Replit CEO Amjad Masad says learning to code is a waste of time, citing Dario Amodei's prediction that AI may generate essentially all code by next year

Repli CEO Amjad Masad said that since AI will take over coders in future, one should not waste time on studying coding now.

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Context & Ripple Effects

Masad's remark extends Replit's push around an AI coding agent, following his account of strong growth after Replit launched Agent. It is also a more absolute framing than related coverage in which developers and researchers described AI coding as a skills transition rather than an extinction event AI coding as an evolution of developer work.

The significance is less the forecast itself than the incentive it gives AI coding platforms to market software creation as a task that non-specialists can direct, rather than one reserved for traditionally trained programmers.

First-order effects

Replit and similar vendors gain a clearer acquisition message for users who want to build software through prompts and agent-led workflows rather than conventional coding instruction.
The claim raises the stakes for developers and educators: the immediate value proposition shifts toward specifying requirements, validating outputs, and working with AI tools, even though the cited prediction remains a prediction rather than evidence of full replacement.

Second-order effects

Competing coding-tool providers will be pushed to emphasize end-to-end task completion and ease of use, not just autocomplete or developer productivity.
As generated code volumes rise, organizations must devote more attention to review and security; related coverage identifies the review and security burden from AI-generated code as a practical constraint on rapid adoption.

Third-order effects

If agent-led development keeps improving, entry-level software work may be reorganized around oversight and system judgment rather than routine implementation, reinforcing a skills-transition model over a simple disappearance-of-coders narrative.
The limiting factor for AI-written software could move from producing code to assuring its quality, security, and accountability, making governance capacity a differentiator among adopters.

The trend: AI coding is moving from a productivity assistant toward an agentic work surface that lets more people initiate software-building tasks while shifting human work toward direction and verification.

