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“Engineers are becoming sorcerers” | The future of software development with OpenAI’s Sherwin Wu

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95% of engineers use Codex. 100% of our PRs are reviewed by Codex. For engineers, I don't know what job has changed more in the past couple years. Engineers are becoming tech leads. They're managing fleets and fleets of agents. It literally feels like we're wizards casting all these spells, and these spells are kind of like going out and doing things for you. What do you think people aren't pricing in yet? In our third order effects of the one person billion dollar startup. To enable a one person billion dollar startup, there might be a hundred other small startups building bespoke software. So I think we might actually enter into a golden age of B2B SaaS. I've been hearing more and more there's this stress people feel when their agents aren't working. There's a team that's actually doing an experiment right now with an OpenAI where they are maintaining a 100% code. Codex written code base. They run into the exact problems that you're describing. And so usually you're like, all right, I'll roll up my sleeves and figure it out. This team doesn't have that escape hatch. You've shared that listening to customers is not always the right strategy in AI. The field and the models themselves are just changing so, so quickly. They tend to like disrupt themselves. The models will eat your scaffolding for breakfast. advice to folks that are like, okay, I don't wanna miss the boat. Make sure you're building for where the models are going and not where they are today. There's a quote from Kevin Whale, our VP of science here, and he likes saying this is the worst the models will ever be. Today my guest is Sherwin Wu, head of engineering for OpenAI's API and developer platform.

Considering that essentially every AI startup integrates with OpenAI's APIs, Sherwin has an incredibly unique and broad view into what is going on and where things are heading. Let's get into it after a short word from our wonderful sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by DX, the developer intelligence platform designed by leading researchers. To thrive in the AI era, organizations need to adapt quickly. But many organization leaders struggle to answer pressing questions like, which tools are working, how are they being used? What's actually driving value? DX provides the data and insights that leaders need to navigate this shift.

With DX, companies like Dropbox, Booking.com, Adion, and Intercom get a deep understanding of how AI is providing value to their developers and what impact AI is having on engineering productivity. To learn more, visit DX's website at get dx.com slash Lenny. That's get dx dot com slash Lenny. Applications break in all kinds of ways, crashes, slowdowns, regressions, and the stuff that you only see once real users show up. Sentry catches it all. See what happened, where and why. Down to the commit that introduced the error.

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