Vercel’s Guillermo Rauch on What Comes After Coding - Ep. 47
Feb 5, 2025
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Guillermo Rauch, Founder and CEO of Vercel and creator of Next.js and Socket.IO, challenges the notion of traditional coding in an AI-driven world. He argues that the future lies in holistic, full-stack engineers who prioritize ideation and design. Guillermo shares insights on the rise of AI tools, like Vercel’s AI coding copilot, and the importance of taste in recognizing breakthrough technologies. He also contrasts prototype and written company cultures, emphasizing the need for prototyping in today's innovation landscape.
The future of software development emphasizes holistic product engineering over traditional coding skills, prioritizing collaboration and user experience.
Developers must cultivate meta skills like strategic thinking and creativity to effectively leverage AI while maintaining oversight of product vision.
Prototype cultures are becoming prevalent in AI-driven companies, allowing rapid iteration and enhanced innovation in product development processes.
Deep dives
The Shift from Coding to Product Development
The landscape of software development is increasingly moving away from traditional coding towards a more holistic product development approach. Developers are beginning to identify less with the act of coding itself and more with the product experience and end goals. This paradigm shift is exemplified by companies that have eliminated code from their workflows, focusing instead on delivering products directly through collaboration and tools that enable rapid prototyping. This evolution reflects a broader understanding that the ability to conceptualize and deliver effective solutions is more valuable than merely writing code.
The Role of Meta Skills in an AI-Driven World
As AI technologies advance, the focus for developers is shifting toward nurturing meta skills that machines cannot easily replicate. These skills include high-level conceptual thinking and an understanding of how various components fit together in a product ecosystem. Developers are becoming more like 'product engineers' who leverage AI to automate repetitive tasks while maintaining oversight of the overall product vision. This transition underscores the importance of strategic thinking and creativity over rote technical skills in a rapidly changing technological landscape.
The Emergence of Product-Focused AI Tools
Tools like VZero represent a significant shift in how developers interact with coding environments. Unlike traditional IDEs, these platforms prioritize product development by allowing users to prompt ideas and receive immediate feedback, merging design and functionality fluidly. This new model reduces the necessity for deep technical expertise, pushing towards a code-last philosophy where the focus is on building user experiences rather than writing extensive code. As a result, the development process becomes more about creativity and less about technical minutiae.
AI as a New Platform for Innovation
AI is recognized as a transformative platform reminiscent of the early days of mobile applications. The potential for new applications is vast, as developers are encouraged to explore the unique capabilities of AI without getting bogged down by existing frameworks or traditional software practices. This creates a fertile ground for experimentation and innovation, with startups being particularly well-positioned to harness these technologies. By prioritizing specialized applications that leverage AI, developers can create more tailored solutions for specific industries, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness.
The Dual Nature of Development Culture
The distinction between written and prototype cultures significantly impacts product development outcomes. Companies like Vercel blend aspects of both, allowing for rigorous back-end infrastructure while fostering a creative, prototype-driven approach to product development. This duality enables organizations to ensure quality and reliability in their offerings while also pushing for innovation and rapid iteration in product design. The result is a more dynamic approach to software development, which values both structural integrity and aesthetic quality in creating impactful products.
Guillermo Rauch is one of the most prolific coders of this generation.
But he doesn’t think of himself as a coder anymore.
Coding, he says, is a specific skill that AI is becoming great at. Instead, he thinks the future of coding is more holistic, full-stack engineers who can ideate, design, and execute all together.
Guillermo is the founder and CEO of Vercel, the creator of NextJS, and SocketIO. We spent an hour talking about the future of software development in an AI world—and the meta-skills that are essential for the coders of today to master—in order to use tomorrow’s tools to their fullest extent.
Here are a few takeaways:
One of the most important keys to his success is taste—and developing taste is all about paying better attention to everything you experience day to day.
He’s great at recognizing bleeding-edge technologies with extremely practical applications but that have bad user experiences. If you can learn to recognize those and build with them, you might build the next NextJs or SocketIO.
He’s already seeing enterprises use Vercel’s AI coding copilot v0 to replace all of their programming—they just send v0 demos back and forth to iterate on new prototypes.
Why prototype cultures are becoming common in AI—and the benefits of written cultures like Amazon vs. prototype cultures like Apple for different kinds of companies.
For developers building frameworks, always put the product first; a framework in isolation without a “customer zero” is never going to be a good tool.
The theory of “recursive founder mode”—if you want to build a scalable business, you have to scale yourself by creating an atmosphere that nurtures talent and ambition.
AI tools are shifting software toward consumption-based billing models, making us capital allocators who decide how much compute the AI consumes.
The future of AI is agents with the taste, knowledge, and tools to perform specialized tasks.
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