Steven Fabre is the Co-founder and CEO of Liveblocks.

Liveblocks builds ready-made AI copilots and collaboration for your product, and Steven is one of my smartest friends on how people are actually using AI on a day-to-day basis.

We talk about what most people get wrong when trying to build AI-native software, how to treat it as more than just a copilot that sits on top of your product, and what he’s learned about how large enterprises are actually buying and using AI right now.

We also talk through Liveblocks journey of evolving from real-time human collaboration components into one that also incorporates AI, what he’s learned going from a designer to a CEO, and how he rebuilt the company after his co-founder stepped away.

Thank you to Numeral for supporting this episode. It’s the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: ⁠https://www.numeral.com⁠

Timestamps:

(2:17) Liveblocks: Infrastructure for people + AI

(6:08) Wrong ways to add AI to software

(8:05) Why humans and AI must collaborate

(12:35) How AI will change software UI

(18:58) AI search optimization

(26:20) How to get #1 on Product Hunt

(32:33) Liveblocks 1.0 to 3.0 evolution

(36:40) Why collaboration software is so hard

(38:38) How customers use Liveblocks

(42:36) Hiring a coach to get better at sales

(47:07) Steven’s biggest enterprise sales mistakes

(50:28) How AI changes GTM and funding milestones

(57:57) Going from a designer to a CEO

(1:01:06) How Liveblocks first started

(1:04:56) Importance of design in company building

(1:06:51) Learning to become a CEO

(1:12:29) When his co-founder left 5 years in

(1:15:49) Becoming stronger hiring a new Head of Engineering

(1:22:10) Remote culture: what doesn’t work

(1:24:08) Remote culture: what does work

(1:26:47) Importance of autonomy on remote teams

(1:28:05) Most underrated basketball players

(1:33:38) ACL injury that kickstarted his first business

Referenced

Liveblocks: https://liveblocks.io/

Careers at Liveblocks: https://join.team/liveblocks

Follow Steven

Twitter: https://x.com/stevenfabre

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-fabre-5510bb38

Follow Turner

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

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