Josh Miller

The long-term value of a new interface lies in providing the APIs and capabilities that allow other developers to build immersive experiences that were previously impossible.

"on any new computer... the developer platform itself is much more interesting and lucrative and world changing than the first-party computer itself... Arc as a development platform is going to be much..."

The ultimate sign of product health is a retention curve that improves cohort-over-cohort even as you expand beyond early adopters.

"what I'm really proud of is, 12 months later we've been inching it up and up and up, despite getting further away from the earliest most passionate adopters. So, our retention curve's going up and up..."

Use the interview process to actively 'anti-sell' the company to ensure only those with extreme alignment and resilience join.

"Our goal of interviews is to convince people not to join The Browser Company. If I have an interview with someone, I don't pitch them and say, 'What do you want to ask me? Anything you want? I'll be s..."

Prioritize 'heartfelt intensity' as the primary cultural trait to ensure high craft and autonomous execution.

"We want people that show up to our company with some fire in their belly, something that they are out to do... heartfelt intensity. And I think even relative to everything else, I'm going to say, that..."

Express company values through narrative and storytelling rather than corporate bullet points to make them more resonant and less like 'propaganda.'

"instead of having a corporate landing page with five value titles and subtitles, let's write a manual for how to take a road trip. So we wrote an essay called 'Notes on Road Trips' that use this semi-..."

Combat CEO-hero worship by publicly attributing features and craft details to the specific individual contributors who built them.

"whenever we ship something, we go out of our way to celebrate the people that worked on it publicly. I think there's a CEO-hero worship sometimes in Silicon Valley... I do very little as it relates to..."

Use non-standard or 'made-up' names for features and teams to force first-principles thinking and avoid falling into industry tropes.

"give something a new name, it sheds a lot of preconceived notions of what the thing should be... if you say you're building a browser history feature... everyone knows what you're talking about. And t..."

Storytelling should be a unified discipline that covers marketing, PR, and IR to ensure a consistent narrative across all external audiences.

"the storytelling team is about people we don't have the privilege of serving yet... That could be an investor, air quote, 'investor relations.' That could be members of the press, air quote, 'PR.' Tha..."

Use a single high-frequency usage metric (like D5/D7) to capture retention, engagement, and growth simultaneously without the risk of gaming the numbers.

"we really focus on one key metric as it relates to tracking our growth or how we are doing. We call it D5, D7. A lot of other companies call it L5, L7. But the human explanation for that is how many p..."

A powerful vision uses a 'Trojan Horse' strategy: replace a familiar utility (the browser) to eventually become a new computing paradigm (the internet computer).

"we want to be to the web browser, what the iPhone was to the cell phone. Yes. The iPhone replaced your cell phone, but it really was something much more. And so, we want Arc to be the iPhone for the i..."

In commoditized markets where products are functionally similar, the primary competitive advantage is emotional connection and brand affinity.

"The attributes of that business and that product category mean, you have to win on how much do people love your product and feel an emotional connection to it, and choose your brand, your product over..."

Consolidate customer support, success, and user research into a single 'Membership' function to maintain a holistic, long-term relationship with users.

"Membership... we need to have a deep, genuine, ongoing relationship with them. And on day one, that may be air quote, 'customer success.' ... On day 37, that might be, 'I have a bug.' ... And on day 5..."

A 'default to action' culture is built on the humility of assuming you don't have the answers, which forces rapid prototyping and shipping.

"assume you don't know. And the follow up to that value is, 'So we got to get going.' It's like dropping in a new city. You just got to walk out the door of your Airbnb turn left and ... Maybe you'll t..."