Amjad Masad (Replit CEO) says X/Twitter is strong for Silicon Valley and early…

Brief

Amjad Masad, CEO of Replit, argues founders should go direct on every platform: start on X/Twitter for news and outsized influence among Silicon Valley/early adopters, then expand to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube to reach the early majority. He says he shifted focus in February 2026 and is seeing huge viewership, and emphasizes building in public, early mistakes and authenticity.

Why it matters

Amjad Masad (Replit CEO) says X/Twitter is strong for Silicon Valley and early adopters but “not very impactful” for late adopters/early majority; Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are where you reach the early majority — he began focusing on those since February 2026 and reports “an insane amount of views.”

Key details

Masad says founders should “go direct” and build in public: he overcame crippling stage fright to become a prominent CEO on X, advises making mistakes early, cultivating authenticity (citing Elon, Zuckerberg, Trump), and to “become uncancellable”; he discusses platform-specific founder advice in an a16z interview with Erik Torenberg (published 2026-07-20).

Amjad Masad, CEO of Replit, on why founders need to go direct on every platform:

"X is very good for Silicon Valley, for tech, for in-group messaging, for maybe one hop outside of Silicon Valley, which is the early adopter. Once you want to go to late adopters or early majority, Twitter becomes actually not very impactful there."

"Instagram, Facebook, YouTube is where you get to the early majority. I just started focusing on it in maybe February or something like that, and we're getting an insane amount of views."

"I would start with Twitter because that's where the news starts. This is where you can have outsized influence."

@amasad @eriktorenberg

Video

a16z (@a16z)

Amjad Masad on Going Direct & Founder Storytelling

Replit CEO Amjad Masad joins a16z's Erik Torenberg on how he went from crippling stage fright to one of the most famous CEOs on X, which platforms actually matter and why, and what founders get wrong about building in public.

00:50 Memeing a dream into reality
03:02 Conquering stage fright
04:00 Make your mistakes early
05:23 Building in public
06:41 The authenticity edge: Elon, Zuck, Trump
08:42 Become uncancellable
10:47 Advice for Anthropic and OpenAI
15:09 The day AI deleted prod
17:39 Who should go direct?
19:37 X vs Instagram vs YouTube
22:52 Go direct role models

@amasad @eriktorenberg

Video

— https://nitter.net/a16z/status/2079250292420571308#m