The Lobster Talks Podcast by Lobster Capital This YC Startup Exposes the AI Secrets the Top 1% Don’t Share
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Sep 23, 2025 Dexter Horthy, co-founder of HumanLayer and a backend engineering whiz, delves into the future of AI with headless agents that do the heavy lifting. He shares how his journey began with a SQL janitor agent and how he rapidly secured initial customers. Dexter highlights the significance of context engineering over traditional coding methods and discusses the challenges of building for elite AI teams versus the masses. He argues that the real bottleneck lies in culture and process, shaping how agents integrate with complex codebases.
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Laptop Agent MVP Paid Quickly
- Dexter built an MVP agent that ran on his laptop and pinged him in Slack when it needed approval.
- He shipped it in three weeks, closed revenue in one week, and entered YC weeks later.
Solo Founder Burn During YC
- Dexter spent about a year as a solo founder through YC and found it extremely taxing.
- He signed a new co-founder after that period to share business and engineering responsibilities.
Data Tools Market Is Smaller Than Hype
- The TAM for specialized data-team tools is smaller than hype suggested and many teams already solve needs with core engineering.
- Data teams often lack metrics, so building measurement tooling can still unlock value but markets are narrower.