YC's Garry Tan: AI turns code into a rushing river—much of software must be rewritten
garrytan · x · 2026-10-31
Garry Tan (YC president) amplified a widely shared argument about how AI is reshaping software engineering:
- Code used to arrive "one drop at a time"; it will soon be a continuous, rushing stream, as AI gives every engineer an elastic, capable workforce.
- Governance problems once unique to big-tech-scale teams are now every engineer's problem. The only adaptation is evolving your systems so agents—even ones with little context—can thrive: "make the easy thing the right thing."
- Your codebase is becoming organic architecture: agent contributions grow around the constraints and guardrails you design, so good software engineering matters more than ever.
Bottom line: much of existing software will need to be rebuilt and rewritten for this faster pace.
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