A World-Class Engineer’s “Grief” from AI

Why did you decide to write this piece?

The reason is because I think it's very easy to have a point of view that you know AI is essentially like a doomer prophecy or AI is essentially a

everything will be completely fine and we'll all just be very happy and satisfied. But not enough people were

satisfied. But not enough people were writing about what it means to go through the process of having something that you were very good at uh to now kind of be essentially be capable uh of

being produced by AI. And it was a really interesting mix of I would say personal emotions and feelings that I went through. Uh so I just penned

went through. Uh so I just penned something that came from the heart and I think it kind of struck a chord with many people who are I think a lot of us are going through that same uh that same

kind of process over the last uh the last call it six to seven weeks. So what

is it that you're feeling? You you you were an engine you've been an engineer your whole career.

Uh you have built these programs from the ground up. You've worked at the highest levels of these tech companies.

What was it like for you to see these agents and these vibe coding tools do it for you? I think it was it's actually

for you? I think it was it's actually just profound wonder to kind of start you know because I think that you know Chad GPD came out roughly about three and a half years ago coding agents came

about seriously maybe about 18 months ago and I think in that time period every time I tried it out you know I could use it and I you know I would have this mental kind of reaction like oh

this is cool it can do all the simple stuff but it can't really make all of the things that I'm good at making you know the kind of the complex interplay of data and compute and storing data

correctly ly making it efficient. Um,

and to go from that sense of the AI is a good, you know, junior programmer slash a good intern kind of programmer or somebody that can assist me to now being

able to oneshot end to end produce things of high complexity. It was just a sense of profound like wonder that it could actually happen. Um and once that

happens the second reaction that I had was actually a sense of grief which is that this thing that I was world class at this thing that I took a lot of pride in essentially being a part of my

identity even though I mean I'm an investor today I don't write code there was a part of me that always felt as though I'm still a world-class engineer I can kind of you know essentially uh

hang it with the best um but to see AI now being able to essentially be at the same level of kind of what I can do uh there was grief. There was sadness.

There's a sense that uh something is being taken away from you. And that was the first initial reaction. Um and I sat I think with that grief for a couple of

days before you kind of realize that oh if AI can do the things that I used to do then what can I do now? And I think that it's replaced by a sense of um just

a sense of like manic energy that every moment that I'm not actually essentially producing artifacts with code to automate parts of my job at South Commons part automate parts of my

personal life, it feels like almost wasted time because these these tools are so capable and powerful. You know,

you wrote this line in your piece. You

said if anything this shift is teaching me what it is like to be human again.

What did you mean by that?

I think that part of I think being in Silicon Valley in particular uh and part of I think evolving your own I would say journey your career your life is that I

think there come these moments where you realize that the only option that you have is to essentially take a step up and essentially retrain and kind of in some ways ready yourself for the next

part of your life. Uh and I think this kind of change happens to us as humans pretty often as we go through you know high school to college to your first job to your second job and as we all kind of

transform and it was just a sense of wow the AI is in some ways forcing my hand to really introspect about what it means for me to be me and I think that part of

you finding your own personal identity over and over again is a deeply you know it's a deeply human kind of emotion uh and I hadn't quite felt that in such a in such a powerful way for a long time

powerful and visceral way for a long time. So the way the way that I

time. So the way the way that I understood what you're saying here and correct me if I'm wrong here. I mean I you know I sort of read it as someone who is so senior in their career

progression and like we said you know you were the CTO of Dropbox at one point. I mean you know what it means to

point. I mean you know what it means to be human I think at its core is learning new skills and grappling with how you learn. Look, we're talking about vibe

learn. Look, we're talking about vibe coding today. You know I was learning

coding today. You know I was learning how to play the piano again a couple months ago, right? And it's it's that uh repetitive notion of getting frustrated,

trying it again. And it sounds like to me, I mean, you know, I hear your point around, you know, um being human, but for me, it's it's just learning a new skill that you have to even if you're 60 years old, I mean, you have to do it now.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a good I I like the way you phrased it which is it is about learning new skills but I think part of learning that new skill is confronting in a way that uh you might you know in some ways you have to go back to a

beginner's mind you have to kind of go back and admit to yourself I you know I've been in Silicon Valley for 23 years none of that matters right like in some ways I can lean on my experience

but I'm also starting at step one in some ways so I think it is a you it is a reckoning with the fact that if I want to learn this new thing. I have to

accept that my experience counts for a bunch, but it also doesn't essentially immediately allow me to do everything that I thought I could do in the past.

