ChatGPT/Every illustration.

It’s Me, Hi. I’m the Vibe Coder.

I never meant to build software. Then AI made it easy.

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I was taking a break one Saturday morning from building a workflow tool for Every when an X post about “vibe coding” crossed my feed: 

"There is no consumer desire to 'make apps,'" the post proclaimed. "Vibe coding," it went on, only appeals to those already motivated to code "the old way.” 

Here I was, spending my sacred weekend hours vibe coding an app with no coding background—yet according to this tech observer, the 1,000 people who liked his post on X, and everyone who’s ever derisively posted that people should “learn to code,” I didn't exist.

(Quick aside: “Vibe coding” is a term coined by OpenAI founding team member Andrej Karpathy to describe coding with AI-powered tools like Cursor that convert natural language instructions into working code. The idea is that you “fully give into the vibes… and forget the code even exists.”) 

It's flattering to imagine myself as this tech industry cryptid. But on a deeper level, the facile binary is irksome. Unfortunately it’s also fairly common in tech: technical versus non-technical. Builders versus users. "Real" developers versus everyone else. These false dichotomies scared me off from coding as much as the code itself; after all, it’s hard to feel invited into a clubhouse that has a “no liberal arts grads allowed” sign out front.

Even within tech’s walled garden, though, the binaries are beginning to blur. Venture capitalists now say they prefer “architect mindsets” and domain know-how over raw coding ability, crediting AI tools that let non-technical founders ship products.

And then there are people like me, who aren’t chasing entry into the engineer club or a seven-figure seed round. We're writers, designers, business owners, and domain experts motivated by specific problems we deeply understand, empowered by AI tools that finally speak our language.

Vibe coding hints at a future where software emerges from the inside out—from the people closest to the problems. As AI lowers the technical barrier, we may see more tools built by marketers, editors, researchers—anyone with deep context and a persistent itch to fix things.

Here’s one vibe coding cryptid’s perspective on what vibe coding looks like from the inside, who it's for, and why people who subscribe to the traditional division between builders and users are missing what makes this moment unique.

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Renaud Montes 7 months ago

I loved this article because lays out the foundation on how other tools were a novelty in the past and have opened the doors for many people to try and live off of them, vibe coding is the same but it's such an en empowering technology that isn't hard to think that will encourage millions to create new beautiful things

Jo Pforr 6 months ago

This makes me thing harder and harder about the collapse of the talent stack. A proof point that small teams will increasingly be able to pull of huge feats.

Karen Mack 4 months ago

There are many of us noncoders out here exploring and don't let anyone tell you different.