"I've changed my mind on AI coding" – Adam Wathan (creator of Tailwind)

"I used to be more skeptical than I am now. Especially when everyone was talking about 'one-shotting' and 'vibe coding.' But then I forced myself to download Cursor and build an entire project without typing any code, making the computer type the code for me. I had to throw myself in the deep end." All three of us (@AdamWathan , @JustinJackson , and @briancasel) give our honest takes on AI and software development, and how it's going to affect our businesses (@TailwindLabs, @TransistorPodcasting, Instrumental.dev). "AI is like keyboard shortcuts on steroids for the things I am an expert in." 🎧 Listen to the whole episode on @ThePanelPodcast: https://panelpodcast.com/11 Adam and Brian share how AI lets them program more, not less, by eliminating grunt work. They think experienced developers will have a huge advantage in this AI era. We also dive into the business implications: how AI is already affecting traffic and sales for Tailwind UI, why building an audience is more important than ever, and what Adam is building next. This conversation actually got me curious to try Claude Code and Cursor AI. Chapters 00:00 - Adam's Initial AI Skepticism 01:15 - The Cursor Experiment: Building Without Typing Code 02:45 - Why You Need to Be Specific with AI 03:15 - The Evolution of AI Models (Claude Sonnet 4) 04:00 - Cursor Rules: Training AI to Match Your Style 04:45 - The 90% Grunt Work Problem 06:30 - AI as "Keyboard Shortcuts on Steroids" 07:15 - Why AI Fails for Learning New Technologies 08:15 - Using ChatGPT vs Cursor: Learning vs Coding 09:00 - The Future of AI in Every App 10:15 - How AI Should Work in Design Tools (Figma) 10:30 - How AI is affecting the Tailwind business (traffic is down) 14:00 - Keeping JavaScript Commercial This Time 14:45 - New Ventures: Video Editing Software 16:30 - Removing Grunt Work from Video Editing 17:45 - The Paradigm Shift and New Opportunities 19:00 - AI for Custom Personal Tools 20:30 - Building AI Automation Flows 22:00 - The Future: AI Pull Requests for Tailwind 🔗 Links: Bryan's new Rails components: https://instrumental.dev/ Bryan's SaaS: https://clarityflow.com/ Integrate Open AI and Anthropic APIs into your Rails applications (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dW1Kkx7utQ Rob Walling's Stair Step approach: https://robwalling.com/essays/2015/03/26/the-stair-step-method-of-bootstrapping Vercel's new V0 AI tool: https://v0.dev/ Thorsten Ball's article: How to build an agent https://ampcode.com/how-to-build-an-agent ★ More about me: ★ I'm Justin Jackson. I founded https://transistor.fm (a podcast hosting and analytics platform) with Jon Buda. I write, podcast, and make videos about bootstrapping, startups, marketing, calm companies, and business ethics. My blog: https://justinjackson.ca Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/justinjackson.ca