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A 40-person company now brings in about $100 million a year. The
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A 40-person company now brings in about $100 million a year. The typical software company would need around 700 employees to pull that off. The founder has one rule that explains most of it, and it sounds crazy. His team isn't allowed to look at how other companies solve problems. Bring him a slide about how Stripe or Cursor does something and he doesn't want to see it. Jake Cooper, who runs Railway, says looking at someone else's solution is basically cheating on your homework. And he means…
nakul@nakul17h ago
Railway started the year at $20M ARR. It’s now ~$100M. Solo founder. Fully remote. Only ~40 people. The one trait that explains why Railway is breaking all the rules: “It’s almost like cheating on your homework when you go and look at somebody else’s solution. If this is how Stripe does this or this is how Cursor does this, I don’t want to hear about it.” Jake Cooper (@justjake). Founder and CEO of @Railway. Knuckle Up ↓ -- In this conversation with Jake Cooper: 00:00 Who is Jake Cooper? 02:54 How did Railway survive losing $500K a month? 06:01 What made Railway’s growth chart go vertical? 09:45 Why won’t Jake look at how other companies solve problems? 14:34 Is two the worst number of co-founders? 20:04 How does a 40-person team hit $100M in ARR? 22:41 Why does Railway say no to 90% of ideas? 28:55 How do you compete for talent against the AI labs? 32:25 What does a technical interview look like after Opus 4.5? 35:34 Trust, clarity, judgment: how does Railway’s six-week onboarding work? 44:59 What does HARD stand for, and which value costs the most? 48:49 Why does Jake go dark from Friday night to Sunday? 54:54 What breaks first in a world with 10,000x more software? 59:49 Where does Railway play in two years? 1:01:37 How has Jake had to grow as a CEO? 1:09:29 Is burnout just an input-output mismatch? 1:12:27 Why does Jake think most startup advice is overrated?