AI Can Write Code. Why Isn’t Software Better?

Diogo Almeida (0:00)

Where the fuck is all the automation? AI is so unbelievably smart, and yet it's so useless at all other stuff.

Martin Casado (0:07)

It doesn't matter how much AI coding agents you use, the software actually isn't getting better. Maybe you're writing it faster, it's like arguably getting worse.

Diogo Almeida (0:14)

OpenAI has been trying to automate customer service since 2020 What I want instead is smart software. I want to expand what software itself can do, such that things that should be automatable can then be automatable.

Ben Horowitz (0:27)

My favorite thing that you guys say is we built Prod not God, because if we had any other big lab leader, even if they had Joy, they would cover it up. Then your view is so different. You're like, no, we're going to create a way better world.

Diogo Almeida (0:44)

For nuanced reasons, I don't think we're on the path of RSI.

SPEAKER_4 (0:48)

In the SaaS apocalypse story, AI can write software, but what if the bigger opportunity is putting intelligence inside the software itself?

In this episode, Ben Horowitz and Martin Casado sit down with TypeSafe AI founder Diogo Almeida to talk about Jev and a different vision for how AI changes computing. Diogo argues that coding agents make it faster to produce the same kind of software we already have. Jev is aimed at expanding what software itself can do, giving developers a new primitive for turning natural language intent into decisions that programs can actually use. They get into why reliability matters more than impressive demos. What a new era of probabilistic programming could look like, and why AI might make existing software dramatically more useful, rather than simply replacing it.

And beneath all of this is the question that drove Diogo to build TypeSafe in the first place. If AI is already this smart, where is all the automation?

Ben Horowitz (1:47)

Today, we have the founder and leader of TypeSafe, Diogo, with us, who is a bit of a hero to both Martín and me. He is not only building a really interesting product, but creating what we think is a very important movement. So we're super excited about today.

Diogo Almeida (2:08)

Welcome, Diogo.

SPEAKER_4 (2:09)

Thank you.

Ben Horowitz (2:10)

Maybe you can give us a brief on what is Jev, what is TypeSafe, why is it important?

Diogo Almeida (2:16)

Is this curse friendly or not?

SPEAKER_4 (2:19)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool.

Diogo Almeida (2:20)

What the are you talking about?

SPEAKER_4 (2:22)

Okay, okay, cool.

Diogo Almeida (2:23)

So I was actually asked for an elevator pitch, which I tend to ramble on and I don't do well, but I realized my favorite elevator pitch for Jev is where the fuck is all the automation?

This is so unbelievably tragic. Yes. So much intelligence, AI is so unbelievably smart, and yet so, not that I hate on chatbots or coding agents, I love them myself, but it's so useless at all other stuff, and it's tragic. It's tragic that we have so much diamond in the rough, but not polished for work. But TypeSafe is making AI for software. We want to make AI powerful, not just for humans in the loop, but to actually build real software, and Jev to us is our first model in this whole space, to make it way, way better to make automation.

Ben Horowitz (3:11)

Yeah. So it's been interesting because it's caught fire in software world. One of the things that made us go, what the hell is going on here is like every developer we know is calling us and going, oh, this is freaking awesome.

Diogo Almeida (3:24)

It's great.

Ben Horowitz (3:25)

It's fast. It's great. Everything's better. Then how does that? Because everybody thinks of, well, we've got Cloud Code. We've got Codex. Don't we already have that?

What's the difference and then how does that lead to real automation?

Diogo Almeida (3:39)

I wish I had some slopped visuals because I have a favorite slopped visual for this. So I like Cloud Code and Codex. I love the description from Gary Tan on them. It's just-in-time software. Incredible way to describe what they're doing. It makes software on the fly and you can program software in natural language, but it has the same expressive power as software. What I want instead is smart software. Instead of automating software engineering, I want to expand what software itself can do such that things that should be automatable can then be automatable.

In a more flowery language, I want to express things like intent. I want to expand the vocabulary of what we can do, and I can talk about all sorts of weird sci-fi things I want. But programming is hyper specifying valuable things and then infinitely replicating them. It's so freaking cool. I want to just make that more.