korrents

What Steve Yegge thinks about AI and jobs

@steve-yegge · 25 positions · 0 changes of mind

Software engineer of four decades who spent years at Amazon and Google, wrote the Stevey's Blog Rants essays, and co-authored the book Vibe Coding with Gene Kim.

Everything they publish, on ppll ↗

Steve Yegge did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

7 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Steve Yegge has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingThe engineers laid off in AI's name will mostly not find jobs again, they are the first of many, and nobody has a plan for them.

    Their wordsI'm mad at Amazon for laying off 16,000 people and blaming AI without an AI strategy for it. Those people are not going to be able to find jobs, by and large, and they're the first of many to come and nobody has a plan for this.

    ↗From IDEs to AI Agents with Steve Yeggeyoutube.com 2nd of 25 in this recording

  3. Our readingA company must cut half its engineers to pay for the other half's tokens, and that is what the layoffs are actually about.

    Their wordsBecause they're all starting to spend their own salaries in tokens. And so, at least for a while, if you want your engineers to be as productive as possible, you're going to have to get rid of half of them to make the other half maximally productive.

    ↗From IDEs to AI Agents with Steve Yeggeyoutube.com 3rd of 25 in this recording

  5. Our readingBig companies will lose about half of their engineers, because that is where everybody is setting the dial.

    Their wordsAnd so, what's happening is everybody on average is setting that dial to about 50% and we're going to lose about half the engineers from big companies, which is scary.

    ↗From IDEs to AI Agents with Steve Yeggeyoutube.com 4th of 25 in this recording

  7. Our readingBeing anti-AI in 2026 is like being anti-the-sun: the people who stay that way will have to go live underground.

    Their wordsI think a lot of the people coming out of knowledge work are just anti-AI. And those people are going to struggle. I'm sorry, but if you're anti-AI at this point, it's like being anti-the the sun. You're going to have to go live underground, right?

    ↗From IDEs to AI Agents with Steve Yeggeyoutube.com 6th of 25 in this recording

  9. Our readingAn excellent engineer who still reads the agent's diffs carefully before checking them in is going to get fired.

    Their wordsthey they're like, "Yeah, you know, I use Cursor, and I I ask it questions sometimes, and I'm really impressed with the answers, and then I review its code really carefully, and then I check it in." And I'm like, "Dude, you're going to get fired, and you're one of the best engineers I know."

    ↗From IDEs to AI Agents with Steve Yeggeyoutube.com 7th of 25 in this recording

  11. Our readingIf a hundred-times-more-productive engineer still works eight hours a day, the company captures all of the new value and the engineer none of it.

    Their wordslet's say an engineer can be 100 times as productive, just just for sake of argument, all right? Who captures that value? If the if the engineer goes to work and works for 8 hours a day and produces 100 times as much, the company captured all of that value.

    ↗From IDEs to AI Agents with Steve Yeggeyoutube.com 15th of 25 in this recording

  13. Our readingThe scaling curve really is S-shaped, but there are at least two cycles left in it, which means models sixteen times smarter and all knowledge work subsumed.

    Their wordsBut, I can tell you that there are at least two more cycles left in this, and that means they will be at least 16 times smarter than they are today, and that is going to cause all of knowledge work to be subsumed by this stuff.

    ↗From IDEs to AI Agents with Steve Yeggeyoutube.com 22nd of 25 in this recording