{"podcast":{"title":"The Room Podcast","slug":"the-room-podcast-3398569","podcast_index_feed_id":3398569,"rss_url":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/aPz9Qkq6","website_url":"https://the-room.castos.com","image_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/620cd330-fbe4-42af-97b0-ffae7fe15085/8e1c0db1-29ba-47b6-b67c-fa1aad6a268f/3000x3000/image.jpg?aid=rss_feed","author":"Claudia Laurie & Madison Mcilwain","episode_count":142,"summary":"Welcome to the Room. A series interviewing your favorite tech founders and funders. Our guests were in the room where it happened and they’re sharing their stories.","last_synced_at":"2026-06-26T00:19:52.993966+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-room-podcast-3398569"},"episode":{"title":"S13E4: From Sleeping at AOL to Building Bolt with Eric Simons, Founder and CEO of Bolt.new","slug":"s13e4-from-sleeping-at-aol-to-building-bolt-with-eric-simons-founder-and-ceo-of-bolt-new","published_at":"2025-10-21T12:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-room-podcast-3398569/s13e4-from-sleeping-at-aol-to-building-bolt-with-eric-simons-founder-and-ceo-of-bolt-new","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-room-podcast-3398569","url":"https://the-room.castos.com","audio_url":"https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/cdn.simplecast.com/audio/cf6dc480-9dd7-4da5-8aa6-0ccf203be4b8/episodes/8b02d015-8d4a-4e17-86bd-f1ecaeaaa211/audio/58ed62bf-0e6c-4cda-b580-31578625d2be/default_tc.mp3?aid=rss_feed&feed=aPz9Qkq6","summary":"Welcome back to The Room Podcast! This week, Claudia and Madison sit down with Eric Simons, Co-Founder and CEO of StackBlitz and creator of Bolt.new, the AI-powered development platform redefining how people build web and mobile apps. From humble beginnings coding in Naperville, Illinois, to literally living inside AOL’s Palo Alto offices at age 19, Eric’s journey is a Silicon Valley legend. StackBlitz emerged from a desire to eliminate setup friction for developers, enabling instant browser-based coding environments that reimagined how software gets built. In this episode, Eric shares the highs and lows of the founder journey — from near-shutdown to a $20M ARR turnaround powered by Bolt’s viral AI tools. He offers candid advice on knowing when to pivot, how to approach investors during uncertain times, and why obsession and experimentation are critical to surviving the startup grind. Tune in for insights on product-market fit, storytelling as a leadership superpower, and what the “vibe coder” movement means for the next generation of builders.","meta_description":"Welcome back to The Room Podcast! This week, Claudia and Madison sit down with Eric Simons, Co-Founder and CEO of StackBlitz and creator of Bolt.new, the…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2522,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-room-podcast-3398569/episodes/s13e4-from-sleeping-at-aol-to-building-bolt-with-eric-simons-founder-and-ceo-of-bolt-new/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-room-podcast-3398569/s13e4-from-sleeping-at-aol-to-building-bolt-with-eric-simons-founder-and-ceo-of-bolt-new.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}