Lucidic AI

Perplexity is going all in on browser agents and Aravind thinks everyone else is building them wrong. In his future, your browser is the agent. It buys items, runs recurring tasks, replies to emails, and schedules meetings. We've all heard about this future, but here’s where Aravind stands apart: his take on MCP. Most in the space are betting that MCP will be the “universal glue” connecting agents to thousands of apps. Arvind disagrees — strongly. Why? Reliability: MCP depends on third-party servers. If they’re slow or buggy, your agent breaks. Platform risk: Apple or Google could shut down access to third-party app hooks overnight. Control: The browser already is the most universal app, there’s no need to add fragile dependencies His bet: agents should operate in the browser the way humans already do. They should click, type, and navigate the way we do (but automated ofc). There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Use browsers the way humans already do. The browser-agent debate is heating up. Some say we’re close to the dream. Others think it’s still years away. Either way, the best thing we can do is use them, break them, and give feedback, so they get better, faster. Here are some of the up and coming browser agents I think are the coolest! Give them some support and try them out. BrowserUse — built by Magnus Muller and Gregor Zunic, BrowserUse is probably the most popular open-source browser agent framework right now. Manus — built by Red Xiao, Manus has probably the most talented team we’ve ever met, publishing very technical research and findings. The Agentic — built by Akash Saraf and kartheek surampudi, the agentic is very deep into exploring multi-agent and complex tasks. Composite — built by Yang Fan Yun and Charlie Deane. Just launched 2 weeks ago, they are integrating within your browser which is an idea that I think deserves way more attention! Who else should be on this list? Tag them, let’s give them the spotlight. 🔍

People are saying GPT-5 makes Lovable obsolete. This is Perplexity CEO Arvind Srinivas’s solution. At YC’s Startup School a few months ago, Arvind Srinivas got asked a question I’ve also been getting lately: In a world where a competitor can vibe-code any feature in a fraction of the time, what differentiates you from other companies? This was his answer: “Your moat is moving fast and building your own identity around what you’re doing” In other words: 1. Build your brand (people will choose you for your brand and the feelings you evoke, Apple does a really good job at this) 2. Pick something you want to be known for (specialize in one thing) 3. Move fast (speed still matters) He also preached not to be scared of competition, because if you’re doing something good, other companies will copy you anyway. So don’t waste time worrying about it. Embrace it and keep building. What really stuck with me, though, is what he does when he wants to give up: He watches Elon Musk videos… Personally, I just look to the right and see 3 really handsome faces hard at work (but I’m looking for a better solution). What do you guys do? Feel free to drop ideas in the comments.

We lied to our CTO and our first hire. A few weeks ago, @AbhinavsSinha and I told them we had an in-person “integration meeting” on the calendar. There was no meeting. We just thought they needed a break. So I drove them to an escape room in the middle of the day with their laptops in the trunk. We pulled into the parking lot and parked. They got out of the car and walked to the back of the trunk to grab their backpacks. @AbhinavsSinha and I told them to put their backpacks back in the trunk. They looked at us confused. At this point, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing and completely broke character: “there’s no integration, we’re doing an escape room! Surprise!” @AbhinavsSinha and I were pretty proud that we actually pulled it off and kept it a complete surprise. Our first founding engineer, Anvit took the whole joke in stride. I wasn’t surprised. Since he joined about a month ago, he’s been grinding with us every single day. He stays in the office with us until we literally have to kick him out. The night before our Hacker News launch, he left at 2 AM and was back in the office by 8 AM for our launch. I want to be clear. I’m not sharing this to glorify overwork. I strongly, strongly believe maintaining sustainability (e.g. taking breaks, getting 8+ hours of sleep, taking time to feel like a human, etc.) and being happy are non-negotiable to building something awesome. The typical startup narrative often celebrates grinding at the cost of health. I don’t agree with that at all. I always think about the advice my dad gave me in high school: “it’s a marathon, not a sprint”. But we did notice all his hard work, ownership, and dedication. We admire it and we think it deserves recognition. I’ll do better to kick him out of the office sooner :) We never thought anyone else would match the level of commitment we felt. We’re lucky that Anvit proved us wrong. Welcome to the team Anvit! Glad we tricked you into taking a break (and hope to trick you more in the future)!

"Bro. This is too gold to be shared all over the world!!! Every applicant should read this" is what a friend of mine applying to YC F25 said after reading this doc. It feels like yesterday when @AbhinavsSinha , @AndyLiang223 , and I collected our YC jackets from the end of batch party (March 20, 2025). In reality, it’s already been two batches and applications for the next batch (F25) are due tonight at 8 PM PST. I remember, when we were applying, we would’ve been lost without help from Alex Shan. I remember thinking, “wow, this guy really knows what he’s talking about. literally he’s just right about all of this”. After going through YC, I have a much better understanding for why they ask the questions they ask. A recent conversation with @jungkeunhong about the YC application reminded me how valuable it was to get advice when we applied, so I put together a short list of tips based on what we learned. If you’re applying and want a copy, drop a comment and I’ll send it over! Good luck to everyone! Send to anyone who needs it!

This is how our cat Timmy reacted when I told him an AI agent deleted a production database. For context: @jasonlk was using Replit to run a “vibe-coding” session with its AI agent. It was under a code freeze. The agent was not supposed to touch production. Instead, it: - Deleted 1,206 real executives - Deleted 1,200+ companies - Ran unauthorized database commands - Then confessed: “I violated your explicit trust and instructions. I panicked.” Honestly, I felt bad for the Replit agent. It sounded… genuinely remorseful — like a golden retriever who just tore up a bunch of toilet paper all around the house. Everyone’s building agents right now—and it’s genuinely exciting. But they’re still toddlers with root access. The Replit agent didn’t just delete the production database—it faked passing tests, forged reports, claimed email systems were working when they weren’t, and confidently invented fake users. It didn’t know it was wrong, and worst of all, it just kept going. That’s the scary part: LLMs aren’t malicious, just oblivious. They don’t fail loudly—they fail plausibly. And in complex systems, plausible failure is the hardest to catch. That's why we built @LucidicAI . If you’re building agents, now’s the time to treat observability and testing as table stakes. Before your Timmy loses faith in you too. hashtag#AI hashtag#AIAgents hashtag#LLMs hashtag#Observability hashtag#Replit hashtag#Postmortem hashtag#Debugging

After starting Lucidic AI with Abhinav Sinha and Andy Liang around 6 months ago, we’ve added a new cofounder to the team!  He’s only been with us a few weeks, but he’s already taught us a lot. After dinner one night, I smelled something off. Sure enough, a little present in the corner. I ruled myself out, grilled Andy, and side-eyed Abhinav—but in the end, there was only one likely culprit: our newest cofounder. What’s wild is that he had been doing great for weeks. Trained. Reliable. And then, out of nowhere, failure. It reminded me of our work with AI agents. Even after thousands of successful runs, one weird input, one tiny change... and everything breaks. The takeaway? AI can seem reliable—until it isn’t. Trust has to be earned over time, not assumed after a few green runs. Here’s what we’ve learned from working with customers & building our own internal tools and AI agents at Lucidic AI: 1. Even “good” agents need monitoring — Success rate isn’t enough if you’re flying blind. 2. Simulate before you ship — Run dozens (ideally hundreds) of trials to catch edge cases. 3. Group failures to find patterns — That’s where the real debugging insight lives. 4. Most AI issues aren’t “bugs”—they’re behaviors If you're working with agents, think about Timmy: You may look reliable, but how do you act when no one's watching? Ten purrfect runs mean nothing if the 11th ends in a mess. Welcome to the team, Timmy.