Andrej Karpathy on Vibe Coding & Agentic Engineering (AI Ascent 2026)
Source
Sequoia Capital
Author
Sequoia Capital
Date
Terms in this piece · Glossary
vibe coding — Building software by describing what you want to an AI in plain language and steering the result, instead of writing every line yourself.
AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.
Why it matters
Karpathy's line — you can outsource thinking but never understanding — is the frame most agentic-coding advice is missing. He treats LLMs as 'ghosts' and situates today's tools inside a Software 3.0 arc, which reframes vibe codingBuilding software by describing what you want to an AI in plain language and steering the result, instead of writing every line yourself.Full definition → from a party trick into an engineering discipline. Watch if you want a mental model for where the AI agentAn AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.Full definition → stops and your judgment has to start.
Key quotes
“you can outsource your thinking, but you can't outsource your understanding”
Andrej Karpathy
“vibe coding is about raising the floor for everyone in terms of what they can do in software”
Andrej Karpathy
“state-of-the-art models today will tell you to walk because it's so close”
Andrej Karpathy
“Why are people still telling me what to do? Like I don't want to do anything. What is the thing I should copy paste to my agent?”
Andrej Karpathy
“if you're in the circuits that were part of the RL, you fly and if you're in the circuits that are out of the data distribution, you're going to struggle”
