Built by AI, Maintained by Regret
Vibe coding is the trend of letting AI go wild and build features with minimal human input. You don’t write the code—you describe what you want, and the AI delivers. It’s like having a junior developer who works fast, doesn’t ask questions, and doesn’t sleep.
If you’re trying to get a prototype up fast, it feels magical.
But—and here’s the part where I ruin the fun—not all code is meant to last, and vibe coding doesn’t care which kind it’s writing.
The Hidden Cost of Moving Fast
I’ve seen it firsthand: an AI whips up a whole set of features, you prompt it again for “just one more,” and suddenly it’s throwing out its own work. Files get rewritten, assumptions change, and you’re left with a Frankensteined mess of mismatched logic and duplicate ideas.
That’s not a problem if you’re building a disposable internal tool or a throwaway experiment.
But if you’re building something you plan to maintain—something real, something for customers—vibe coding becomes a gamble. You’re stacking quick fixes on a foundation that wasn’t designed to last.
Why It Matters for Founders
As a non-technical founder, you may not spot the difference between “code that works today” and “code that works three months from now.” Vibe coding often produces the former. It’s optimized for speed, not sustainability.
That means:
- Adding new features later gets harder.
- Bug fixes take longer and create new bugs.
- Developers don’t want to work in the mess.
- You end up rewriting major parts of the system anyway.
You didn’t save time—you just delayed the pain.
Vibe Responsibly
There’s a time and place for vibe coding:
- Internal dashboards you’ll throw away
- Marketing experiments
- MVPs with zero long-term commitment
But if you’re building the foundation of a real product, take the extra time to think, plan, and code deliberately. Ask your developer what the AI isn’t thinking about—like performance, extensibility, or edge cases. Better yet, get them involved early so your architecture doesn’t collapse the minute you need to scale.
Future You (and your dev team) will thank you.
Your Turn
Have you run into weird bugs, rewrites, or architectural nightmares from letting the AI take the wheel? I’d love to hear your best (worst?) vibe coding stories.