Founder Craft: Treat Startup Work as Skill Building

Qasar Younis is the co-founder and CEO of Applied Intuition, a $15 billion AI company that adds intelligence to cars, tractors, planes, submarines, and other vehicles—essentially, Tesla or Waymo without the hardware. He was previously COO of Y Combinator, started his career as an engineer at GM and Bosch, and was born on a farm in Pakistan.

We discuss:

1. Why the biggest AI revolution will play out in mining, farming, construction, and trucking over the next 5 to 10 years, not in software

2. Why Qasar intentionally stayed under the radar for nearly a decade while building Applied Intuition, and why most founders shouldn’t do that

3. The truth about China’s AI capabilities and why comparisons to American companies are fundamentally flawed

4. The company values that drive Applied Intuition: speed above everything, laugh a lot, half the work is follow-up, never disappoint the customer

5. The biggest lessons from Qasar’s stint as YC’s COO, including that the most successful companies show traction very early

6. How reading old books is the best way to build taste

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Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-most-successful-ai-company-youve-never-heard-of

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Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0

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Where to find Qasar Younis:

• X: https://x.com/qasar

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

• Website: https://qy.co

• Reading list: https://qy.co/books

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Where to find Lenny:

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

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

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

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Qasar and Applied Intuition

(04:01) The optimistic vision: How AI will create abundance

(08:49) Why anxiety about AI comes from misunderstanding—and how to fight fear with knowledge

(12:58) The market sell-off explained

(16:31) Self-driving cars: Why 30,000 annual deaths prove we need autonomy now

(20:22) The spectrum of physical AI

(28:00) How AI is coming just in time

(33:26) Why comparing Chinese AI companies to American AI companies is a category error

(39:12) Why Qasar finally joined Twitter after staying silent for a decade

(45:08) Why successful companies almost always show early signs of traction

(50:40) Applied Intuition’s core values

(56:00) Why the company cleans its own office—and never spent a dollar of raised capital

(58:50) Quasar’s reading philosophy

(01:06:14) How to operationalize listening to naysayers

(01:12:53) The importance of decisiveness

(01:14:55) Removing emotions from decisions

(01:19:02) Why most Silicon Valley CEOs don’t have great taste—and how to develop it

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Referenced:

• Applied Intuition: https://www.appliedintuition.com

• Marc Andreessen: The real AI boom hasn’t even started yet: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/marc-andreessen-the-real-ai-boom

• Elad Gil’s website: https://eladgil.com

• Bosch: https://www.bosch.com

• Berkshire Hathaway: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com

• Naval Ravikant on X: https://x.com/naval

• Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com

• Waymo: https://waymo.com/

• Tesla: https://www.tesla.com

• DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com

• Rivian: https://rivian.com

• Crate & Barrel: https://www.crateandbarrel.com

• OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai

• Sam Altman on X: https://x.com/sama

• Peter Ludwig on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterwludwig

• What Steve Jobs really meant when he said ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal’: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/what-steve-jobs-really-meant-when-he-said-good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal

• 7 quotes on the power of reading from Charlie Munger: https://www.neil.blog/articles/7-quotes-power-reading-charlie-munger

• Andreessen Horowitz: https://a16z.com

• John Doerr on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-doerr-03248211

• Gandhi’s quote: https://www.azquotes.com/author/5308-Mahatma_Gandhi/tag/truth#google_vignette

• Steve Ballmer on X: https://x.com/Steven_Ballmer

• General Motors: https://www.gm.com

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Recommended books:

• House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company: https://www.amazon.com/House-Huawei-History-Powerful-Company/dp/0593544633

• Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One: https://press.stripe.com/maintenance-part-one

• The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley: https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Alex-Haley/dp/0345350685

• High Output Management: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884

• The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer: https://www.amazon.com/Emperor-All-Maladies-Biography-Cancer/dp/1439170916

• Made in America: https://www.amazon.com/Sam-Walton-Made-America/dp/0553562835

• My American Journey: https://www.amazon.com/American-Journey-Autobiography-Colin-Powell/dp/0679432965

• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies: https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552

• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised/dp/0143117009

• SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome: https://www.amazon.com/SPQR-History-Ancient-Mary-Beard/dp/0871404230

• A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness: https://www.amazon.com/World-Appears-Journey-into-Consciousness/dp/198488199X

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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.