the page, realizing it doesn't have what you want or you need more information, go on back to the Google result, opening a new page,
waiting. What if we just had the product do all of that for you? So you at and tell it what you're looking for, it goes to open six different web pages, reads them all and then create the perfect
web page for you for what you're looking for without you doing anything. And that has now called browser, we've become the defining feature of ArcSerd because you could do these kind of complex browsing sessions to find an answer to something or find information without doing the work yourself, but it stemmed from the place of what is the fastest way to look something up on your phone, not how we build a more better mobile browser. And of course now we didn't we do think we
built the best mobile browser, but it stems from the place of fastest way to look at it. So it sounds like I really focused on the primary value of proper finding something, finding information fast, right? And like how do you guys just like little more detail? How do you guys learn this? You brainstorm a bunch of different things and you kind of yeah, I'll be really on. I'll be really honest with you. This is we were really we've been that with our core product arc. So arc
for desktop, we sort of did the opposite. We made a section of the bad that the browser later was what he wanted was a most interesting pieces software and part of the software stack to bet on for the next decade, but we didn't have a problems and we didn't have the value proper. Just like it's already important today, but it sucks and it's going to be even more important tomorrow and suck even more if someone doesn't change it. Let's go figure out how to make it better. And art
today, though, I'm really proud of it on desktop. And I think it the best browser, you can feel that in the product and that we've made a bunch of things a little bit better to hopefully create a better cohesive whole, but it's not focused and it's not singular in its purpose. And so going again to the origins of arc search, it was a freebie project. It was an end of the year almost morale. So what we did is we said not only like take it to 100 and have fun with it, let's also try
to push ourselves in product development, trying a different way of building products. And so the reason we decided to pick a singular value proposition was because we actually didn't do that with our desktop product, arc. And we wanted to again, we have one of our other values is assume you don't know, which is literally what the value of set like no matter how smart you are to be, waiting for your career to matter how sure you think you are, you must proceed with the assumption
that you have no fucking idea. Excuse my language. And this was sort of that test of let's try a product development strategy that we've never tried before and just see what happens. And so the way that we picked the fastest way to get what you need was it was more kind of from an intuitive sense of what do we the final thus want the most or what do we use the the you know, what do we
use the browser and search on our fund for the most. But really was more about testing that approach to product development, not making sure we got that value in prompt correct because it was a freebie project. And I think there's a good lesson in there that it resonated has resonated in a way. You know, I thought arc on desktop. I'm not great about our success with arc on desktop.
And then arc searches come out and refers, you know, three months. I've been like, man, barry we've had like it has been is and I think it is a good lesson for me and us that when we were just have fun with it and being really focused uncomfortably focused around not what our company strategy was, but around what is a person need that it resonated that even deeper level than this other product we have, but it's also been successful in a success. So yeah, it's a good
extrapolate too much, but that it's it was been it was a surprise. I love that saying turn up 200 because like you can make you can make like three features 50. But we'll just make one thing 100. And maybe like it's multiple saw other minds that like they start where to mouth and like all positive things. And this is good lesson two is like, you know, I didn't take my own or that advice before this project. You know why? Because turning up to 100 feels risky. You know, and it
feels how are you going to better pick right? Because we turn up to 100 can take a lot of extra work and it's going to be really risky might work. And it adds all this like intensity and anxiety to it. And then we're like, you know, when you think it's a freebie project, it's just thought have fun with it. When you want to build this isn't our core strategy. Yeah, let's go for it. You know, when you have that like, it's a London that abundant mindset. Yeah, like wow,
people want hundreds and you can do it. You know, you can do it. And I don't even think about 100. I think that would be added to. But we have a lot more work to do. You really make it 100. That intentionality of like we don't want to make a make better mobile browser. We want to redefine how you do something with this device. It's a different attitude. And I make very excited to take that attitude back to the core product. Yeah. I mean, this probably why you also
checked pretty great talent because you're going to redefine things. Yeah. I mean, that's the pitch at its core. I cannot promise you will make more money. I cannot promise you that you will have a better title. You actually will probably be worse title. I cannot promise you anything other than we are all trying to do the work that will define your careers. And it may fail board
going for it. And if we succeed, it will define your and will define all of our careers. So that's kind of the vibe that people that come here is you can make more, more, more money, it's value return somewhere else. You can lead a bigger team, have a bigger title, have more chance of success on paper. But no one's going to have the very few places will have the same level of ambition and intentionality that we do here for better or for worse.
