AI, Vibe Coding, and Product Decay: How to Protect Long-Term Value

As a Product Owner, I’ve led teams where even junior developers had their code double-reviewed.

Not because we didn’t trust them.

But because we wanted our product to live long and evolve well.

We welcome junior developers. We test new technologies. We’ve even used AI.

But one thing we don’t do?

Let code go to production just because someone “had a good feeling about it.”

Welcome to the world of vibe coding, and why it’s the fastest path to unmaintainable software.

What Vibe Coding Really Means

Some people now talk about “vibe coding” as a revolutionary approach: AI generates your code, you give it feedback, and you just vibe your way into a product.

But let’s bring this back to Earth.

In real teams, with deadlines, scaling plans, and maintenance to consider, vibe coding looks like this:

“Code that gets written based on intuition, urgency, or informal chats, but without tickets, specs, reuse patterns, or test considerations.”

That’s not innovation.That’s building a product on sand.

Why It Feels Fun (But Fails Fast)

1. No Specs = No Alignment

When no one writes down what a feature is supposed to do, everyone fills in the gaps differently. You get five developers building five slightly different logics for the same thing. You test it once, it “works,” and then weeks later it breaks when someone tries to reuse it, because no one knew what “done” actually meant.

2. “Just Try Something” Doesn’t Scale

Vibe coding encourages trial and error in places where precision is needed.

Sure, it’s fine for a proof of concept. But in production code? That’s a time bomb.

• It introduces invisible bugs (no test coverage).

• It creates logic duplication (no design review).

• It builds context collapse (no documentation or shared patterns).

  
  

3. Maintenance Debt Is Inevitable

If no one owns the structure, no one owns the future of the product. You create systems that are impossible to onboard into, impossible to debug, and dangerous to touch.

“We’ll fix it later” becomes “no one dares to open that file.”

4. AI Doesn’t Make It Better (Yet)

Let’s be clear: I’m not against using AI to assist coding.

But using AI without structure, without specs, testing, code ownership, or long-term planning, is how you end up shipping a Frankenstein monster of hallucinated logic and brittle APIs.

AI is a multiplier. It makes good workflows better. It also makes bad workflows catastrophic, faster.

Do I Sound Like a Reactionary?

Maybe. But I don't think that’s a bad thing.

I’ve seen the bold takes from Silicon Valley, the “just vibe it” coding mantras. They’re exciting, sure. And in a perfect world, with no team turnover or tech debt, maybe they’d work.

But that’s not reality.

I work with long-lived products, junior devs, shifting specs, and real users. In that world, vibe coding doesn’t scale.

It’s not that I’m against AI or innovation, I’m all for it. But great product culture is about balance:

• Innovation and accountability

• Speed and sustainability

• AI and human understanding

Also, let’s be honest: when someone like Karpathy says, “I don’t read the diffs anymore,” it’s backed by deep experience. He knows what to trust.

But most people don’t. Junior devs, non-technical founders, they hear that and think skipping fundamentals is fine.

It’s not.

That mindset leads to messy code, brittle products, and technical debt nobody can unwind, not even the AI.

If we’re serious about democratizing coding, we need to also democratize responsibility.

Explain how things work. Show why structure matters. Because products should outlast the hype.

References

1. Internal Team Practice & PDF Insight“Vibe Coding = Maintenance Debt” (Internal PDF)Key definition of vibe coding grounded in day-to-day product management realities.

2. Andrej Karpathy (2025)Twitter/X post: "I 'Accept All' always, I don’t read the diffs anymore.”https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383Highlights the emerging norm of fully AI-generated code with minimal review in the developer community.

3. IBM Think Blog“Vibe Coding: The New Frontier of AI-Augmented Development”https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/vibe-coding

4. Klover.ai Editorial (2024)“Karpathy’s Viral Term Gets a Reality Check”https://www.klover.ai/vibe-coding-karpathy-viral-term-ng-reality-check-klover-first-mover-advantage

5. IndieHackers Discussion Thread“The Reality of Vibe Coding” https://www.indiehackers.com/post/the-reality-of-vibe-coding-47c65d45d6Community

6. Business Insider (2025)“Vibe Coding Is Catching Fire in Silicon Valley, But Devs Are Cautious”https://www.businessinsider.com/vibe-coding-ai-silicon-valley-andrej-karpathy-2025-2