the guy who left his laptop

It’s been a minute. But I’m back, and this one’s a bit different.

So there’s this cafe I go to a lot. Not gonna say which one because knowing my luck, all three of my readers will show up and ruin the vibe. But yeah, it’s my usual spot. Good coffee, decent wifi, the kind of place where you can just lock in for hours.

The Setup

About a week ago, me and my friends were there. We had coursework due the next day, so we were doing what any responsible undergrads do, leaving it to the absolute last minute and panicking together in a cafe. Laptops out, headphones in, the whole thing.

Then this guy walks up to our table. Never seen him before. He puts his laptop down next to us and goes “hey, can you guys watch this for a bit?” and we were like sure, no problem. Sometimes people need to step out for a minute, take a call, handle some business. You know how it is. We said yes and didn’t think much of it.

“Are You Guys SE Undergrads?”

Except as he was walking away, he glanced at my screen.

And there it was. Claude Code. Running with dangerously-skip-permissions. In all its glory.

He stopped. Turned around. “Are you guys software engineering undergrads or something?”

Yeah, pretty much. And just like that, this random cafe interaction turned into a full-blown conversation about the state of AI, the future of our field, and whether we’re all cooked or not.

Turns out the guy works in fintech. Or finance. One of those. Either way, he clearly had thoughts about where things are headed. And so did I.

Now this was about 5 or 6 days ago, so my recall might not be perfect. And before anyone comes at me, there are no sources here. This is stuff I’ve picked up from YouTube videos, articles, random conversations, and my own head. I might be wrong about some of it. Probably am. But these are my genuine thoughts, so here we go.

“AI Is Gonna Replace You Guys”

That was basically his opener. The classic. “Is the industry even worth going into?”

And look, I get why people think that. These models are genuinely impressive. But here’s my take: they’re not replacing developers. They’re really, really good autocomplete. Yes, there’s reasoning baked in. Yes, they can build things. But in any real scenario, a developer should be leading the process, not the AI. It helps with ideation and development, both of which should, in an ideal world, be steered by someone who actually knows what they’re doing.

Will there be a reduction in jobs? Probably. But that’s not the same thing as replaced.

Honestly, I think this whole “AI will replace everyone” narrative is just a hype cycle. The AI companies need it. It builds buzz, it drives investment, it sells subscriptions. But think about Google for a second. When search engines became a thing, that was a massive revolution too. People were scared. Probably thought entire professions would vanish overnight. And I’ll be honest, I’m a post-Google child so I don’t have firsthand experience of that era, but I’m pretty sure people freaked out. Records keepers, researchers, whoever, there were probably real fears about becoming irrelevant.

And what happened? Google became normalized. It’s just… there. The big defacto normal. Nobody panics about it anymore.

AI will go the same way. Right now it’s just too hot. Everyone’s losing their minds. But give it time and it’ll settle into being another tool. Another layer. Not the apocalypse.

The Flood

There’s also this thing nobody really talks about: the sheer number of developers graduating right now.

These are people who started their degrees during the 2020s tech boom. The COVID era. Everything was popping off, tech was the golden ticket, and everyone wanted in. My university alone has about 2000 students in our batch looking for jobs. Two thousand. That’s insane.

And the market? It’s corrected back to pre-COVID levels. Maybe even less. So you’ve got this massive wave of graduates hitting an industry that’s already contracted. That’s a supply problem, not an AI problem. But it’s easier to blame the robots than to admit the industry over-hired during the boom and now there’s too many of us for not enough seats.

The 10x Myth

He brought up the classic line. “Doesn’t AI make everyone a 10x developer?”

No. That is not how it works.

The way I see it, AI is a multiplier. But it multiplies what you already are. If you’re a 0.1x developer, congrats, you’re now a 1x developer. If you’re a 2x dev, maybe you hit 20x. The number changes from person to person, but the point is: your baseline matters. A lot.

A software architect will vibe code circles around me, and that’s just how it is. They know what they’re looking at when the logs start screaming. They have the instincts, the business knowledge, the years of seeing systems break in ways I haven’t yet. That experience and technical depth is what determines how good you are with these tools, not the tools themselves.

Which brings me to this whole “anyone can build an app now” narrative. Business owners coding their own products. And look, for MVPs? Sure. Throw something together with AI, ship it, see if the idea sticks. That’s valid.