We're going to find out. Yeah. You know, speaking of which, I think back in April, you probably just tweaked saying that you only have like 12 to 24 months to win. And can you get some more contests about this or like why you three this stuff out? You know, yeah. I mean, you're too. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Still feel that energy. I mean, there are two part to that question, right? One is what did I mean? And the second is why did I
share it publicly? Is there one that you're more curious about? I think kind of these new findings are not so big about both. Yeah. Sure. I wonder how to say this. Does it? So I was pretty big skeptic of the LLN transformer stuff maybe eight months ago. I'm doing it to general wear it until I play with something myself to me until I play with something myself. I don't I don't really buy it. And I played with all these technologies in these
prototypes and forms of health slow and expensive and reliable. I just like it felt like another cryptid and after prototyping one of the technology more. I'm going to get to the punchline because everyone knows what this is going. I truly think that the transformer innovation and everything that come out of it will come out of it is going to up at everything we do on computer,
rather than in our pockets or on our desks or on our wrists. And I think there's a very tiny window in time with any one of these big changes, platform changes for everyone to call it. Where there's a window where the tables are flipped and someone can grab a seat. And I think the dynamics of AI specifically mean that there's an even tighter window because I think the incumbent large companies are better positioned for AI than they were for kind of mobile application
development. For example, and I think specifically where the browser layer sits and who we're competing with and for what? I mean that even after those 10 windows it gets even tinier. And so I view us having 12 months to earn a seat at the table. If not the seat at the table as a relates to how we use our computers of all sizes in this next era. And I think 12, 12, 24 months, I think it'll be too late. And so that is the added I have and we have at this company,
which is like it's now or never. We built four years of foundation. We got so lucky in fortunate that we were writing a wave that is about to become that large. But we're going to crash at some point and we got it go. And the reason we said that publicly was or I said that publicly was we that's what we do our approach to building things has always been be honest be transparent be open
about who we are and what we're doing for a range of reason. And so I think one of the things I promised publicly when we first started putting out YouTube video and tweeting and being open was I will be honest and open with all of you when things are going really well. I will proudly tweet our prototypes and brag about our hires and feel proud of our graphs when they're going the right way. And I will also be honest with you when we get bad news. And when the crash for you the rate is not what
it should be and we have to apologize. And so I thought this was part of that. Actually yet I got to be honest with you. I really hope this works. It seems to be working. Hope our breath is right ahead of us. But now or never and we're going for it. I don't know what can happen and you just you should know. But maybe we'll look back in a few years and be like, why did we think that was a good thing to do. But it's felt authentic to us that we were continuing. Yeah, I love that.
