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Eric Simons

Co-Founder & CEO, StackBlitz · 3 appearances on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveengineer@ericsimons40 ↗LinkedIn ↗stackblitz.com ↗

Eric Simons co-founded StackBlitz in 2017 alongside Albert Pai, developing WebContainers technology to run full-stack development environments inside web browsers. In late 2024, he created Bolt.new, a conversational AI application builder that rapidly scaled into tens of millions of dollars in ARR.

21statements → 9claims → 5claims resolved → 80%fully supported → 4.05/5average certainty → 1.6/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 3said about them ↓

4 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 9 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 8 assertions · 1 opinion · 6 insights · 5 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 9 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Eric argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Simons: Users have launched full-stack production apps with Stripe and Supabase via Bolt
“We have people that have launched real products just using Bolt at this point where they're like taking Stripe for, you know, subscriptions and like using Supabase to authenticate and like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can a hundred percent buil…”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 29:15 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
none yet certainty 3
83% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Eric Simons on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Eric Simons said on the Startup Ideas Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Simons: AI reduces a month of engineering time to five minutes
“What would take a month of engineering time Can take literally five minutes.”
Eric Simons Sep 24, 2025 ▶ 15:17 Inside the $50 Trillion AI Gold Rush | Episode 1
Assertion Partly supported
Simons: Bolt Hackathon broke world records with 130,000 participants and 1M apps
“The world record for the largest hackathon prior to this hackathon was 66,000 people. On day one, we crossed that number. At the end, we had over a 130,000 people, and over a million new web apps were created in, in that 30 day period.”
Eric Simons Oct 3, 2025 ▶ 12:22 I gave away $1M to prove anyone can build with AI
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Simons: AI will augment workers rather than replace them
“Most people think AI is going to replace them, but in, in reality, it's just gonna augment them and supercharge them.”
Eric Simons Sep 24, 2025 ▶ 7:08 Inside the $50 Trillion AI Gold Rush | Episode 1
Opinion
Simons: Software engineers lag behind entrepreneurs in adopting AI tools
“I think a lot of software engineers have been kind of late to the game on trying to adopt AI tools. And also the way that they're kind of approaching is very different than someone who is you know, kind of entrepreneurial in nature.”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 22:28 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Insight
Simons: Build LLM features incrementally with minimal initial prompts rather than bulk
“Especially, especially when you're dealing with stuff that's going to be like more complicated functionality. Like for design changes, I'll often just, I'll just kind of like, I'll be like looking at the designers creating a list in, in one shop message. I'm l…”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 41:05 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Insight
Simons: Conversational voice AI eliminates the friction of diet tracking apps
“This is a good example of just an app that a lot of people need and I think it would be really hard to do on your own. Like, I've done this, so if you try and, you know, track your dieting, whatever have you, I think the inclusion of AI, whether we can just ta…”
Eric Simons Oct 3, 2025 ▶ 17:47 I gave away $1M to prove anyone can build with AI
Disclosure
Simons: StackBlitz was preparing to shut down in 2024 before Bolt
“Last year, in twenty-twenty-four, we were getting ready to shut the company down. When you're dealing with that sort of situation where it's like, are we gonna shut down the company, or what are the other outcomes? We're gonna go and turn over every stone, and…”
Eric Simons Sep 24, 2025 ▶ 20:19 Inside the $50 Trillion AI Gold Rush | Episode 1
Insight
Simons: Start AI coding prompts by describing the 'spiritual vibe'
“I found to just kind of describe, you know, almost at a spiritual level, kind of like, this is what I'm shooting for. You know, that's like, I almost start every single prompt off I do with”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 7:02 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Insight
Simons: Non-engineers gain massive alpha by mastering LLM prompting
“For people that are like indie hackers or like bootstrapping or just building side projects, especially people that are not like you know, seasoned engineers or something, right? There is just a ridiculous amount of alpha in becoming good at like, Getting a fe…”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 21:45 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Assertion Supported
Simons: Users have launched full-stack production apps with Stripe and Supabase via Bolt
“We have people that have launched real products just using Bolt at this point where they're like taking Stripe for, you know, subscriptions and like using Supabase to authenticate and like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You can a hundred percent buil…”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 29:15 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Assertion Supported
Simons: Weight Coach wins $100,000 in total Bolt Hackathon prizes
“Second place goes to Weight Coach. The second place champion, 75,000 dollars. They also won the 11 Labs AI Voice Challenge. So, total winnings today, a 100,000 dollars.”
Eric Simons Oct 3, 2025 ▶ 17:21 I gave away $1M to prove anyone can build with AI
Disclosure
Simons: Bolt aims to throw world's largest hackathon for Guinness record
“So, we're trying to throw the world's largest hackathon and set a Guinness World Record”
Eric Simons Sep 29, 2025 ▶ 28:13 3 Days in San Francisco's AI Gold Rush
Insight
Simons: Break AI coding prompts into small tasks to easily roll back errors
“If you tell the AI to do like a ton of different things and it does a lot of them right, but then one of them wrong, then you don't want to roll back, but you know, that's the only, you're gonna have to manually change the code yourself. So that's the benefit …”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 15:39 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Assertion Supported
Simons: Bolt Builds Applications In-Browser and Deploys Directly to Netlify
“That's the other kind of cool thing about this is that it's actually doing this build in your browser, uploading it directly to Netlify, and we can go ahead and view it here.”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 24:31 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Disclosure
Simons: StackBlitz uses Cursor to build Bolt and Bolt to scaffold UI
“We use cursor to build bolt, you know, like in our own code base. And we use bolt to like scaffold out UI.”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 28:41 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Disclosure
Simons: Bolt plans to introduce one-click setup for recommended backend providers
“In the future in bolt, when you ask something like this, we're going to have kind of recommended providers where it's like, One click to set it up and blah, blah, blah.”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 31:50 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Insight
Simons: Firebase and Supabase work best with Bolt for real-time backends
“Right now, like we actually recommend people to use Firebase or Superbase. They just kind of tend to be the ones that, that really work the best with Bolt. They have kind of off built in, they have real time data storage and synchronization.”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 32:02 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Disclosure
Simons: Bolt will add file locking to stop LLMs modifying files
“So, so one of the things we're going to be adding is get a slot locking file. So the LLM will not modify stuff.”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 45:23 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Simons: YC startups are using Bolt to generate landing pages
“We've had YC startups already. They've come to bolt to build their landing pages and stuff”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 49:16 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Simons: At least a dozen Bolt users have acquired paying customers
“There's at least a dozen people that have launched stuff that have said, yep, I've had my first customer or, you know, first dozen customers or whatever at this point from bolt”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 50:12 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons
Assertion Supported
Simons: Bolt is trained to pull images from Unsplash automatically
“So we've trained this thing to actually you know, just out of the box, it'll, it'll go and pull stuff from Unsplash. I think a couple other providers as well.”
Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 ▶ 12:27 Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons

