So what even is “real” software anyway?

Someone builds an app over the weekend. It works. It looks good. And then the search begins — for the asterisk. Security? Design quality? Can it go to production? Paul Ford says we’re in a new era: "I can't believe it's not software!"

Paul is the co-founder of Aboard, where he helps organizations build custom software quickly, using AI tools. He's also one of my favorite tech writers. You may know him from "What Is Code," the opus he wrote for Bloomberg Businessweek a decade ago or from his writing in the New York Times, including his recent opinion piece, The A.I. Disruption We’ve Been Waiting for Has Arrived. Or perhaps you’re hip to Ftrain, where he’s been writing for longer than we’ve had the word “blog.”

In this conversation, recorded at Aboard’s podcast studio (Paul and his cofounder also host a great show), we dig into the strange new world where roles are colliding, software* gets built quickly, and no one is quite sure what to teach their kids.

We get into:

What Paul calls "the great search for the asterisk" — the moment someone demos an app and everyone scrambles to find the catch
How the power dynamic between engineers and everyone else is fundamentally shifting — and why that's both liberating and destabilizing
Why vibe coded prototypes are changing how agencies pitch and price their work — and why pricing is "very unresolved"
The skills that actually matter now: client communication, systems thinking, and depth over velocity
Why "the environmental costs [of AI] have become essentially a truthful folk narrative to talk about how difficult and scary and painful it is to see your life get continually smashed into bits."
What he's teaching his kids (hint: it's not to code)

Chapters:

(01:40) - “We’re in a funny moment now” – catching up on the ten years since “What Is Code?”
(05:30) - “ You gotta stop fighting” - AI code is genuinely useful, caveats and all
(08:44) - AI enables people who could never afford custom software to have it
(09:50) - Why he knew he’d get yelled at for his recent piece in the NYTimes
(13:00) - “AI washing” and job cuts
(14:50) - Paul’s theory for why the market oscillates so wildly on AI news + are we going to vibe code our own DoorDash?
(17:00) - What’s the hardest thing about building with AI right now?
(19:36) - Hiring, the most in-demand skills, and “forward-deployed engineers”
(27:50) - “Product is still hard” – in response to: “What is something that AI will never be great at?”
(31:36) - “What is something that sounds like science fiction, but that will soon be real — and commonplace?”
(32:46) - Why Paul is excited about world models (and thinks LLM’s are topping out)
(36:06) - Why environmental concerns have become a “truthful folk narrative about how difficult and scary” AI is
(39:26) - There is no magic solution for climate (but one positive thing AI can do is help digest climate data)
(41:26) - Why kids should learn systems thinking

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"I Can't Believe It's Not Software!" Paul Ford on AI and the Asterisk*