Discussion

@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on bluesky
Replit's CEO joins the growing chorus of tech CEOs from AI startups like Anthropic & OpenAI to big tech, arguing learning to code is obsolete as AI will take all the coding jobs in a few years. — This must be an extremely demoralizing message for people getting CS degrees or ea…
@sweet-jesus Gordon Freeman on bluesky
Who need to know how things work, right? [embedded post]
@slothy.com @slothy.com on bluesky
It's wild to me that the most useful thing - debugging code - is wildly out of reach for AI but these hucksters keep saying bigger and bigger promises. Do your engineers spend more time typing new code or debugging? [embedded post]
@prietschka Paul Rietschka on bluesky
Yes, let's listen to the execs of, (1), a company founded in 2016 you forgot existed which provides services no one uses, and, (2), a company with no business model or future that lost $5.6B last year, and is on track to lose much more this year. — Amjad Masad shouldn't be runn…
@daveon @daveon on bluesky
Turning that code into something that runs reliably is going to be a mission for people. [embedded post]
@partnano Bernie Wick on bluesky
As I'm surrounded by people actively using AI tools to code, and I actually also hear the sentiment that coding “just isn't as relevant anymore”, I beg to differ. — Learn to program, understand what you're doing, and then use the tools available to do the best job. — kyrylo.o…
@amasad Amjad Masad on x
I no longer think you should learn to code.
@vitrupo @vitrupo on x
Instead of learning how to code, Replit CEO Amjad Masad says “learn how to think, learn how to break down problems, learn how to communicate clearly.” [video]
@theo @theo on x
Amjad, I say this with all due respect: what the fuck
@_diginova @_diginova on x
while everyone is hating him out of context you should know this is the guy who > built codecademy as a founding engineer teaching millions to code > turned replit into a $1.2B beast bringing coding to the masses > dropped AI tools like ghostwriter & replit agent bold but ~true
@_anshulk Anshul Khandelwal on x
If your future involves engineering, you should absolutely learn to code. When the plane flies on autopilot, the pilot's expertise matters most. I'm increasingly encountering candidates who only know “vibe coding.” We don't hire them.
@thoughtlesslabs @thoughtlesslabs on x
@amasad at least for me, learning to code is what's allowing me to learn what you suggest. i know it's for soundbites, but i think the real lesson is, don't get caught up in syntax
@hugobowne Hugo Bowne-Anderson on x
🛠️ AI isn't making programming disappear. It's expanding who gets to build. In this clip from High Signal, @timoreilly shares a perspective we don't hear enough: every major shift in computing—interpreters, scripting languages, the web—made software development more accessible. […
@kotkarpratik Pratik Kotkar on x
@amasad Strongly agree with this.. this doesn't mean engineering is obsolete. The engineering approach to solving problems is now even more crucial to make best use of AI tools. the paradigm of what the focus of engineering just changes from syntax and semantics to problem solvin…
@amasad Amjad Masad on x
I understand all the cope. It was hard arrive at this conclusion. There are obvious domain exceptions—but the trend is hard to miss. Between my OSS work, Codecademy, and Replit I've popularized learning to code more than anyone else. A good chunk of my life's work. Bittersweet
@ken_wheeler Lil Uzi Perf on x
if i was 18 years old i sure wouldn't. not because there won't be coding jobs, but because the stepping stones to senior tier engineering are being actively removed by ai. even if you could find a entry level job, it'd basically be waiting for slop to generate then reviewing it
@seatedro Ronin on x
i'm tired of these takes. if this is what it takes for you to not learn to code, you probably shouldn't be learning it anyway
@theprimeagen @theprimeagen on x
another man selling AI sabotages futures for larger valuations cool
@blknoiz06 @blknoiz06 on x
learning how to code intuitively teaches you all of these exact things tho
@simonw Simon Willison on x
@GergelyOrosz I still think “learning to code” is absolutely the best thing you can do if you want to take advantage of AI-driven development. I don't think there's ever been a better time to learn, or better opportunities to put what you learn into practice
@chamath Chamath Palihapitiya on x
Unfortunate but accurate. The engineer's role will be supervisory, at best, within 18months. Building tools for them will be roadkill for the model makers product roadmap.
@ludwigabap Ludwig on x
“Don't learn how to code” coming from someone's who's platform they run offers hands-off code generation Here's my advice: there is no need to learn how to read. We have perfect text to speech anyway. As a matter of fact, computers are magical boxes. Don't worry about them.
@bpcostello Brian Costello on x
Very important point by @amasad, @Replit CEO. Don't be afraid of AI, learn how to use it, and build your other skills.
@businessbarista Alex Lieberman on x
@amasad I do think that understanding how software is structured and all of the pieces involved (api's, auth, etc) is important because I find myself having a lot of blindspots when trying to improve/debug stuff that I build. Would you agree with this?
@klarnaseb Sebastian Siemiatkowski on x
Programming is learning a language to communicate with computers. Because computers had so low fault tolerance just like construction engineering, it was critical to learn how to express yourself as well as the terminology/words. These languages are potentially more efficient
@amasad Amjad Masad on x
Wrote this 5 years ago. Happened faster than I expected. [image]
@zachlieberman Zach Lieberman on x
Computation is the central medium of our lifetime. Learning to code, like learning to draw or learning to write, changes how you observe the world and opens your mind to all kinds of possibilities.
@max_paperclips Shannon Sands on x
You should still learn to code. The point where that ceases to be true is when you see the TL freaking out because online learning was solved, along with such accurate ICL over millions of tokens worth of context it really CAN just read in your whole codebase, and docs, and
@gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x
Let's conveniently ignore how people in tech making the most out of AI tools are... people who know how to code They are now called “AI engineers” sometimes as well While everyone else is stuck promoting LLMs to try and fix increasingly complicated code generated they just do it
@personofswag Adam on x
i no longer think you should learn to cook [image]
@yi_ding Yi Ding on x
When chess computers first started getting good, Anand and others pushed for a variant where humans and computers would work together on a team. That variant gradually grew out of favor because the computers got so good that the humans weren't adding anything. We're not ready.
@simonw Simon Willison on x
@GergelyOrosz He's grabbing headlines, but his actual point is more that people don't need to care so deeply about the trivia of their languages any more, which I partially agree with
@fkasummer Akhil on x
you should learn to code because programming is literacy not labor the same way you should learn to read and write even if you're not going to be a writer
@adamdotdev Adam on x
i still don't know a single person that uses replit and i know a lot of persons
@schrockn Nick Schrock on x
Steve Jobs claimed that everyone should learn how to code https://www.youtube.com/... Not because it is useful, or economically valuable, but because it teaches you how to think.
@tsoding @tsoding on x
Don't learn how to cook. Learn how to choose ingredients, prepare them, saute/boil/bake them and service them. Those are much more valuable skills than cooking.
@mattbeane Matt Beane on x
Neatly on display: the debate that eats up 10% of the Q&A at every keynote speaking gig I've had in the last four months or so. What's my answer? It's neither learn to code or don't. False dichotomy. Coding 1.0 is dead. Coding 2.0 is being born. They're related but that's it.
r/theprimeagen r on reddit
Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better
r/programming r on reddit
Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better

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