Zach spent 8 years at Google leading engineering for Google Docs, then left to build a photo sharing app with zero go-to-market plan.
Reality hit hard: "At Google, anything you launch gets millions of users. At a startup, the challenge isn't building—it's getting anyone to care." After writing a brutal postmortem documenting everything that went wrong, he started Warp with strict principles: only hire product-obsessed people, document every process, build pure software not services.
For three years, Warp had hundreds of thousands of free users but no revenue. Then they pivoted to AI-powered development in 2024. Here's how they went from taking 300 days to hit their $1M to now adding $1M ARR every 10 days.
Why You Should Listen:
- Why working at Google can set you up to fail as a founder
- How to know when to quit your own startup
- Why you should write down every operating principle before starting
- The shift he made to grow insanely fast
- Why competing directly with fast-growing startups is actually smart
Keywords:
startup podcast, startup podcast for founders, Warp, Zach Lloyd, Google alumni, developer tools, AI coding, product-market fit, startup pivot, Series B
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:48 From law school to Google via Craigslist
00:05:01 Why Google makes you a terrible startup founder
00:10:36 Joining SelfMade as technical co-founder
00:19:00 Writing a brutal post-mortem of the startup experience
00:27:15 Building Warp and getting 10,000 signups day one
00:38:08 Raising $50M Series B with zero revenue
00:41:50 Pivoting to Agent Mode and AI development
00:46:27 From 300 days to $1M to adding $1M every 10 days
Retry
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