Unpopular opinion. Vibe coding is going to kill software teams.

We called over 200 large startups in San Francisco, and 90% said they’re struggling with feature velocity. The reason? Their codebase is a mess.

In the early days, they moved fast—hiring engineers, shipping features, and writing code using AI without thinking about maintainability.

And now? Every new feature release takes longer, breaks more things, and slows down the business.

The Problem:
🚨 Compounding Tech Debt – Quick fixes pile up, creating a fragile and messy codebase.
🔁 High Engineer Turnover – With ~2-year tenures, messy code outlives its authors, leaving new hires lost.
⏳ No Time for Re-Architecture – Startup engineers need to ship, not re-architect. Unlike Fortune 500s, they can’t wait 1.5 years for Accenture to clean things up.

The Cost:
Startups in Series A-C don’t think they have legacy code—until they do.
When it happens, rewriting is no longer a good option. Re-architecting is the only way forward.

If you’re feeling this pain, you’re not alone. The question is: How long will you let vibe coding slow you down before you fix it?