I remember watching your act to our announcement and then in the first few minutes you were like to Steve Jobs carry right. We were all black. I was like, who is this guy? It's gonna be Steve Jobs. And then it became like very down the earth authentic industries from New York. And I thought that was great. And I think that feels like it's saying all your messaging right? Yeah. Yeah. As what Peter's referencing, anyone that's insane, it is we kind of unbelled our belief about
what we want to do over the four year we hit our four year market at the company. And so there's a video about act two for the company. And we kick off the video and it makes you think that at the Steve Jobs, like Keanu presentation. And then it turned out that was sort of a big switch and we were making fun of it. And I think what that gets is how we generally like to do things at the browser. We're very interested in sexually about in bird surprising people with the prize
and awe and wonder and young expected is a lever that's really helpful. And really worth while whether it's in building product experiences or marketing or communication. And so just in general, we're really interested conceptually and inverting what is expected because we've gone into this like habit in our industry of copying paste and reductive experiences, reductive practices. And obviously you don't want to always reinvent the wheel. But when I come to talking about who we are,
what we believe in how we do it, it's been really fun and try to infer things. Yeah, no, I think it gives the brand a ton of personality. So it's great. Here's kind of the crux of things, right? Like, you know, you talk about you have 12, 24 months, but at the same time, you really care about craft and building really good products. And we've seen some of these other companies, I will mention names,
but like, you know, they take all the time crafting really, really great. And they launch it after like a couple years and then it just kind of falls flat. So how do you balance this kind of like desire for high quality with the assume you don't know? I mean, it goes back. Oh, we spoke about for this is why we have a membership team. This is why we build alongside the people that we serve.
So this why we have to assume you don't know mentality. So you're very tactically arc search. I think if you go download arc search today, you may not like it, but you will believe it's one of the best crafted iOS apps you've ever read. And I say that with humility, you may hate it. It may not be that you may not be a good product, but boy, they're transitions or juicy and it just we really sweater the detail. And that showed up in the way that after we released it, it was sort of like an
immediate hit. There's a test white to people not at our company a week after we started that product and secretly behind closed doors. There were dozens and dozens of people that don't work at our company and are not investors or advisors or anything like that. They were actively testing the product and we were actively changing how it worked and what it looked like. They found that feedback. And so it thought perfect. I can't comment on what other companies do, but our belief that
like we have this bar for excellence in our craft. And we are a monietal that about passing that bar. That mean that no one can see it or that we can't test our assumptions or build and public and air roads until it actually released. Those two things aren't in conflict with often art. That only doesn't mean we don't miss the mark. We miss the mark all the time shifting before there. We should have shift them and they were never any good. And we hold on too late and we
polish something that actually was just lipstick on a pig. So we don't get it right. But I actually think to read them. I don't actually think they need to be in conflict. And if they are it's because whoever's building their own deep down really actually cares about getting one of one of the two. I think it's more likely that you find you're someone that kind of believes more
believe start at methodology. If it's great, then it can be ugly and imperfect and market will pull it out of you or they believe like you know, it's the jobs are bust and we can go away for five years and that's fine. And I think really you need both and that's really hard and I'm not sure we get it right. But I don't think you're in conflict. So basically you had people building this arc search product with you from very early days till we launched it right. Yeah got it.
Yeah, I mean hard way arc for Windows just launched last week. We had hundreds of thousands of people creating an account in the launch week. People were using it for months before. I mean, it'd been the launch day now anyone can make it but we how do you think we don't know how to build it except for other people. So it all but again, this is why I used to be served down on the concept of company values and how it so understood and internalize where they're important because
