Howie Liu

Co-founder and CEO of Airtable

Claims

As speaker

Mentioned in

Key positions and views

AI represents a paradigm shift more significant than mobile or cloud, requiring every software company to be 'refounded' from the ground up, not just superficially updated with AI features.

The future of software interaction is conversational and agentic, where AI builds bespoke applications for users on demand, radically lowering the barrier to creating custom software.

To succeed in the AI era, companies must prioritize operational velocity by breaking down internal silos, eliminating bureaucratic processes like RACI in favor of single DRIs, and empowering employees to be more 'full stack'.

Founders must remain deeply involved in the product ('Founder Mode') and resist the conventional wisdom of hiring traditional managers, as this can dilute a company's unique 'alpha' and agility during periods of intense innovation.

While agentic AI is an existential threat to traditional no-code, a company's existing assets (like no-code components and distribution) can be a valuable 'parts bin' to build new AI-native products more reliably than pure code generation.

Podcast consensus on Liu

Points of consensus

▶Multiple sources confirm Howie Liu's belief that AI is an existential paradigm shift, more significant than mobile or cloud, requiring companies like Airtable to be 'radically refounded' to survive and win.Apr 2026

▶Liu has undertaken a significant operational and organizational restructuring at Airtable to adapt to AI, including two major rounds of layoffs, canceling standing meetings to increase velocity, and reorganizing teams into 'fast' and 'slow' thinking groups.Apr 2026

▶Airtable's new product strategy, driven by Liu, is centered on a conversational, chat-based interface and a comprehensive AI agent named 'Omni'.Apr 2026

▶Liu's entrepreneurial journey began with a company called Etacts (or E-Tax), which went through Y Combinator, grew to a small team, and was acqui-hired by Salesforce, netting him a low seven-figure amount.Apr 2026

Points of debate

▶Liu presents a conflicting view on no-code's future, identifying agentic AI as an existential threat to the market [32] while simultaneously framing Airtable's existing no-code components as a key strategic advantage and 'parts bin' for its AI-native transition [5, 21].Apr 2026

▶There is a tension in Liu's stated hiring philosophy, where he advocates for continuous hiring to bring in new skills and perspectives [7] while also having executed two rounds of layoffs that cut Airtable's headcount by more than half [45].Apr 2026

▶Liu's leadership approach embraces both extreme speed and deliberate patience, evidenced by his creation of a 'fast thinking' group for weekly AI releases alongside a 'slow thinking' group for long-term infrastructure projects like a new data store [30, 55].

▶Regarding monetization, Liu is currently pursuing a strategy of absorbing AI inference costs to prioritize user experience [17, 49], yet he also recounts and considers radical alternative models, such as Mark Zuckerberg's proposal to make the core product free and monetize via a marketplace [12].Apr 2026

Key themes

▶The AI 'Refounding'

Liu's central thesis is that AI is not an incremental feature but a fundamental paradigm shift demanding a complete corporate reinvention. He argues that every software product must be 'refounded,' breaking existing processes, organizational structures, and product philosophies to build for an AI-native world.

This 'refound or die' mentality signals a high-risk, high-reward strategy that could either position Airtable as a leader in the new paradigm or alienate its existing enterprise base by moving too fast and breaking too much.

▶Agentic Product Experiences

Liu believes the future of software lies in 'agentic' systems that can build bespoke applications conversationally. He sees this as the ultimate fulfillment of the no-code promise but also a threat to its traditional form, pushing Airtable to pivot from a visual builder to a conversational creator.

Investors should watch whether Airtable can successfully transition its core value proposition from a structured, relational database to a more fluid, AI-driven application generator, a move that fundamentally changes the user interaction model.

▶Founder-Led VelocityApr 2026

In response to the AI shift, Liu has re-asserted a hands-on, 'Founder Mode' leadership style, mirroring Brian Chesky's approach at Airbnb. This involves cutting bureaucratic overhead like standing meetings, taking on the de facto Chief Product Officer role, and empowering small, autonomous teams with single DRIs to execute rapidly.

This approach challenges the conventional wisdom of scaling a company with professional managers and suggests that during technological disruptions, founder-led product vision and operational agility are paramount, even at a large scale.

▶Strategic CannibalizationApr 2026

Liu openly acknowledges that agentic AI poses an existential threat to the traditional no-code market that Airtable helped build. His strategy involves proactively disrupting this core business by embracing a new, conversational app-building model, using Airtable's existing assets as a 'parts bin' for this new vision.

This theme highlights a classic innovator's dilemma; Liu is betting that the long-term gains from leading the next wave of software creation outweigh the short-term risks of de-emphasizing the product that brought the company its current success.

Source episodes

Sentiment over time

Not enough data for timeline

Changes over time

Winter 2010

Liu's first company, Etacts, is accepted into Y Combinator's Winter 2010 batch [8].

Circa 2011

At age 21, Liu sells Etacts to Salesforce in an acqui-hire after growing it to a team of four, personally making a low seven-figure amount from the deal [1, 9, 11].

Circa 2012-2014

Co-founds Airtable and spends over two years in a prolonged development phase before the product's public launch, a timeline he compares to Figma's [35].

Circa 2022-2023

Executes two significant rounds of layoffs at Airtable, reducing the company's headcount from a peak of 1,280 to approximately 600 employees to adjust to new market realities [45].

2023-2024

Initiates a 'radical refounding' of Airtable in response to the rise of generative AI, believing the technology represents an existential threat and opportunity [4, 13]. This involves a complete organizational and product overhaul.

2024

Launches Airtable's new AI-native experience, centered on a conversational agent named 'Omni' and a chat-first user interface, while restructuring the engineering organization into 'fast' and 'slow' thinking teams to accelerate AI development [16, 30, 44].

Suggested prompts

How does Liu's 'refounding' strategy balance the risk of alienating Airtable's existing multi-million dollar enterprise customers with the need to innovate for an AI-native future? &nearr;What are the potential long-term financial implications of Airtable's strategy to absorb AI inference costs, and how might this impact its competitive positioning against both incumbents and new startups? &nearr;Analyze the 'fast thinking' vs. 'slow thinking' organizational structure at Airtable. What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of this dual-track approach to innovation during a major technological shift? &nearr;How does Liu's philosophy of 'Founder Mode' and the CEO as CPO conflict with or complement traditional models of scaling a large enterprise SaaS company, particularly regarding executive hiring and operational processes? &nearr;

Key concepts

AI Strategy 4 ep Airtable 4 ep Leadership & Management 4 ep Product Strategy 4 ep Company Culture & Org Design 3 ep SaaS Market 3 ep No-Code 2 ep Founder Advice 2 ep Salesforce 2 ep

Notable quotes

“[11:02 -> 11:09] every certainly every software product in my opinion has to be refounded because like ai is such a paradigm shift it's not even like just like the shift from desktop to mobile or on-prem to cloud”

Howie Liu · How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

“if you win at AI, that is worth trillions of dollars to you. But if you lose at it, like you you've basically become irrelevant.”

Howie Liu · Airtable CEO Howie Liu - Excel vs Access, Founder Mode, and the Future of SaaS

“we did two riffs that collectively uh cut the company from effectively 12 80 people... had to cut it back down to roughly 600”

Howie Liu · Airtable’s AI Reboot with CEO Howie Liu

“[14:08 -> 14:21] i take pride in being the number one most expensive in inference cost user of air table ai uh not just within our own company but i think for a long time i was globally across all our customers as well”

Howie Liu · How we restructured Airtable's entire org for AI | Howie Liu (co-founder and CEO)

Report last updated: Apr 21, 2026

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