Today's signal

Andrej Karpathy, the man who coined "vibe coding," just declared it obsolete. Speaking at Sequoia Capital's AI Ascent 2026, he introduced its successor: Agentic Engineering. His own workflow is the evidence. In December 2025, his coding ratio flipped from 80% human to 80% AI-generated. He says he can't remember the last time he corrected the output.

Why it matters

This is not a terminology update. Karpathy drew a hard line between two eras: vibe coding raised the floor, giving anyone the ability to build software by describing what they want. Agentic engineering raises the ceiling, rewarding professionals who can direct agents without letting quality collapse by more than 10x over everyone else. The shift happened faster than the industry noticed. Most companies are still hiring engineers with whiteboard puzzles designed for a world that ended in late 2025. The bottleneck is no longer who can write code. It is who can oversee, verify, and direct agents doing the writing.

The take

Karpathy's most important line was not about agents or models. It was this: "You can outsource your thinking, but you can't outsource your understanding." AI did not flatten the skill hierarchy. It sharpened it. The engineers who understand systems deeply now have more leverage than ever. The ones who only knew how to type are being replaced, not by non-technical people, but by better-prepared technical people running agents. That gap is widening fast.

The number

December 2025 — The month Karpathy's coding ratio inverted, going from writing 80% of his own code to delegating 80% to agents. One month. He describes it as a threshold, not a gradual slope. The profession, he says, is being "dramatically refactored."

Read the full breakdown → https://analyticsdrift.com/andrej-karpathy-agentic-engineering-software-3/