‘[It’s a] vibe coding disaster': Startup CEO skips normal development steps, uses AI to publish a massive unfinished app that barely works

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Feb 24, 2026 1:00 PM EST

Tech bros are not the problem (here), the problem is tech bros plus unlimited access to a keyboard and a complete blindness to the concept of incremental progress. This story is basically a stand‑up bit about a startup where the only thing moving fast was the rate at which the thing they're trying to start up is performance art

Advertisement
  • Young man in a dark sweater working on a laptop at a desk in a dimly lit room at night, focused on the screen with large windows behind him.
    via Christian Velitchkov

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Vibecoding Disaster

    So I took a job at a small startup with a decent-sounding idea, some seed money, and the classic promise that we were going to "move fast." Reader, we moved fast.
    via 02889636
  • We moved so fast we achieved time travel, briefly, because we managed to build the end of the project before we built the beginning.
    via 02889636
  • Week 1: I am bootstrapping infrastructure. You know, the boring adult stuff. Repos, environments, logging, deployment, the things you only notice are missing when everything is on fire and you are holding a bucket labeled "hope." Meanwhile the CEO is vibing.
    via 02889636
  • Very high-energy. Very visionary. The kind of person who says "We can totally ship in two sprints" the way other people say "We can totally microwave metal." Then comes The Long Weekend.
    via 02889636
  • Monday morning I open the repo and the git log looks like a crime scene. One commit.
    via 02889636
  • Young man in a dark sweater working on a laptop at a desk at night, resting his hand on his chin and concentrating on the screen with large windows behind him.
    via Christian Velitchkov

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Twenty thousand lines. Every file touched. I am not exaggerating when I say the commit message might as well have been: "did stuff lol." I ask, as gently as a human can, "Hey, did you run it?" He says, with the confidence of a man who has never been harmed by his own decisions, "It should work." It did not.
    via 02889636
  • The thing about massive unreviewed commits is that you do not debug them. You do not fix them.
    via 02889636
  • You do archaeology. You put on gloves. You try not to disturb the dust. You whisper apologies to the ancestors.
    via 02889636
  • I pull the code and try to build it. It fails immediately, which at least was mercifully honest.
    via 02889636
  • I ask where the unit tests are. He says, and I will remember this line until I di, "The Al does not understand unit tests because it does not understand the environment variable to turn them on." This is a real sentence said by a real person in the waking world.
    via 02889636
  • At this point I realize we have not built an application. We have built a new genre of literature: speculative executable fiction.
    via 02889636
  • Bearded man in a black T-shirt sitting at a desk, working on a laptop with his hand resting on his chin, notebook and phone beside him in a bright office setting.
    via Hoi An and Da Nang Photographer

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • I try to explain incremental development. You know the concept: keep it green. Add one small feature.
    via 02889636

  • The CEO is the kind of guy who talks about velocity until he discovers that velocity applies to crashing cars too. He runs off on weekend coding benders, drops a 20,000‑line commit that reads like a crime scene, and then says it “should work” the way someone might say their home‑brew espresso is “basically fine.” He treats the repo like a blank canvas for heroic flair instead of a shared workspace, and every pull request is basically a hostage situation with no negotiator.

  • Add a test. Keep it green. Repeat. A gentle staircase to working software, as opposed to cliff- diving into a landfill of diff noise.
    via 02889636
  • He nods like he understands. Very apologetic. Very earnest. Then, as if guided by forces older than reason, he disappears again.
    via 02889636
  • Seventy-two hours later he returns with another grenade commit. This one touches everything plus a file called something like "final\final\working\v\real.py" which I can only assume is a cry for help.
    via 02889636
  • I start adding logging because I need to know what is real. I wire up log levels.
    via 02889636

  • The real punchline is that the whole system is a giant print statement wrapped in a confession that the AI “does not understand unit tests because it does not understand the environment variable to turn them on.” That sentence alone is a perfect monument to a culture that measures progress by how much code it can generate, not by whether anything actually happens. The application is not a product, it is a séance and every commit is just someone trying to summon a ghost of functionality out of a pile of payload.

  • I put in structured output. I start building a feedback loop because right now we are basically driving at night with the headlights turned off because "the car should know the road." Finally, I get logging working.
    via 02889636
  • The logs reveal the truth. Nothing is happening. The entire "working" system is a print statement.
    via 02889636
  • Not even a good print statement. Not like "Processed 10,000 records" where you could at least pretend.
    via 02889636
  • It was more like: print("Success!") It is hard to describe the feeling of discovering that you have spent months standing in front of a cardboard fireplace while someone behind you makes crackling sounds with cellophane and goes, "See?
    via 02889636
  • Working." At some point, the company runs out of money. The seed funding falls off a cliff.
    via 02889636
  • The team gets reassigned to a different product "with the best chance of success." Plot twist: the new product duplicates the functionality of the old product.
    via 02889636
  • I ask why we are building a second app that does the same thing as the first app that does nothing.
    via 02889636
  • The CEO looks me de d in the eyes and says, "Because I do not know how to work with other people." I respect the honesty.
    via 02889636
  • I do. I just wish it had arrived before the 20,000- line weekend novella. So now I am in the most modern of roles: the guy asked to fix the foundation after the house has been built, while someone across the street starts building another identical house out of print statements.
    via 02889636
  • My morale is low. My git blame is high. If anyone needs me, I will be in the corner rocking back and forth whispering "small PRs" and "Cl gates" like they are prayers.
    via 02889636

  • By the time the money runs out and they start building the same thing again on a different branch, the pattern is obvious. The CEO does not like shared conventions, small PRs, or humility, so he prefers building new castles in the air instead of fixing the one that already collapsed. The only real feature the system ships is a constant reminder that the most dangerous code is not broken code, it is the code that looks like it is working but is just confidently yelling “Success” into an empty room.

  • Anyway. If you are ever tempted to measure progress by lines of code, I have good news: in 2026, you can generate infinity lines of code in a weekend.
    via 02889636
  • It will cost you $1,000 a week and deliver approximately one (1) print statement. But it will print very confidently.
    via 02889636
  • UriGagarin >We have built a new genre of literature: speculative executable fiction. That is a line of pure artistry.
    via 02889636
  • UriGagarin Also, when you discovered this atrocity did you not wind it back?
    via 02889636
  • Odd_Mortgage_9108 Stay away from stupid people, even... especially if they are startup founders. Delulu a h les will drag you down with them.
    via 02889636
  • No-Term-1979 >The entire "working" system is a print statement.> >Not even a good print statement. Not like "Processed 10,000 records" where you could at least pretend. It was more like:> Oh please be "Hello World" >print("Success!")
    via 02889636
  • Visible_Inevitable41 "Hello world"
    via 02889636
  • 182RG ...waiting on that Series A to hit...
    via 02889636
  • Content_Character625 I believe this will happen countless more times this year, across countless more organizations.
    via 02889636
  • Sp00k_x It's 4:40 am and I just woke my shiba up from laughter. She's nowhere near as amused as I am.
    via 02889636
  • kenrichardson I see you and I am sorry. But this was also brilliantly written in a way that says to me it's exceptionally real because only someone who has actually been burned like this could write that.
    via 02889636
  • DaBear_Lurker Wow - you're like the Douglas Adams of developers... I loved reading this post, just for the entertaining way it was written. You should have a substack. I'd read it!
    via 02889636

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

management workplace discussion employment issues boss workplace-stories coworkers
Scroll Down For The Next Article