A Moment Worth Pausing For
Let Karpathy’s words sink in for a moment.
Just 11 months ago, in February 2025, Andrej Karpathy—one of the most influential voices in modern AI—casually coined the term “vibe coding.” It was a playful phrase, yet it captured something profound: the exhilarating chaos of letting large language models interact with us, improvize with us, and sometimes surprise us more than we expected.
Less than a year ago, it felt like we were at the frontier. And yet here we are, just a few months later, and Karpathy himself is saying he’s never felt more behind.
If he feels that way, what does that mean for the rest of us?
The Ground Has Shifted—Again
As we approach 2026, the landscape has transformed at a pace that feels almost like sci-fi. The tools we once treated as clever assistants have evolved into something far more powerful—and far less predictable.
We’re no longer just prompting models. We’re orchestrating:
- Agents that act on their own,
- Workflows that chain intelligence together,
- Systems that behave less like tools and more like collaborators with quirks, instincts, and emergent behaviors.
This isn’t just a new framework or a new library. It’s a new layer of abstraction—one that demands we rethink how software is conceived, built, and maintained.
It’s disorienting. It’s thrilling. And yes, it can make even the best of us feel like we’re scrambling to keep up.
The Beginning of a New Epoch
But here’s the beauty: we’re not witnessing the death of an era. We’re witnessing the birth of a new one.
This earthquake isn’t leveling the field—it’s clearing it. The old assumptions, the old constraints, the old rhythms of development are giving way to something unprecedented to take root.
For the first time in decades, the craft of programming is being reinvented in real time. Every developer alive today has a front‑row seat to a transformation that future generations will study, much in the same way we reflect back on the dawn of the internet.
Why Feeling Behind Is a Good Sign
That feeling of being behind? While it can shake us at our foundations, it’s the unmistakable signal that we are alive in a crucial historical moment.
When the world accelerates, the sensation of lagging is evidence you’re still in the race. Still learning. Still adapting. Still alert.
And in a field defined by reinvention, that’s exactly where you want to be.
The New Developer Mindset
So yes—roll up your sleeves. Explore the tools. Break things. Build things. Let agents surprise you. Let workflows confuse you. Let the unpredictability both scare you and teach you.
Those who will thrive in this era won’t be the ones who memorize every new capability or master every new abstraction overnight. They’ll be the ones who approach this moment with curiosity, humility, and a willingness to play.
They are those who embrace the beginner’s humility and the learner’s mindset.
We’re All Newbies Again
Relish this chance to be a newbie. For the first time in a long time, everyone is starting fresh.
The veterans. The newcomers. The researchers. The hobbyists. The people who’ve been coding for 30 years and the ones who just wrote their first prompt last week.
We’re all standing at the same threshold, staring into a future that’s bigger, stranger, and more full of possibility than anything we’ve built before.
And what an inspiring place and time to be in.