Sherry Jiang and Agrim Singh have collaboratively created an exhilarating, immersive two-day boot camp experience that we’re calling “vibe coding.” This program challenges participants to create innovative working applications in only 48 hours harnessing the power of artificial intelligence. By providing a better way to build apps, Appgyver’s creative solution seeks to open up app development to everyone—specifically, people who don’t have a tech degree.
The phrase vibe coding comes from Andrej Karpathy, current co-founder of OpenAI and former head of artificial intelligence at Tesla. Jiang and Singh are convinced this new coding approach will go a long way to democratizing creation by supercharging the next generation of developers with AI tools. At $300 Singapore dollars (roughly $233), the boot camp delivers hands-on experience. Participants will learn techniques to break their project ideas down into tangible, well-defined products and how to prototype them successfully.
Now that he’s CEO of Peek, Jiang wants to help empower those non-technical types. AI is a truly powerful game-changing technology. She explains, “For people who are not technical today … I think that AI is just the biggest unlock. So we’re going to have many more people who are going to be able to build apps.” Singh is in agreement with this perspective. He points out that AI-powered code generation tools put the ability to generate functional apps or websites into the hands of non-technical users with ease.
The boot camp equips participants with the necessary skills to utilize AI tools in their projects, a practice both Jiang and Singh employed while founding their startups, Peek and Niyam AI. The novel of achievements, the pair’s success perhaps an indicator of a recent groundswell of similar work. According to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, AI now generates close to 30% of all code at Microsoft.
And most important of all, Jiang foresees vibe coding as the new great equalizer on a future tech landscape. “I see a ton of these people like making like, $10,000 to $20,000 a month off of an app they vibe coded, when they didn’t know how to code months ago,” she states. Singh stresses that if you are literate, you can be a vibe coder. So if you can follow instructions, you’re probably going to do really well in this very fun field!
Vibe coding fits especially well with simple consumer-facing apps, which are generally very light and simple. Jiang warns this approach isn’t without its shortcomings. “Vibe coding is not suitable for technical projects that require heavy enterprise security,” she notes.
Participants in the boot camp learn to refine their concepts into clear, concise products and build prototypes through hands-on practice. Singh shares his perspective on the nature of AI in coding: “AI is the dumbest smart thing out there … you have to be super specific.” This underscores the need for specificity in prompts while interacting with generative AI applications and tools.
Jiang acknowledges that vibe coding doesn’t require advanced technical skills for all projects. It will be the complexity of the product they want that will make coding knowledge essential. “Do you need to know how to code in order to launch a solid product to the market today? It depends what you build,” she says.
Additionally, Jiang insists that elite-level software engineers are able to increase their productivity by a massive degree with the help of AI tools. “But if you are a really good software engineer, your productivity is just going to 10x,” she asserts. Vibe coding democratizes technology by making it more accessible to non-technical people. Experienced software engineers, too, can reap rewards within this changing world.
The idea underlying vibe coding is to positively reframe how developers and designers of apps and tools should think about their work. Karpathy encapsulates this philosophy by stating, “There’s a new kind of coding I call ‘vibe coding’, where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists.” This new outlook opens the door to a more holistic and organic approach to interacting with technology.