Smash Notes
How Do You Design Software That AI Agents Want to Use? · Y Combinator

Y Combinator

What Happens When Everyone Can Build Software

Supabase has become one of the default backends for the AI coding era. The open source Postgres platform now has 13 million users, spins up more than a million databases every week, and roughly 70% of its new activity is coming from agents.As coding shifts from developers writing software by hand to agents building on their behalf, Supabase has been…

People

Notes

  1. How Fast Did Supabase Grow in a Year? at 0:37

    Paul Copplestone puts Supabase at 13 million signups, up from around 3 million 12 months earlier, with databases under management approaching 50 million… Full answer

  2. Why Are Non-engineers Building Software in 2026? at 4:34

    Paul Copplestone says builders are coming online in 2026, including people without a software engineering background, because the models are getting so good… Full answer

  3. Why Does Knowing What to Build Matter More Than Knowing How? at 7:31

    A Y Combinator partner says knowing what to build is now the harder problem, because being able to build is something anyone can have on tap. Full answer

  4. What Did a Brazilian Taxi Driver Build From His Phone? at 8:50

    Paul Copplestone says a taxi driver from Brazil built an entire taxi app from his phone, a little mini Uber for his local market. Full answer

  5. What Is the Stripe Model for Databases? at 24:53

    Paul Copplestone says the Stripe model for a database company is to get people on day one and then scale with the fastest growing companies in the world. Full answer

  6. Why Build Software for Personal AI Agents? at 27:29

    Paul Copplestone is building Supabase for personal agents because the humans using it will soon not be the ones interacting with the product. Full answer

  7. How Do You Design Software That AI Agents Want to Use? at 29:44

    Paul Copplestone says you design software for AI agents by putting the fix inside the error. Full answer

  8. Why Are Vertical Software Founders Struggling to Raise? at 43:32

    A Y Combinator partner says vertical software founders are struggling to raise a Series A even at five to ten million in annual revenue, a level that was a… Full answer

Related notes

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.