Welcome to Homebase AI - A weekly newsletter where we share our interviews with founders & leaders building next-gen AI companies and curate interesting news, insights & trends in the AI space for our community members.

What’s on tap today:

• Podcast

• Our interview with Sam Bhagwat

• Weekly Headline Recap

• What's trending in AI this week

• Community Update

• How Homebase Helps You

🎙️ This Week’s Interview

AI Founder Story

Building AI Agents That Could Replace YOUR Jobs

Quick Background

Sam Bhagwat never set out to disrupt developers twice in one lifetime.

His first startup, Gatsby, an open-source, React-based framework that is still used by over 200,000 websites, allowed developers to build 1,000x faster on Netlify.

Now, with Mastra, he’s building the infrastructure that could automate those very same jobs away. The irony isn’t lost on him: the teacher of a generation is now creating tools that might replace his students — while also giving them the superpowers to thrive in the AI era.

Key Achievements & Insights:

1. The Problem Today →

   89% of Y Combinator's Winter 2025 batch is building AI agents, but most developers are drowning in the complexity of memory management, tool orchestration, and workflow debugging. It's like trying to build websites in 1996 without HTML frameworks—technically possible, but a nightmare that's slowing down the entire industry.

2. The Breakthrough →

   Mastra abstracts away the infrastructure complexity so developers can focus on business logic instead of debugging why their agent forgot something from three messages ago. It's the same playbook Bhagwat used with Gatsby: take something powerful but complex, make it accessible to millions of developers, and watch them build things you never imagined.

3. The Proof Story →

   PLAID Japan discovered Mastra when it went viral on GitHub Trending, ditching their GUI-based tools for code-first AI development. Aerospace companies are using it to generate electrical circuit diagrams from 100-page PDFs, veterinary clinics are automating appointment notes, and enterprises are building support ticket systems that never sleep.

4. The Big Example →

   When Bhagwat's team hit 2-3x productivity gains using AI tools like Cursor and autonomous code review bots, they realized they'd found the next platform shift. Just like React democratized frontend development, Mastra is democratizing AI agent creation—turning what used to require AI PhDs into something any JavaScript developer can ship in production.

Why It Matters (vision line)

This isn't just about making AI development easier—it's about who gets to participate in the biggest technological shift since the internet[transcript]. Bhagwat is betting that the developers who learn to build AI agents will become the new power users of technology, while those who don't risk being automated out of relevance.

Watch the full interview below! 👇

The Ultimate Lesson

The most successful infrastructure builders don't just solve today's problems—they anticipate tomorrow's needs and build the tools that make the future accessible to everyone. Bhagwat learned this with Gatsby, where simplifying React adoption created a $5 million business and taught millions to code.

Now he's applying the same strategy to an even bigger opportunity: making AI agent development so straightforward that every developer can participate in the automation economy instead of being displaced by it. The developers using Mastra today aren't just building agents—they're building the skills that will determine whether they automate or get automated.

Want the full breakdown of Mastra’s 5 core principles and real-world use cases? Read the complete case study here → — Read the full interview →

HEADLINE ROUNDUP
Headline recap

1. Sleep.ai Raises $5.5M for Dream Tech

   Sleep.ai scores $5.5 million to supercharge its AI-powered sleep intelligence platform.

   👉See what’s next in sleep!

2. Interhuman AI Nets €2M for Social Smarts

   Copenhagen’s Interhuman AI raises €2 million to teach machines true social intelligence.

   👉Peek into AI’s future?

3. OpenAI Recruits Instagram, Doximity Alums

   OpenAI hires top execs from Instagram and Doximity to fast-track its healthcare ambitions.

   👉Why this matters now?

4. Duke Dropout Lands $14M OpenAI Deal

   A former Duke student secures $14 million from OpenAI’s startup fund to build the next-gen digital worker.

   👉Discover his secret move?

5. Google’s AI Push Rattles Apple’s Siri

   Google’s latest AI upgrades put pressure on Apple to reinvent Siri or risk falling behind.

   👉Is Siri doomed?

TRENDS
What's trending in AI

N8n

• Key Player: Berlin-based workflow automation platform transforming enterprise AI adoption with open-source, visual automation tools that seamlessly integrate any LLM to any application.

• Market Value: Recently valued at an extraordinary $2.3 billion in August 2025, representing a meteoric 6.5X increase from $350 million just four months earlier.

• Adoption: Serves over 200,000 active users and 3,000+ enterprise customers including Vodafone, Delivery Hero, and Microsoft, with 75% of workflows now incorporating AI features.

• Recent Developments: Secured hundreds of millions in funding led by Accel, launched 5 prebuilt AI agents, achieved $40 million ARR, and opened new offices in New York and London.

Growth: Revenue increased 5X in the past year and doubled in just the last two months alone, driven by explosive AI automation demand. The company's shift to AI-native automation in 2022 resulted in 4X faster revenue growth compared to the previous six years.

Why It Matters: n8n represents the democratization of AI automation for technical teams. Unlike traditional workflow tools, it combines visual drag-and-drop simplicity with unlimited code flexibility, enabling developers to build sophisticated AI agents without vendor lock-in. The platform's fair-code licensing and self-hosting capabilities give enterprises complete data sovereignty while maintaining cost efficiency.

The Big Picture: As enterprises race to implement AI, n8n has positioned itself as the universal "plumbing" layer connecting any AI model to any business application. With 400+ integrations and the ability to orchestrate multi-agent systems, n8n is becoming essential infrastructure for the AI-powered enterprise.

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