In this episode of The Leadership Exchange, Tracy Lee sits down with Sam Bhagwat, co-founder of GatsbyJS and now co-founder and CEO of Mastra AI. Sam shares his journey from building one of the most popular React frameworks to leading an open-source TypeScript framework for AI agents. The conversation explores lessons learned from scaling Gatsby, why intuition and pattern recognition matter in leadership, and how trust, feedback, and collaboration shape strong teams. Sam also talks about the shift of web developers moving into AI, the importance of usability in developer tools, and his book Principles of Building AI Agents.

Key points from this episode:

- Sam reflects on his journey from co-founding GatsbyJS to building Mastra, highlighting how past lessons in developer experience and scaling shape his current approach.

- The conversation explores how web developers moving into AI are carrying over a culture of usability and accessibility, making it easier for more people to adopt AI tools.

- Tracy and Sam discuss the role of intuition in leadership, including how to know when to pivot, when to trust your instincts, and how to calibrate confidence.

- They dive into the importance of collaboration, feedback, and trust in building strong teams that can weather both successes and setbacks together.

Chapters

00:00 – Intro

01:04 – Gatsby Journey

01:38 – Founding Mastra.ai

02:37 – From Web to AI

03:47 – Building Mastra & YC

06:17 – Web Devs Entering AI

08:08 – Lessons from Gatsby

11:20 – Trust and Leadership

13:37 – Mistakes and Course Correction

17:20 – When to Pivot

20:14 – Culture of Feedback

23:28 – Resilience Through Challenges

25:30 – The Role of Intuition

29:09 – Book: Principles of Building AI Agents

30:21 – Closing Reflections

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