The Revolution of Vibe Coding

2025-11-15

Let’s clear a big misunderstanding about Vibe coding. Many see it as just another gadget, a quick way to build a proof-of-concept. I think this view misses the point entirely. It keeps the conversation stuck in the old way of thinking about code, where it’s a scarce resource, created only by a select few.

This isn't just about making coding easier; it's about fundamentally changing who can create with technology.

I taught myself to code growing up and have always been fascinated by building things. This journey led me from the tech industry to entrepreneurship, co-founding companies like Voxler and Clipdrop. Through it all, I've seen how powerful the ability to code is. But what if that power wasn't limited to a small fraction of the population?

The Old World: Code as a Scarce Resource

Think about reading and writing. Humanity made a huge leap when literacy became widespread. It enabled shared knowledge, accelerated progress, and connected people in new ways. Code, however, has not had the same journey. Even though our lives are surrounded by code—in our phones, cars, and homes—the ability to write it remains a specialized skill.

This scarcity creates a few problems. First, it puts immense power in the hands of a small group of people. Second, it forces us to rely on generalized solutions. Because writing code has been difficult and time-consuming, developers have focused on creating abstract, one-size-fits-all software. The goal was to build a single product that could serve millions of people.

The spreadsheet is a perfect example. A few skilled engineers built a powerful, generic tool for complex calculations that millions can use without knowing how to code it themselves. This model gave rise to the SaaS industry, where companies sell best practices packaged as software. You delegate the problem-solving to them. This works, but it’s always a compromise. You’re using a tool designed for a broad audience, not specifically for you.

What is Vibe Coding, Really?

This is where vibe coding changes the game. At its core, it’s a translation tool. It uses the power of the transformer to translate your thoughts from natural language directly into code. The revolution isn't about building the next generic SaaS tool faster.

Because code was hard to create, we built tools meant to be reused. The true revolution is that you don't need to build a generic tool at all.

If it took you ten days to write a script to process a video, you would reuse that script every time. But what if generating that code took only ten seconds? You would no longer need a reusable tool. You could generate a brand-new, perfectly tailored piece of code every single time you need it.

This is a move from scarcity to abundance. Vibe coding makes computation so accessible that you can create personalized solutions on the fly, without needing to think about generalization.

A New Paradigm: From Generalization to Personalization

Let's walk through an example. Imagine you want to take a video, make it square, and add your logo to the bottom right corner.

The Old Way: You'd search for a tool online. Maybe you find a free one, or if you do this often, you pay for a subscription. If you're more tech-savvy, you might use a command-line tool like FFmpeg, which requires reading documentation and crafting the right command.

The Misunderstood "Vibe Coding" Way: Many people think vibe coding is for building a quick app to solve this. You'd ask your AI assistant to generate a simple user interface where you can drag and drop your video and logo. It would create a mini-SaaS product just for you. This is better, but it's still thinking in terms of reusable tools.

Now, let's make the scenario more complex. You want to make the video square, add a logo, and generate subtitles in seven different languages. Finding a SaaS tool for this will start to cost real money because your needs are becoming highly specialized.

The True Vibe Coding Way: You don't build a tool. You just state what you want in plain English: "Take this video, make it square, add this logo, and generate subtitles in French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Hindi."

The code is generated instantly to perform that specific task on that specific video. It does the job and is then discarded. The next day, if you need a different logo or different languages, you just change your prompt. The code is generated on the fly, for that one instance. There is no tool, no interface, and no compromise. It’s a direct translation of your intent into a computational result.

The Future of Software and Automation

This shift doesn't mean SaaS companies will disappear. They will thrive, but their value will change. Their worth won't be in the code itself, which will become a commodity. Their value will be in curating best practices. For tasks where you don't know the best approach, you'll still turn to a trusted service that has it all figured out for you.

But for everything else—the countless specific, unique tasks you face every day—you can use this new paradigm. You can tell your machine, "Search through these 10,000 hours of video files, find every clip where 'Product X' is mentioned with high image quality, and put them in a folder for me to review."

This sounds like what people are calling "agents." or “AI assistant”. And in a way, it is. But the first generation of agents is often envisioned as using existing tools.

The real paradigm shift is when the agent doesn't use tools; it act as a translator between you, and all the computation power of your computer or the cloud. It translate your needs directly into disposable, single-use code. It's a subtle distinction, but it makes all the difference.

This is what I find so exciting. Vibe coding is not about building proof-of-concepts. It’s about a future where computation is as easy and accessible as a conversation. It's about empowering everyone who can read and write to also create with code, unlocking a new wave of innovation and personalization we've never seen before. This is the real revolution.

Fun fact: this post was written by Jasper.ai from an audio transcript I recorded while driving my scooter to work.