Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

chevron_right

The 100-person AI lab that became Anthropic and Google's secret weapon | Edwin Chen (Surge AI)

whatshot 715 snips

Dec 7, 2025

Guest

Edwin Chen

Edwin Chen, founder and CEO of Surge AI, has an impressive background as a former research scientist at Google, Facebook, and Twitter. He shares how Surge achieved over $1 billion in revenue with fewer than 100 employees by focusing on quality over hype. The conversation dives into AI benchmarking flaws, the significance of human judgment in model success, and the evolving landscape of reinforcement learning environments. Edwin also discusses his contrarian approach to company growth and why he believes AGI is still a decade away.

01:10:31

forum

Ask episode

web_stories

AI Snips

view_agenda

Chapters

menu_book

Books

auto_awesome

Transcript

info_circle

Episode notes

00:00 / 00:00

Build A Small Elite Team

Build a tiny, elite team focused on craft instead of playing the Silicon Valley fundraising and PR game.
Avoid blitzscaling and prioritize product excellence and mission alignment with customers.

00:00 / 00:00

Quality Is Deep And Subjective

High-quality data means teaching models subtle, subjective qualities, not checklist compliance.
Measuring quality requires thousands of signals and ML to surface the best contributors.

00:00 / 00:00

Measure Workers With Rich Signals

Instrument every worker with signals (keystrokes, speed, reviews) to predict who produces model-improving outputs.
Use those signals to route tasks to the best contributors and improve training data.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Surge's contrarian, small-team strategy

Surge's growth: AI leverage and efficiency

04:52 • 2min

chevron_right

Choosing not to play Silicon Valley's game

07:10 • 2min

chevron_right

What Surge actually does

09:10 • 26sec

chevron_right

Why data quality matters in AI

09:36 • 2min

chevron_right

How Surge evaluates and select workers

11:40 • 2min

chevron_right

Why Claude excelled at coding and writing

13:30 • 3min

chevron_right

Benchmarks can mislead model progress

16:30 • 4min

chevron_right

Measuring progress with human evaluations

20:15 • 2min

chevron_right

AGI timelines and remaining gaps

22:01 • 1min

chevron_right

The wrong incentives pushing AI toward engagement

23:09 • 3min

chevron_right

Anthropic and principled model design

26:20 • 2min

chevron_right

Against pivoting and blitzscaling

28:33 • 5min

chevron_right

LLMs' limits and the need for new learning

33:12 • 1min

chevron_right

Reinforcement learning environments explained

34:32 • 2min

chevron_right

Practical RL env examples and objectives

36:36 • 3min

chevron_right

Why trajectories matter in RL training

39:37 • 2min

chevron_right

The evolution of post-training techniques

41:34 • 2min

chevron_right

Surge's suite: matching human learning diversity

43:14 • 2min

chevron_right

Why Surge built an internal research team

44:47 • 3min

chevron_right

Predictions: model differentiation and product artifacts

48:10 • 4min

chevron_right

Founding Surge: Edwin's background and motivation

52:22 • 3min

chevron_right

What keeps Edwin motivated

55:07 • 3min

chevron_right

Philosophy: objective functions and humanity

• Mentioned in 50 episodes

The Myth of Sisyphus

Albert Camus

In 'The Myth of Sisyphus', Albert Camus delves into the concept of the absurd, which arises from the conflict between humanity's desire for meaning and the apparent indifference of the universe. Camus argues that this absurdity does not justify suicide but rather requires a revolt against it. He introduces Sisyphus, a figure from Greek mythology condemned to eternally push a boulder up a mountain only for it to roll back down, as the ideal absurd hero. Camus suggests that Sisyphus's acceptance of his fate and his continued effort to push the boulder up the mountain, despite its futility, exemplify the human condition and the possibility of finding happiness in the face of absurdity. The essay also discusses other examples of absurd lives and includes an appendix on the works of Franz Kafka.

#3095

• Mentioned in 12 episodes

Story of Your Life

Ted Chiang

In 'Story of Your Life,' Ted Chiang tells the story of Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist recruited by the U.S. military to decipher the language of aliens who have landed on Earth. The narrative alternates between Louise's past interactions with the aliens, known as heptapods, and her future memories of her daughter. As Louise learns the heptapods' written language, Heptapod B, she begins to perceive time non-linearly, seeing all moments of her life simultaneously. This raises profound questions about free will, determinism, and the human experience of time. The story is a deep exploration of language, cognition, and the emotional impact of knowing one's future.

