918: Extreme Native Perf on the Web with Superhuman

Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

Wes Bos

Js, Technology, Css, Html5, Tech News, Webdevelopment, News, Javascript, Html

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Wes and Scott talk with Loïc Houssier about how Superhuman builds lightning-fast, delightfully-designed email software. They dig into engineering philosophy, offline-first architecture, local databases, AI-powered productivity, and what it takes to create tools that people love. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 03:05 Inside Superhuman and Loïc’s role 06:49 Is Superhuman native? What’s the tech stack? 08:16 How Superhuman approaches product design and speed 12:17 Local-first architecture – Sync, storage, and performance Realm 13:46 Vector search, AI, and privacy considerations 18:12 How the team ships fast and stays focused 21:27 Rethinking email for the future 26:54 Brought to you by Sentry.io 27:19 How calendar integration and smart features work 29:54 Where new ideas come from 31:54 Will there ever be a true dark mode? 33:02 Are people actually using keyboard shortcuts? 36:42 How shortcuts work and the role of the command palette 41:28 Engineering for speed – Costs and trade-offs 43:32 How Superhuman’s sync engine works 46:09 What code runs locally and what runs on the server? 46:51 How Superhuman handled the Google and Cloudflare outage Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Transcript

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0:00.0	Everyone, before we get in, real quick, this is an episode with the head of engineering at Superhuman,
0:05.1	and we recorded this before the news of Superhuman was acquired by Grammarly, which is absolutely wild.
0:12.1	We did not know that this was going to happen, and I don't think that it changes any of the conversations,
0:17.0	because we are talking about development methodology, CSS, their engineering philosophy and
0:24.2	how they make everything fast, tons of local first stuff. But I just wanted to tell you,
0:29.6	because there's probably a couple keyboard warriors already in the comments being like,
0:33.1	this is a sponsored episode. We would ever do that to you. It's not sponsored at all. We've been trying to
0:38.2	get somebody from Superhuman on for months now, and it just so happened to line up. So,
0:42.9	enjoy the episode. Welcome to Syntax. Today, we have a really great one. We're going to be
0:48.7	talking about one of the most performant and excellent apps that I use in my day-to-day every single day.
0:56.1	We have an amazing guest on the show with us.
0:58.8	We have...
1:00.0	Loik Uisu.
1:02.5	Oh, I butcher it.
1:03.8	We cut to me because I could at least French-Canadian accent it.
1:08.6	First name was perfect.
1:10.7	Uzié. Uzié. You got it right, Scott. Thanks. Okay. accent it but why don't know what's name was perfect first was perfect
1:11.7	lucier okay good it right Scott thanks I appreciate and we're gonna be talking all
1:17.3	about how the heck this thing is so good you know it's got an army of super fans and
1:22.1	I was kind of one of those people who saw a lot of people talking about superhuman
1:26.8	being so good and was like, how can
1:29.9	it be better than an email app that I'm using today? Email apps are all the same. And then I,
	...

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