How is it changing the way that you're hiring?

Oh, it's a great question. Um, I'd say that uh my favorite, you know, I'm giving this away, I guess. You know,

this is kind of uh my interview questions, but my most important question today is how have you used AI in your daily life? What did you use to essentially make your make your work

life your personal life better this week? What have you built for yourself?

week? What have you built for yourself?

And a lot of a lot of kind of the underlying motivation there is that it's it's kind of weird. I've noticed that there are some people who are running towards this new technology and in some

ways embracing the change, embracing what it means to learn something new, to to be human again. And some people are really digging in their heels. And my

initial reaction was that there would be some correlator there in terms of perhaps hey listen the more senior people are more set in their ways so they they want to do keep on doing things the way they have the more junior

people in some ways they're free to learn new things but what I found is that experience and age these are in some ways uncorrelated variables so what

I'm really looking for now is someone's comfort level and adaptability and kind of a desire to use these tools to essentially reshape who they are and what you know what their job is.

So in other words, it's it's a bit of an oversimplification to say, oh, the younger generation that is coming up, people who haven't learned quote unquote the older ways of software engineering,

it it's an oversimplification to say they are at an advantage and that people who are later in their careers, you know, they have a little bit more um inertia to sort of fight up against.

What you're saying is it's a mindset and that you're looking for people at any point in their career who have really dug into this this tool and say, you know what, I I I've been in Silicon 23 years.

I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go. Right.

Yeah.

So then, but let me ask you this then.

So, how do you think that the curriculums in school compare this to when you were learning software engineering 25 years ago? I mean, how have you talked to people, professors, about how they're adjusting their

curriculums and making it a little bit more uh you know, um application based or experience-based rather than just theoretical?

It's a good question. I would I would actually say I've been thinking a lot about this. I don't have a very concrete

about this. I don't have a very concrete point of view on this yet. I would

venture that uh this might be counterintuitive. I actually think that

counterintuitive. I actually think that learning the theory at least in my profession, computer science, right? I

think understanding the theory, the math kind of behind how a lot of these things work is still very important because it allows you to reason through what these underlying systems and models are capable of. Uh but at the same time, I

capable of. Uh but at the same time, I also think a lot of the small toy projects that I used to do in school that were basically wiring things up, that's dumb. We like the AI can do that,

that's dumb. We like the AI can do that, right? So in some ways you want a

right? So in some ways you want a barbell approach where I think you want to read in some ways the classics like read the theory understand the math understand kind of like the theoretical underpinnings of you know programming

languages compilers systems databases and on the other side of the barbell you should be incredibly I would say prolific in terms of what you are producing with that theory right and I think the middle ground is kind of where

a lot of colleges are stuck today which is that they're teaching you how to do things without a solid underpinning of the theory they're kind of teaching you the craft But the the craft as defined 5

years ago, these agents can do today. So

I would push kind of the curriculum to be more barbell. I don't think enough people are doing it today.

So So when people say that, oh, you don't even have to learn how to code today. You actually don't don't believe

today. You actually don't don't believe that entirely.

Well, I would I would rephrase it. I

don't think perhaps you need to learn quote unquote how to code, but I do think you need to learn how the systems work, right? You should be able to if

work, right? You should be able to if you are a great engineer even if AI does most of the writing of the code itself you should be able to describe exactly what's happening in terms of how the data is stored how the data flows where

the compute comes where the constraints are where the long pole is uh but you don't need to write the code right in some ways um and then in some ways understanding the theory and the systems

allows you to be a much better I would say conductor of essentially the orchestra of your agents if you will right well Adithia I want to thank you for coming on it was a piece. That is

Adita Agarwal, a general partner at South Park Commons here on TIV.