it all comes back to us. You don't know right. If you believe you need to have an unwavering craft bar and love and attention to detail, but you assume you don't know when you're going to get there or how you're going to get there, the only way to combine those things is to do it with other people in public. And how do you think about like the vision and the strategy versus kind of like
iterating with these users and tinkering and making it better. How do you think? How do you think about this one that I'm not sure I can speak to because I don't know if we're going to be successful on the long run rate. So I can tell you what we're doing. I'm more careful to find out together if it works. I'm really interested in the far end of this spectrum where I think what we practice are the far ends of this spectrum. And so I spent two years at Adventure Capital firm,
which I don't think I'll ever work it again. But I actually had a wonderful experience when I was and what it was so interesting about working there is you really think in terms of decade, in terms of the best that you make when you invest in companies, especially at the early, it's coming from tens of the best in earlier stage companies. And the browser company was that on macro trends, secure shifts, big hypotheses about how society would change the way
or continue on certain trend lines over the course of many years of not decades. And so our strategic bet on the company was you want to go that way. You want to hang around that hoop. And you want to hang around that hoop for these structural reasons that are unlikely to change. In fact, they're only likely to accelerate. And then if we're betting on that to hang around that hoop over there, then the question is just like, survive, like just get just get. Oh,
and not even survived is get over there. However you can. And so that is focusing on the, okay, what do we have to do to whatever to do next week? What do we do next month? One foot in front of the other as long as we're directly going towards that hoop or hanging around that hoop. Get the hoop net of word. But you get what I'm saying. Like at the 10,000, make sure you're making the
rate. And other where I just focus on building things that people love. And if you focus on thing building building thing that people love in the direction of those that big bet. Bet that it will be okay. But yeah, I don't know if it'll work for every product and every company and every type of software and every market. It definitely definitely doesn't. I'm not
sure what work for ours, but that was hard back with that. If we can build what replaces the default browser or we can be effectively technically someone's default browser, that is just so valuable in so many fronts and strategically sound that great. Now we got to go build the best rectangular use for five hours a day to render web pages and nothing else matters and we'll figure out the rest later. Got it. I mean, in some ways you are already the best
product, the best default browser for sales or tens of thousands. I don't know how many people love the browser, but people love it. We're in that using that. Yeah. Yeah. We're a blip in the grand. Okay. So let me ask you two hard questions. The first one is around monetization. For example, a perplexity to try to do something similar around search, but they're as you charge a subscription. I'm curious why you haven't monetized it. What is that on the horizon?
Yeah. I think it's worth separating out Arc Search, which again was this signed project. It's become a bigger deal. It's a very different answer than our core product, which is a work. So Arc is a browser. I can wax, fly the mat and operate it from from the internet or what we're going to do that's different. Let's just take it as it is. It is a web browser, the desktop of the breath. And once you need to add a web browser, it is effectively a consumer product.
Every demographic, everyone that uses the internet needs a browser. Every shape and size, every country, every socio-nationalite, everyone needs a browser. And you spend hours a day in your browser across all these demographics and across all parts of their life, work, personal, they buy things, they look up information. And when you look at products that have those characteristics, they are unbelievably valuable because of the distribution potential to other things.
Right? So if you think about even like a browser itself, how does Chrome, how does Safari make money? Safari makes $20 billion a year because it is decided that it's going to distribute that attention to Google and get the check. And that's why browsers monetize the search engine of the month. But really the enterprise value of a browser doesn't come from the search engine
relationship. That's just one way to distribute it. Comments from the fact that have this rectangle that everyone in the world spends hours and hours and hours and everyone, but a large majority of people spend hours and hours and hours in across all parts of their life. And that means think about the percentage of commerce that is passing through the browser. Think about the SaaS economy that's passing through the browser. Think about the search. Passing through the browser.