The other half of the tape: Eric Simons's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 1 episode on the Startup Ideas Podcast. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Greg Isenberg 2

Statements about Eric Simons, by other people (1)

Insight
Greg Isenberg advises choosing AI coding tools by betting on specific founders
“My recommendation to people is actually to follow all the founders of these businesses. So, V-Zero, Guillermo. Kodak, Sam Altman. Lovable, Anton. Bolt is Eric Simons. Replit, Amjad, et cetera. Follow them, and then see who you believe in. Like, if you really c…”
Greg Isenberg Nov 3, 2025 ▶ 24:38 The Best Vibe Coding Tools in 2026

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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0112025episodes it came up in
0010.5212025episodesmentions per episode
2025 2 mentions in 1 episode

Appearances (3)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
I gave away $1M to prove anyone can build with AI Oct 3, 2025 4m
Inside the $50 Trillion AI Gold Rush | Episode 1 Sep 24, 2025 1m
Bolt tutorial for beginners with the Bolt CEO Eric Simons Nov 8, 2024 34m

Played on the show (1)

Episodes where a recording of Eric Simons was played rather than Eric taking part, or where the tape carries an address with nobody putting questions to them. Listed because the words are on the record, kept out of every score on this page because they were not said on this show. We read this off the tape: who was spoken to, who was asked something, who answered whom.

EpisodeDateOn tapeWhat it is
3 Days in San Francisco's AI Gold Rush Sep 29, 2025 43s aired address
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