"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 (Adam, Brian, Justin) give our honest takes on AI and software development, and how it's going to affect our businesses.

"AI is like keyboard shortcuts on steroids for the things I am an expert in."

🎧 Listen to the whole episode on The Panel:
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

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