Howie Liu
Co-founder and CEO of Airtable (13 years). Previously built weekend projects that led directly to Airtable’s founding vision — a platform for non-technical users to build their own apps. Split time between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Known for: the IC CEO operating model (chief taste-maker; taste the soup by making it); the fast/slow thinking EPD org split (Kahneman-inspired; fast group ships jaw-dropping AI capabilities weekly, slow group handles infrastructure-scale work like HyperDB); the AI-native refounding thought experiment (if you can’t find advantage, find a buyer); role-collapsing across all functions; and vibes-first evals (open-ended exploration before programmatic evaluation). Self-described as the #1 most expensive inference user at Airtable by inference cost.
Interests: sci-fi fiction (Three-Body Problem series), Japanese artisanal clothing (Self Edge, Studio D’Artisan, Whitesville/Toyo Manufacturing), AI video (Runway), Paul Conti’s humility-and-gratitude life framework.