Pivoting to Retool (Interview)

The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

David Hsu from Retool joins Adam to discuss how he built Retool. From the pivot in YC, to building the most widely used internal tools platform, to now being the platform for AI agents in the enterprise—on this episode we cover David journey from YC to building agents for the enterprise.

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Sponsors:

• Auth0 – The identity infrastructure for the age of AI. Built by developers, for developers—Auth0 helps you secure users, agents, and third-party access across modern AI workflows. Token vaulting, fine-grained authorization, and standards-based auth, all in one platform.
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• CodeRabbit – AI-native code reviews, built for the modern dev stack. — CodeRabbit is your always-on code reviewer—flagging hallucinations, surfacing smells, and enforcing standards, all without leaving your IDE or GitHub PRs. Trusted by top teams to ship better code, faster.
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Featuring:

• David Hsu – Website, LinkedIn
• Adam Stacoviak – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X

Show Notes:

• Retool on Y Combinator – YC-backed company building internal tools fast
• Retool Agents – Use AI Agents to automate workflows with natural language and data access

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Chapter

1. This week on The Changelog (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Auth0 (00:01:07)

https://auth0.com/ai

3. Start the show! (00:02:40)

4. Y Combinator experience (00:08:56)

5. What is an internal tool (00:11:56)

6. Pivoting to Retool (00:14:06)

7. Ah ha! moment (00:17:48)

8. Has the mission changed at all? (00:24:18)

9. Sponsor: CodeRabbit (00:35:47)

https://www.coderabbit.ai

10. Agents in the Enterprise (00:38:31)

11. What agents are being built? (00:44:52)

12. Agent framework (00:53:53)

13. Internal tools templates (00:57:27)

14. Internal tools at Retool (01:02:39)

15. Can AI build my Retool tools? (01:06:12)

16. App from DB? (01:09:12)

17. Wrapping up (01:18:21)

18. Closing thoughts and stuff (01:19:55)