And so those businesses tend to be incredibly easy to monetize, not lucrative to monetize, in a bunch of different ways. The risk is can you get through scale? You can scale it to the hardest. And so our approach has been our enterprise value, connels from the time spent, the time from the number of people that are interested and on the distribution potential, if you can get those two things. And so we need to get to scale as quickly as possible
to then monetize that attention and distribution some other way. Which beg the question, okay, how great. Thank you for that long spiel. How are you going to do it? And I guess my point is two, four, one, there's so many ways that the wrong question to be asking, the right question to be asking how the heck are you going to get hundreds of millions of not billions of people using your product every day when you don't have structural even because it can. We're going to make a lot of
money. The second answer to the question was if I had to guess, I think there's something really interesting around commerce and payments and shopping. If you think about how much money literally exchanges hands in the context of a web browser and all of the parts of the experience can make better or more efficient or more reliable in that experience at scale or and or the web is a development platform. It is an app platform. And really the browser in the world web
apps has become a an app platform. And I think there's a lot of interesting proven ways that you can monetize application platforms and distribute them as well. So again, not to mention searching, advertising the way that other browsers monetize that I really like to think about if the short version would be the real question of like right now, what is the most substantial risk in the
browser company? It is not generally making money from a web browser. People spend hours in every day across working personal life and by thinking looking stuff etc. The access to risk is and you get to scale is this factually the product and you don't have any structural. Got it. Yeah, okay. So I guess it's a different strategy there right because if you look at it,
like for example, you just look at a superhuman versus Gmail right. But like their strategy is like well like everyone uses Gmail but like the people who actually get like a ton of emails or like really want a great experience pay us three dollars a month or something. But it sounds like your strategy is just to get your scale just to actually. Yeah, I think that's a great example. Like I'm a superhuman customer. I've been a superhuman customer for years. Like one of the only
tech products my wife lost. So I my number one superhuman fan. We are taking a radically different approach to our network. Our equivalent would be to say you know what's really valuable. Gmail has billions of people and they're like a large percentage of their lives are passing through your inbox like the router for people's lives in many ways. That is very like 10 you beat Gmail getting to a billion people. Not can you monetize three dollars a month off of tens of thousands
around each of them. Both can be successful. Both have different risk-reward profiles. We have not gone as superhuman route. We've gone the Gmail or Buster out except we're going even higher and that we're doing the operating system that Gmail sit on top of. So you know there are many different approaches to a category of software and there are many you know the company called Island browser that is building an enterprise browser for banks and health insurance companies with
HIPAA compliant. There are many different things. It's been very successful and will be very successful. There are different types of ways you can approach a market whether Gmail and browser and ours has been go for the largest. Tam you know with the most likely to fail and that is you know can you get to scale. Again what's that you know how's what that going to monetize it. There's a question that people are asking today. But then critically valuable asset for meta
you know did it with Instagram. Makes sense. Okay so then one more tough question. So like I think you know when you launched the browser for me in Arc search there was a bunch of publishers advertisers. Journalists were like you know what about the publishers. What about the advertisers? Harding. You're like this intermediate them right. So I guess what's your response for these folks on me like to do it. Yeah that is a you know that that is a question that that is a tricky question
that I don't know that for two. But not even I haven't thought about it away but more than like yeah we got to think that out like collectively we got to figure that out. What that is economic model for how people get paid to publish on there. So from our Arc search perspective we tried to go above and beyond and did even more after we got this criticism to really aggressively link back and make it clear where this information is coming from and try to encourage you to say hey if you
find the interesting go deeper and read where it came from. So for example pretty quickly after the product launch. Well actually when the product launched we wouldn't let you see the results until we told you the six web pages that came from and then link to those web pages multiple places on the page after and actually since people said hey is there a really tricky problem we changed the experience again to actually put the web pages themselves at the very top as the
first thing on the page to encourage you to click through. So I think the first thing is we're trying to be as good citizens of the web as we can be with the lens of word browser we represent the user agent where they're user agent and so yeah how do we provide value to them while also
being good stewards to the other players in the web because however it does break the economic model and it's an economic model that was already strained and is going to be even more strained and so what is the economic model that replaces digital ads for for publish and content. Yeah I don't mean I got yeah I'm a creative I like to think I'm a creative generative product person but and I got ideas but I'm I think it's a broader ecosystem question that we have to grapple
with. I think for better or worse it's inevitable because this technology yeah like it is objectively a more valuable experience everyone that uses the internet to have a computer read dozens of articles for them to get the answer that they want across a bunch of sources that
