Software has never been about the code. It’s about what software can do for us.

AI has widespread adoption because even though it’s imperfect, it achieves the results we are looking for more often than not.

When I open the Krispy Kreme app, if I see the “hot now” neon sign lit, and I drive to the store, more often than not hot fresh donuts will be waiting for me. That’s what software is. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been misled from time to time, driving all the way to Burbank only to have my dreams crushed, again!

And so, some AI-written software will work perfectly until it gets hacked. Legacy systems got hacked every day, before AI.

The best coders out there can surely write better code than AI today. But it’s not like all human coders have always written perfectly formatted, immaculate, completely legible, maintainable, secure, and bug-free code since the dawn of computers, right?

The scoreboard/statistics will start to matter more over time. Will more AI-coded apps get hacked than human apps? Will AI apps have more or fewer data breaches on average than those written without AI? Will self-driving cars have more or fewer accidents than human-driven cars?

At a certain point, AI-generated code (that few humans understand) might have fewer security incidents than code written by the top security experts. This doesn’t mean that AI-generated code won’t get hacked or cause massive security incidents.

Like any tool, AI coding agents will be wielded by geniuses and idiots alike, each getting wildly different results from the same products.

I’m always fascinated by the human tendency to make complex issues black or white.

Like how someone can say that a commitment to eating a plant-based diet is completely negated by that person wearing a leather belt.

Or how in complex human relationships, we often believe that one person has to be more wrong than the other.

But in truth?

It’s possible for a company to have both a bad boss and a bad employee. A bad boss doesn’t make the employee inherently good, and a bad employee doesn’t mean the boss is good.

Two things can be true at the same time.

If we accept the premise that companies are people (*cough*), then in what spirit do people make their best decisions?

Each of us makes decisions in one of two states of mind: fear or excitement.

When we operate out of fear, we never put forth our best work.

An employee who is stressed about their paycheck is unlikely to give us brilliance.

A panicky manager watching sales charts go down is unlikely to come up with a novel solution.

But when we are free? When we are expansive? We come up with truly crazy ideas that no one has ever thought of before that just might work.

As leaders, we must cultivate play and curiosity in those who work for us. We must pay people to have fun and be creative as part of their job. Regardless of the mission stakes, an overly serious workplace will never produce the magic spark needed to change the world.

And I don’t for a second buy that we must always be serious in order to achieve serious results.

Two people are using Claude to code.

Fable asks both: Database is insecure, proceed?

One says: “Screw it! Keep building new features!”

The other says: “You’re right. Let’s stop and fix all the security issues before we move on.”

And so, will both of these approaches yield equally secure apps?

Oftentimes, bad/buggy/bloated code is that way because no one took the time to prompt it better. Even without writing a line of code, spending time debugging, fixing security gaps, etc., is a chore.

So is AI to blame for a prompter who never focuses on optimizations, security, maintainability, and reducing code bloat?

Or is it simply a case of operator ignorance?

Depending on when you met me on my journey, you might not know that I’ve taught over 30,000 people how to DJ.

For the first part of my life and career, I was entrenched in the music industry.

And I DJed around the world.

While I always loved finding new music (still do), I hated organizing my music library for playing.

And Rekordbox (Pioneer’s DJ software) was tedious and to this day lacks several key features.

So for a weekend project, I built a tool that organizes my music library with a key-command-driven interface that lets me dynamically rename my entire library without using a paid tool like Mixed In Key.

And it automatically syncs playlists with Rekordbox instantly.

Basically, it takes hours of tedium and turns it into something almost instantaneous.

Now I just play for fun, but this is the kind of small but powerful project that we’re all able to build each day.

How could you not be excited about this stuff?