How 80,000 companies build with AI: products as organisms, the death of org charts, and why agents will outnumber employees by 2026 | Asha Sharma (CVP of AI Platform at Microsoft)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

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Unlocking AI's Potential with Reinforcement Learning

This chapter explores the critical role of reinforcement learning in AI, focusing on the transition from pre-training to post-training phases as model complexity increases. It discusses strategies for optimizing advanced AI models and emphasizes the importance of tailoring solutions to organizational needs.

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Asha Sharma leads AI product strategy at Microsoft, where she works with thousands of companies building AI products and has unique visibility into what’s working (and what’s not) across more than 15,000 startups and enterprises. Before Microsoft, Asha was COO at Instacart, and VP of Product & Engineering at Meta, notably leading product for Messenger.

What you’ll learn:

1. Why we’re moving from “product as artifact” to “product as organism” and what this means for builders

2. Microsoft’s “seasons” planning framework that allows them to adapt quickly in the AI era

3. The death of the org chart: how agents are turning hierarchies into task networks and why “the loop, not the lane” is the new organizing principle

4. Why post-training will soon see more investment than pre-training—and how to build your own AI moat with fine-tuning

5. Her prediction for the “agentic society”—where org charts become work charts and agents outnumber humans in your company

6. The three-phase pattern every successful AI company follows (and why most fail at phase one)

7. The rise of code-native interfaces and why GUIs might be going the way of the desktop

8. What Asha learned from Satya Nadella about optimism

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Brought to you by:

Enterpret—Transform customer feedback into product growth: https://enterpret.com/lenny

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Transcript: ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-80000-companies-build-with-ai-asha-sharma⁠

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My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): ⁠https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/171413445/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation⁠

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Where to find Asha Sharma:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aboutasha/

• Blog: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/author/asha-sharma/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Asha Sharma

(04:18) From “product as artifact” to “product as organism”

(06:20) The rise of post-training and the future of AI product development

(09:10) Successful AI companies: patterns and pitfalls

(12:01) The evolution of full-stack builders

(14:15) “The loop, not the lane”—the new organizing principle

(16:24) The future of user interfaces: from GUI to code-native

(19:34) The rise of the agentic society

(22:58) The “work chart” vs. the “org chart”

(26:24) How Microsoft is using agents

(28:23) Planning and strategy in the AI landscape

(35:38) The importance of platform fundamentals

(39:31) Lessons from industry giants

(42:10) What’s driving Asha

(44:30) Reinforcement learning (RL) and optimization loops

(49:19) Lightning round and final thoughts

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Referenced:

• Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/

• Cursor: https://cursor.com/

• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell

• Inside ChatGPT: The fastest growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-turley

• GitHub: https://github.com

• Dragon Medical One: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/health-solutions/clinical-workflow/dragon-medical-one

• Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/

• Building a magical AI code editor used by over 1 million developers in four months: The untold story of Windsurf | Varun Mohan (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-untold-story-of-windsurf-varun-mohan

• Lovable: https://lovable.dev/

• Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika

• Bolt: http://bolt.com

• Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder and CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons

• Replit: https://replit.com/

•Behind the product: Replit | Amjad Masad (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/behind-the-product-replit-amjad-masad

• He saved OpenAI, invented the “Like” button, and built Google Maps: Bret Taylor on the future of careers, coding, agents, and more: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/he-saved-openai-bret-taylor

• Sierra: https://sierra.ai/

• Spark: https://github.com/features/spark

• Peter Yang on X: https://x.com/petergyang

• How AI will impact product management: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-ai-will-impact-product-management

• Instacart: http://instacart.com/

• Terminator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_(franchise)

• Porch Group: https://porchgroup.com/

• WhatsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com/

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

• Satya Nadella on X: https://x.com/satyanadella

• Perfect Match 360°: Artificial intelligence to find the perfect donor match: https://ivi-fertility.com/blog/perfect-match-360-artificial-intelligence-to-find-the-perfect-donor-match/

• OpenAI’s GPT-5 shows potential in healthcare with early cancer detection capabilities: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/openais-gpt-5-shows-potential-in-healthcare-with-early-cancer-detection-capabilities/articleshow/123173952.cms