Alexandr Wang tells teens to embrace ‘vibe coding’, calling it today’s version of Bill Gates’ software revolution
Wang, who built Scale AI into a $29 billion tech unicorn, believes the next generation should immerse themselves in what he calls “vibe coding”.
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Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old co-founder and CEO of Scale AI, has advised teenagers to devote their time to mastering artificial intelligence-powered coding tools — in much the same way Bill Gates immersed himself in software during the early days of computing.
Speaking on the TBPN podcast, which aired on 17 September, Wang said young people should figure out how to use the tools maximally, as he described his own deep involvement in AI coding as transformative. He said that it is impossible to understate the degree to which I’ve been radicalised by AI coding.
Wang, who built Scale AI into a $29 billion tech unicorn, believes the next generation should immerse themselves in what he calls “vibe coding” — an emerging form of AI-assisted software development that allows users to write programs by giving natural language instructions on platforms such as Replit and Cursor.
“This is an incredible moment of discontinuity,” Wang told CNBC Make It. “If you spend 10,000 hours playing with the tools and figuring out how to use them better than others, that’s a huge advantage.”
Drawing a parallel with Gates’ teenage years, when the Microsoft founder reportedly sneaked into a local Seattle company to practise coding, Wang said the same opportunity now exists with AI. He said, that moment is happening right now — and if you are, like, 13 years old, you should spend all of your time vibe coding and it is how you should live your life.
Despite his own success, Wang acknowledged the rapid evolution of AI could soon surpass his own work. He added that all the code he has written in his life … will be able to have been produced by an AI model within the next five years.
