Best of the Pod: Vercel's Guillermo Rauch on AI and the Future of Coding

Read Dan Shipper's essay on the allocation economy: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/the-knowledge-economy-is-over-welcome-to-the-allocation-economy

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.

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! 

Sponsors:

LTX Studio is helping storytellers go from concept to delivery in one seamless platform. Whether you're storyboarding your next film, prototyping ad concepts, or creating pixel-ready assets, LTX Studio allows you to fully realize your imaginations. Check them out here: https://tinyurl.com/2d5nx3ut

Attio is the AI-native CRM built for the next era of companies. With Attio, setup takes minutes. Connect your email and calendar, and it instantly builds a CRM that mirrors your business. Go to https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every to get 15% off on your first year.

Want even more?
Read Dan Shipper's essay on developing taste with AI: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/what-i-do-when-i-can-t-sleep

Try Cora to manage your email with AI: https://cora.computer
Try Spiral to repurpose content with AI: https://spiral.computer
Try Sparkle to organize your files with AI: https://makeitsparkle.co

Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.

To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe 
Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper
 
Timestamps
00:00:00 - Episode start
00:01:33 - Introduction
00:03:18 - How to spot trends early
00:07:34 - Why you should be your own customer
00:14:55 - How to create an ecosystem of talent and ambition
00:17:29 - Why Guillermo doesn't identify as a coder
00:20:50 - AI is gearing us toward an allocation economy
00:28:34 - How Vercel's copilot compares with other coding agents
00:40:35 - Guillermo's advice on having better taste
00:42:46 - The future of AI agents is specialized
00:47:50 - How AI startups can compete with big tech

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Guillermo Rauch: @rauchg
Vercel: https://vercel.com/ 
Last week’s episode with Nabeel Hyatt: https://every.to/podcast/the-venture-capitalist-who-only-makes-two-bets-a-year
Dan’s essay about the allocation economy: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/the-knowledge-economy-is-over-welcome-to-the-allocation-economy