Elena Verna · 14 min read · Product Teams
What it’s like to work at an AI-native company
Read the original on elenaverna.com →
The author shares firsthand observations from working at Lovable, an AI-native company, describing how AI has fundamentally reshaped organizational structure rather than just improving individual productivity. Unlike typical companies that bolt AI tools onto existing models, Lovable has redesigned how jobs, decisions, information flow, and seniority itself work. The result challenges many pre-AI assumptions about how tech companies should operate.
Key Takeaways
- AI-native companies differ from AI-using companies by restructuring the organization itself—not just adding productivity tools to existing workflows
- Removing granular titles eliminates status-based gatekeeping and prevents awkward conversations as companies scale rapidly
- Flat org structures with public information channels allow people to self-select into relevant conversations rather than relying on hierarchical information flow
- Many traditional organizational norms—titles, access tiers, meeting structures—are political artifacts that AI-native companies can challenge by design
- Rapid growth environments make rigid title hierarchies counterproductive, as scope and seniority benchmarks shift faster than titles can meaningfully track
Excerpt
Working at Lovable hits different. I’ve worked and/or advised a lot of tech companies at this point (I think I’m becoming a pipeline for Bending Spoons acquisitions). Big ones, small ones, public ones, hypergrowth ones, slow ones, and everything in between. But I’m also very much a millennial of the previous tech era. Most of my instincts about how companies are supposed to work were formed before AI: managers manage, people have clearly defined jobs, important decisions happen in meetings, information travels through org charts, and becoming more senior generally means managing more people. And after more than a year…