Owen Barnes

Three years ago, back in the GPT 3.5 days, I stood on a volcano in El Salvador and predicted many aspects of "vibe coding" and personal AI agents: youtube.com/watch?v=QU0Ml0… This article is about what's comes next:

Don't use AI to automate existing business models. Use it to create new ones x.com/temporalwave/s…

So I plucked up the courage to post my new audiobook about AI anxiety (@ygtbf_book) to Reddit and got... Nine negative anti-AI comments in the first eight hours reddit.com/r/audiobooks/c… Only a few people actually listened (I counted the visits). Most instantly dismissed it, probably thinking the entire book was AI generated. (It's not!) To say that we're living in an AI/Claude Code/agents/OpenClaw bubble on X is an understatement There are some very anxious, scared people out there who have a guttural hatred towards anything "AI" on principle. It's why I made the book in the first place! I'm not sure what the solution is, but their fears are real. Some are well-founded and need to be taken seriously All of us working in technology need to shoehorn AI into products a lot less and listen a lot more

@vatsal_sanghvi I resonate with this deeply. So good to see it articulated so well. Founding something new is a lonely path. The novelty of working from home soon wears off

@paulg I talk about the importance of taste extensively in YouAreGoingToBeFine.com

Prediction: In the AI age, taste will become even more important. When anyone can make anything, the big differentiator is what you choose to make. paulgraham.com/taste.html

"That’s exactly what I needed to listen to after all the scary messages coming from X." Keep the reviews coming! Listen for free at YouAreGoingToBeFine.com

I'm getting some great comments from people who've listened. If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review on the website. It would help a lot!

@IM_Kevin_Archer Agree. There’s such a gap between single-user fitness tracker app and a multi-user app handling payments

Claude is great at simulating angry Reddit comments and high-end hit pieces. If your writing can survive both, it can survive anything :)

@waynesutton Exactly! People are going to crave messy|unpredictable|risky human interactions more than ever. I speak a lot about this in @ygtbf_book

Counterintuitive effect of the agent economy: as AI handles more interactions, human-to-human experiences become the scarce resource. And scarce resources get repriced. The companies and people who create authentic human moments will build the brands no agent can replicate.

@vasuman Somebody will always need to be responsible for security and maintenance. Large companies don’t want to deal with that. I mention this in @ygtbf_book

The 'SaaS is dead' position is stupid. Many SaaS platforms stand to benefit from AI, not be destroyed by it. There are many that will die but most that pivot hard to promoting agent use will thrive. At Varick we have very strong opinions about which platform falls into which category.

@arthur0x Employers also need to think beyond full time jobs. Results matter, not time spent. I speak about this more in @ygtbf_book

I think the world will increasingly not tolerate bullshit jobs/task especially those bureaucratic unneccesary admin stuff given that AI can solve all these things easily.

@_adityaa21 Agreed. But we also have the power to make things and put them in the hands of millions of people. That's magic! (Btw I talk about dealing with the loss of identity in YouAreGoingToBeFine.com)

Cons of being a software engineer no one really talks about 👇 Everyone sees the salaries, WFH perks, and fancy titles. Here’s the other side: • Your learning never ends If you stop learning for even 6–12 months, you start falling behind. Tech doesn’t wait. • Mental fatigue is real Staring at screens, debugging for hours, context switching—your brain gets tired before your body. • You’re judged by output, not effort 10 hours of hard thinking can look like “nothing” if the feature didn’t ship. • Imposter syndrome never fully goes away New stack, new company, smarter peers → constant self-doubt. • Deadlines don’t care about bugs Management promises dates. Engineers deal with reality. • Work-life balance depends on the team, not the role One bad manager can ruin a “dream job”. • Rejections hit differently You can be good and still fail interviews because of luck, timing, or niche questions. • Side projects feel mandatory To grow or switch jobs, your free time often becomes “resume time”. • AI pressure is increasing You’re expected to be faster, smarter, and more productive—constantly. • Your worth can feel tied to your skills When code breaks, confidence breaks with it. Still a great career. Just not the “easy money” path social media sells. If you’re choosing this field—choose it with eyes open.

Too slow? Too much/little detail? Let me know and I'll fix it in the next version

@IMAO_ AI can always add, but everything it adds must be maintained forevermore. By you! The skill is knowing what NOT to add. What to take away. I talk about this in YouAreGoingToBeFine.com

Yes, the skill I have that is a combination of my high IQ and decades of experience is now an API call that costs pocket change.

@adityaag Our job was never to write code. It was to build products people want! Ones that solve real human problems. I talk about dealing with loss of identity, especially for software developers, in @ygtbf_book

Don't be sad. Dominate. Something I wrote earlier this week went viral and got shared pretty widely. x.com/adityaag/statu… There is no doubt that I felt nostalgic and sad after seeing the sheer power of Claude Code. But I have produced more code in the last 5 days than I have in the last 5 years. If you are an software engineer, you have a choice between learning how to use these tools that can give you god-like powers or you can become obsolete. I strongly believe every engineer who has ever written code is capable of the former. But the choice is yours and yours alone.

@housecor Everyone is feeing the same. Especially software developers as it’s hitting us first. I have written a section specifically about this in YouAreGoingToBeFine.com

Over the last year I’ve gone through the 5 stages of grief. 1. Denial - “AI writes slop.” 2. Anger - “AI is trained on stolen data. I worked 20 years for these skills.” 3. Bargaining - “If I ignore it, maybe it will pass.” 4. Depression - “I don’t feel like working.” 5. Acceptance - “AI makes me quicker, more creative, and more capable. It automates the drudgery so I can focus on key decisions instead of syntax.” Relieved to be at step 5.

@HxrshitYadav Keep learning! Vibe coding is great, but if you're going to ship anything significant, you need to be able to understand the code when things go wrong. I talk about this in YouAreGoingToBeFine.com

Every morning, I wake up and check if AI has replaced my future job yet. Not joking. > LinkedIn is full of 'AI will replace developers.' > X is full of 'Learn AI or die.' > YouTube is full of 'Software engineering is dead.' Meanwhile I'm in final year still learning arrays. Am I preparing for a job that won't exist? Genuine question. Not being dramatic. How are you dealing with this fear?