Inside an AI-Native Company | Michael Grinich, WorkOS

WorkOS quietly powers the auth and enterprise layer under OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, and a long list of companies building the AI era. So when its founder decides his entire company should learn to code, it's worth asking why. Michael Grinich joins Shane and Abhi to talk about what "AI-native" actually looks like from the inside — the in-house coding agent his team built instead of buying, the all-day internal hackathons, and the operating principle he now hires for: everybody codes. He shares how AI is reshaping go-to-market and not just engineering, why he braced for pushback and got the opposite, and the one trait that separates the people who thrive from the people who stall. We close on the thinking behind his Death of UI talk, and where human-computer interaction goes from here. 🔗 MICHAEL The Death Of UI https://youtu.be/azoM7uz8Jhs Michael Grinich on X — https://x.com/grinich WorkOS — https://workos.com 📚 MASTRA RESOURCES https://mastra.ai https://x.com/mastra_ai https://mastra.ai/community/discord https://github.com/mastra-ai https://mastra.ai/course https://mastra.ai/books/principles-of-building-ai-agents https://mastra.ai/books/patterns-of-building-ai-agents WHAT IS MASTRA? Mastra is an open-source TypeScript framework designed for building and shipping AI-powered applications and agents with minimal friction. It supports the full lifecycle of agent development — from prototype to production. CHAPTERS 0:00 "Everybody codes" 0:13 What WorkOS actually does 1:33 Inside the Applied AI showcase 2:39 Horizon, the in-house coding agent 3:49 Build it or buy it 5:50 WorkOS's marketing strategy 7:29 Getting everyone building 9:40 "We haven't found our limits yet" 11:41 You have agency to learn 13:38 Should every company build this? 16:04 The Death of UI 17:58 Where to find Michael