Wes and Scott talk with Loïc Houssier about how Superhuman builds lightning-fast, delightfully-designed email software. They dig into engineering philosophy, offline-first architecture, local databases, AI-powered productivity, and what it takes to create tools that people love.
Show Notes
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00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
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03:05 Inside Superhuman and Loïc’s role
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06:49 Is Superhuman native? What’s the tech stack?
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08:16 How Superhuman approaches product design and speed
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12:17 Local-first architecture – Sync, storage, and performance
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13:46 Vector search, AI, and privacy considerations
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18:12 How the team ships fast and stays focused
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21:27 Rethinking email for the future
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26:54 Brought to you by Sentry.io
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27:19 How calendar integration and smart features work
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29:54 Where new ideas come from
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31:54 Will there ever be a true dark mode?
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33:02 Are people actually using keyboard shortcuts?
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36:42 How shortcuts work and the role of the command palette
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41:28 Engineering for speed – Costs and trade-offs
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43:32 How Superhuman’s sync engine works
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46:09 What code runs locally and what runs on the server?
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46:51 How Superhuman handled the Google and Cloudflare outage
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