Leading and building Raycast

Apr 17, 2024

Thomas Paul Mann, Co-founder of Raycast, discusses productivity on Mac, community-built extensions, Raycast Store, and AI chat interface. Raycast evolves from a launcher to a productivity tool with AI integration paving the way for its future.

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ANECDOTE

Building for Ourselves

At Raycast, everyone builds for themselves, leading to strong opinions about the tool.
This approach ensures the team remains avid users and caters to like-minded individuals.

INSIGHT

History of Launchers

Launchers have a long history on Mac, with Quicksilver being one of the first.
Apple's Spotlight commercialized the concept, but launchers offer more power and customization.

INSIGHT

Origin of Raycast Features

Many Raycast features, like window management, originated from the team's own needs.
The platform's extensibility allows users to personalize and solve their unique problems.

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This week Adam is joined by Thomas Paul Mann, Co-founder and CEO of Raycast, to discuss being productive on a Mac, going beyond their free tier, the extensions built by the community, the Raycast Store, how they’re executing on Raycast AI chat which aims to be a single interface to many LLMs. Raycast has gone beyond being an extendable launcher – they’ve gone full-on productivity mode with access to AI paving the way of their future.

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Featuring:

Thomas Paul Mann – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!