--- schema: 1 type: video title: Do 60-Minute Coding Tasks in 60 Seconds—With AI - Ep. 41 with Steve Krouse description: >- Here’s the most compelling benchmark of AI progress: A task that took 60 minutes a year ago now takes 60 seconds. In January 2024, Geoffrey Litt and I spent an hour coaxing ChatGPT and Replit to build an app live on my podcast.12 months later, Steve Krouse and I built the same app with one prompt in less than a minute. Steve is the cofounder and CEO of Val Town, a cloud-based platform for developers to write, share, and deploy code directly in the browser. We used Townie, Val Town’s AI assistant, to build an app to keep track of time on the podcast, take notes, and generate questions for the guest. Townie generated the app even before Steve could finish describing it on the show. As we demo Townie, we get into: - Why Steve believes programming can rewire the way you think - The rise of the non-technical AI developer and what that means for the future of coding - How Townie works under the hood, including the details of the system prompt - How Steve is evolving Val Town’s strategy as AI progress continues to unfold - The power of small, dense engineering teams This is a must-watch for founders building AI-powered developer tools, and anyone interested in the future of programming. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Episode start 00:00:55 - Introduction 00:03:24 - How programming changes the way you think 00:11:22 - Building an app in less than 60 seconds 00:17:19 - How Val Town's AI assistant works 00:23:05 - Steve's contrarian take on the non-technical AI programmer 00:33:38 - The nuances of building software that isn't deterministic 00:39:05 - How to design systems that can capitalize on the next leap in AI 00:40:47 - What gives Val Town a competitive edge in a crowded market 00:47:34 - The power of small, dense engineering teams 00:52:26 - How Steve is positioning Val Town in a strategic niche Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Steve Krouse: https://stevekrouse.com/, @stevekrouse Val Town: https://www.val.town/ Townie, the AI assistant integrated into Val Town: https://www.val.town/townie/signup?next=%2Ftownie Pieces on Val Town’s blog about how the team built Townie: How we built Townie—an app that generates fullstack apps, Building a code-writing robot and keeping it happy The book by Seymour Papert about how programming changes the way you think: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas canonical: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/b3wexHXT2os' markdown: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/b3wexHXT2os.md' llms: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/b3wexHXT2os/llms.txt' parent: 'https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc.md' channel: everyinc updated: '2026-10-24T01:10:31.500Z' language: null children: [] videoId: b3wexHXT2os durationSeconds: 3673 publishedAt: '2024-12-04T15:00:23.000Z' searchChunks: - 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Ep. 41 with Steve Krouse Here’s the most compelling benchmark of AI progress: A task that took 60 minutes a year ago now takes 60 seconds. In January 2024, Geoffrey Litt and I spent an hour coaxing ChatGPT and Replit to build an app live on my podcast.12 months later, Steve Krouse and I built the same app with one prompt in less than a minute. Steve is the cofounder and CEO of Val Town, a cloud-based platform for developers to write, share, and deploy code directly in the browser. We used Townie, Val Town’s AI assistant, to build an app to keep track of time on the podcast, take notes, and generate questions for the guest. Townie generated the app even before Steve could finish describing it on the show. As we demo Townie, we get into: - Why Steve believes programming can rewire the way you think - The rise of the non-technical AI developer and what that means for the future of coding - How Townie works under the hood, including the details of the system prompt - How Steve is evolving Val Town’s strategy as AI progress continues to unfold - The power of small, dense engineering teams This is a must-watch for founders building AI-powered developer tools, and anyone interested in the future of programming. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Episode start 00:00:55 - Introduction 00:03:24 - How programming changes the way you think 00:11:22 - Building an app in less than 60 seconds 00:17:19 - How Val Town's AI assistant works 00:23:05 - Steve's contrarian take on the non-technical AI programmer 00:33:38 - The nuances of building software that isn't deterministic 00:39:05 - How to design systems that can capitalize on the next leap in AI 00:40:47 - What gives Val Town a competitive edge in a crowded market 00:47:34 - The power of small, dense engineering teams 00:52:26 - How Steve is positioning Val Town in a strategic niche Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Steve Krouse: https://stevekrouse.com/, @stevekrouse Val Town: https://www.val.town/ Townie, the AI assistant integrated into Val Town: https://www.val.town/townie/signup?next=%2Ftownie Pieces on Val Town’s blog about how the team built Townie: How we built Townie—an app that generates fullstack apps, Building a code-writing robot and keeping it happy The book by Seymour Papert about how programming changes the way you think: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas Canonical: https://liquidgold.cc/watch/b3wexHXT2os · Channel: [Every](https://liquidgold.cc/channel/everyinc.md) > Search chunk text is held until public-source provenance is verified. ## Document chunks > Missing: no stored document chunks are available.