are not going to go away yeah and so I think solving this economic question is a big one an important one but even more and more in big because it's inevitable and so we're just trying to be good stewards along the way and do our part but it's intimidating honestly because it really does feel
like a societal shift in many ways I would also know that what is new here is this scale and that is both clarifying and scary in that but what has always been about summarizing and linking out to them like I remember when I was coming up in the industry there is all that I read drum
blogging bloggers and blogs would kind of quote articles and linked to things and was that taking away from the original source and so I think the story of the web that we can kind of forget some time even tech meme which has been partially inspiration for me like I read stuff on tech
them all the time and never click through and then sometimes they click through it this is the public web and the open internet is putting content out there and remixing and linking and quoting now I think the thing that is new and what is unfair about that characterization is before someone
manually had to do that by hand so yeah they did a quote of they wrote a summary and link back to it but it was done with maybe more intentionality or in a different context now the difference is you can have infinite tech meetings for anything whatever you want always would greater precision
and fidelity that is pretty wild and that has in second order consequences but I also think of the life of these words like I are a little bit taken right now because actually the economic model has already been strained and this is just accelerating unfortunately though I don't know
the answer and we got to figure it out but yeah yeah I mean everyone else has to follow the users right they use us or just do whatever is most convenient for them but on other hand you have like probably the most successful economic model ever right like Google search is there so it's
kind of a definitely an interesting space to building so sure yeah yeah I think I really just come back to this I've been on the board of patreon for over five years and having you know seeing out close at least with a certain type of creator the I base mall is not working I think
anyone go to a mobile web page and see all the pop up banners and the trackers and it's just not it's not like we're trying to protect something that's working it's working it's been fading for a bit so that isn't justified whatever you want and that's not what I'm then but I do think I actually
find it very exciting that I think a lot of really interesting experiments in as early as the media go even like yourself in some ways will come out of this and I don't know what those are and we want to be good citizens but I got it so let's wrap up this you know my audience is a bunch of tech
professionals right many of the more came big companies trying to improve some metric by 3% or something so what's your advice for those people who maybe are like you know they want to like do something really good really important like they want to do something that they feel proud of
do you have any closing words of advice for folks besides this the tricky thing about this is I remember the things that I deeply believe now just sound like fortune cookies or something like if I had heard someone say one of these things that I might say when I you know on the other end
of like God that sounds so cliche but I will revert back to authenticity the truth goes that you pre I think just focusing on being really proud and fulfilled of what you do at work every day and using that as your guiding light is the most important thing and move people that I don't have the
privilege of doing that thank you for listening to this podcast the better chance that you do but you know like just doing something that you if not the maybe love is a strong word just like fine pride and I can think about the value that we care about show but heartfelt intensity doing
it whatever it is in a way that makes you very proud and fulfilled almost taking that very personal lens to it but that comes from a place privilege and it doesn't work for everybody and it's not the value system of everybody but I don't know I think my career is oh as taking the most
turns when I at the end of the day just like trusting my own gutting instinct for what makes me really happy what makes me energized inside even if it's not the same for other people and I think the browser companies creating example that I'm sure people are listening to this and a couple
things I probably said like wow that doesn't feel like structured in answers I would have expected or doesn't really sound like they've thought that one and I promise you we thought about whatever that was a lot what we may have done is optimized for what has felt great to us for what we want to
do in the world and that may not be optimizing for the same things that everyone's optimizing for so thing as long as like your heart singing and this cliche that sounds I think that's all that matters but that's my value system to be being placed in other people so my knowledge way
no I don't have to caveat it I think that's a very noble thing to aim for like you know you're taking big swings and when those will happen but like your tutor yourself right you're doing what you want to do so yeah but okay I'm actually glad you said that and this is from a re-answered
that you're right that I don't need a caveat but I think that the reason I'm caveonning is like that's my answer is that I remember a decade ago trying to figure out the answer to these things how should I do and I wish I'd just kind of shut out the noise like what do I want what am I trying
to what do I want my life to be so in some ways my caveat is not oh I'm not proud of my answer for my it's more just like I don't know you I don't know your listener they don't know me they should listen to me they should listen to themselves so again you listen to yourself but I don't know
if I you know I'll have to figure out of equipier more actual fortune cookie waves and not but just that like trust that inner motivation that own heart health and tempeh need more than what I think or anyone else thinks got it all right man that's amazing yeah I think that's a great time to come