“Are you still using Ruby?” After interviewing 50+ startup founders—including recent YC grads building in AI, fintech, and developer tools—the answer is clear: Rails is the highest-productivity framework for startups, and the AI era only makes that advantage sharper.
Ruby is faster than Python for web workloads. Rails lets a small team ship what would take a bigger team months. And the founders winning right now aren’t hedging—they chose Rails deliberately and aren’t looking back. From Shopify and GitHub to the next wave of AI-native startups, the evidence is overwhelming.
The talk covers what still needs work—frontend patterns, real-time UI, AI integration—and why none of it changes the core bet. Plus a look at the thriving Rails ecosystem across Southeast Asia.