But post-MVP? You really fucking can’t, my guy. You just can’t. You cannot build a sustainable, scalable system without at least one technical person who knows what they’re doing steering the whole thing. The AI doesn’t understand your edge cases, your scale requirements, your business constraints at that level. Someone has to. And that someone needs to actually understand software.

What Companies Want

From a company perspective, this AI boom makes perfect sense. They basically have two options:

1. Keep the same number of developers and increase output exponentially
2. Reduce headcount and maintain the same standards

Either way, it’s a win for them. Vibe coding is faster, more efficient, cheaper. From a business standpoint, it checks every box.

But from my perspective, as a developer, as someone who actually gives a shit about this craft, I lose a part of myself every time I vibe code. I know that sounds dramatic. Maybe it is. But there’s something about the small stuff. The small bugs. Going through the docs. Sitting with an error for an hour and actually understanding why it happened. That’s what made me fall in love with programming.

I’ve talked about this before and I’ll probably keep talking about it. I’m not saying vibe coding is bad. But the enjoyment levels are just… so different. And I think if you’re a developer who’s actually passionate about this stuff, you owe it to yourself to keep doing things the hard way sometimes. Just to remember why you’re here.

Also, and this is the thing I keep coming back to, there will always be jobs for the people who don’t just vibe code. The ones who genuinely know their shit. Who understand systems top to bottom. Those people are rare beasts and they’ll stay rare. That’s what I want to be. Whether I get there or not is a different question, but that’s the goal.

Layoffs and the AI Excuse

He brought up the layoffs. “Companies are firing like crazy because of AI, right?”

Yeah, they are. But most of it? I think it’s performative bullshit.

Here’s what actually happened: companies over-hired massively during the boom. Now they need to correct. And “AI” is a beautiful, convenient excuse to justify cuts that were coming regardless. You fire a bunch of developers, Wall Street gives you a little stock bump because investors love an efficiency narrative, and everyone claps.

Except then you realize you actually needed those people. And you hire them back. Which is literally what happened at some company I vaguely remember reading about. Fired devs, then had to bring them back because, surprise, you need developers to build and maintain software. Wild concept, I know.

AI has an impact, I’m not denying that. But it’s not this fucking big. It’s being used as a scapegoat for decisions that have nothing to do with technology and everything to do with cleaning up the mess of over-hiring.

AGI and Other Fairy Tales

Then he brought up AGI. “But what about when AGI comes? That changes everything.”

Maybe. If it comes. Which it won’t. At least not anytime soon.

It’s the tech CEO school of predictions at this point. “AGI next year” they say, every single year, without fail. These guys have predicted AGI arriving more times than they’ve shipped actual products. And yet here we are, still asking ChatGPT to fix our regex. It’s part of the hype cycle. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you stop panicking about a future that keeps getting postponed indefinitely.

Could it eventually happen? Sure. But “eventually” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. I’m not gonna restructure my entire career around a promise that’s been “just around the corner” for years.

The Money Game

Last thing we talked about was the money. He was like “Look at all these massive deals happening every day.”

And yeah, the numbers are insane on paper. But if you actually look at what’s happening, it’s money flowing in circles. Company X invests $100 billion in company Y. Company Y turns around and buys $10 billion in services from company X. Company X reinvests. Round and round. It’s a massive merry-go-round of capital between the same handful of players.

Is it a bubble? I think so. Will it pop? Probably. When? No clue. What comes after? He asked me that and I genuinely had no answer. Whatever the market decides to obsess over next, I guess. That’s kind of how it always works.

The Laptop

So yeah, that was the conversation. Pretty interesting for a random encounter over coffee.

Except here’s the thing.

After we finished talking, the guy said something like “alright, nice chat” and just… left. Walked out of the cafe.

Without his laptop.

We figured he’d be back in a few minutes. Maybe he went to grab something. Maybe he had a call. We kept working on our coursework, glancing at the door every now and then.

He didn’t come back.

The cafe closed at 3. We waited right up until they were kicking us out. Still no sign of the guy. So we did the only reasonable thing: put his laptop in the lost and found.

So if you’re a fintech guy who left your laptop at a cafe after a conversation about AI with some stressed undergrads, bro, it’s in the lost and found. Please come get it. We tried.

Anyway, that’s the story. Sometimes the most interesting conversations happen with strangers who abandon their electronics at your table. Hope he got his laptop back. And hope the AI doesn’t replace me before I graduate. :)