#23301

• Mentioned in 2 episodes

Le Ton beau de Marot

In Praise of the Music of Language

Douglas Hofstadter

#285

• Mentioned in 73 episodes

Gödel, Escher, Bach

An Eternal Golden Braid

Douglas Hofstadter

This book by Douglas Hofstadter is a comprehensive and interdisciplinary work that explores the interrelated ideas of Kurt Gödel, M.C. Escher, and Johann Sebastian Bach. It delves into concepts such as self-reference, recursion, and the limits of formal systems, particularly through Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. The book uses dialogues between fictional characters, including Achilles and the Tortoise, to intuitively present complex ideas before they are formally explained. It covers a wide range of topics including cognitive science, artificial intelligence, number theory, and the philosophy of mind, aiming to understand how consciousness and intelligence emerge from formal systems.

Edwin Chen is the founder and CEO of Surge AI, the company that teaches AI what’s good vs. what’s bad, powering frontier labs with elite data, environments, and evaluations. Surge surpassed $1 billion in revenue with under 100 employees last year, completely bootstrapped—the fastest company in history to reach this milestone. Before founding Surge, Edwin was a research scientist at Google, Facebook, and Twitter and studied mathematics, computer science, and linguistics at MIT.

We discuss:

1. How Surge reached over $1 billion in revenue with fewer than 100 people by obsessing over quality

2. The story behind how Claude Code got so good at coding and writing

3. The problems with AI benchmarks and why they’re pushing AI in the wrong direction

4. How RL environments are the next frontier in AI training

5. Why Edwin believes we’re still a decade away from AGI

6. Why taste and human judgment shape which AI models become industry leaders

7. His contrarian approach to company building that rejects Silicon Valley’s “pivot and blitzscale” playbook

8. How AI models will become increasingly differentiated based on the values of the companies building them

—

Brought to you by:

Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security.

WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs

Coda—The all-in-one collaborative workspace

—

Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/surge-ai-edwin-chen

—

My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/180055059/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation

—

Where to find Edwin Chen:

• X: https://x.com/echen

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

• Surge’s blog: https://surgehq.ai/blog

—

Where to find Lenny:

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

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

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

—

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Edwin Chen

(04:48) AI’s role in business efficiency

(07:08) Building a contrarian company

(08:55) An explanation of what Surge AI does

(09:36) The importance of high-quality data

(13:31) How Claude Code has stayed ahead

(17:37) Edwin’s skepticism toward benchmarks

(21:54) AGI timelines and industry trends

(28:33) The Silicon Valley machine

(33:07) Reinforcement learning and future AI training

(39:37) Understanding model trajectories

(41:11) How models have advanced and will continue to advance

(42:55) Adapting to industry needs

(44:39) Surge’s research approach

(48:07) Predictions for the next few years in AI

(50:43) What’s underhyped and overhyped in AI

(52:55) The story of founding Surge AI

(01:02:18) Lightning round and final thoughts

—

Referenced:

• Surge: https://surgehq.ai

• Surge’s product page: https://surgehq.ai/products

• Claude Code: https://www.claude.com/product/claude-code

• Gemini 3: https://aistudio.google.com/models/gemini-3

• Sora: https://openai.com/sora

• Terrence Rohan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrencerohan

• Richard Sutton—Father of RL thinks LLMs are a dead end: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/richard-sutton

• The Bitter Lesson: http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html

• Reinforcement learning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement_learning

• Grok: https://grok.com

• Warren Buffett on X: https://x.com/WarrenBuffett

• OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai

• Anthropic’s CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-cpo-heres-what-comes-next

• Brian Armstrong on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barmstrong

• Interstellar on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Interstellar-Matthew-McConaughey/dp/B00TU9UFTS

• Arrival on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Arrival-Amy-Adams/dp/B01M2C4NP8

• Travelers on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80105699

• Waymo: https://waymo.com

• Soda versus pop: https://flowingdata.com/2012/07/09/soda-versus-pop-on-twitter

—

Recommended books:

• Stories of Your Life and Others: https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1101972122

• The Myth of Sisyphus: https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Sisyphus-Vintage-International/dp/0525564454

• Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465086454

• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid: https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567

—

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

—

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Home Top podcasts Popular guests Top books