Remember when Blockbuster executives looked at Netflix and said “people will always want to browse physical movies” and “late fees are 16% of our revenue”? Or when Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975 but buried it because it threatened their film business?

We are going to witness this happen again, except it will be to software companies and system integrators. Vibe coding is having its moment, and I’m watching software companies and system integrators react exactly like those executives did twenty years ago.

For those not familiar, vibe coding is where you describe what you want in plain English and AI writes the code. No syntax, no debugging, no late nights staring at stack traces. Just “build me a customer dashboard with these metrics” and boom – working software. Andrej Karpathy coined the term earlier this year, and it’s spreading like wildfire through Silicon Valley.

The knee-jerk reaction from traditional software shops and systems integration firms? “That’s not real programming.” “The code quality will be terrible.” “You need to understand what you’re building.” Sound familiar? It’s the same playbook every incumbent uses when disruption comes knocking.

But here’s what’s really happening. Companies using vibe coding are reporting 30-55% faster development cycles. Startups are building entire products with 90% AI-generated code. Non-technical founders are creating working prototypes in hours, not months. The barrier to entry is collapsing, and with it, the premium software companies and system integrators have always charged for technical expertise.

The smart money isn’t asking whether vibe coding will replace traditional development – it’s asking how fast. Because when the democratization wave hits, it doesn’t matter how good your developers are. What matters is how quickly you can turn business ideas into working solutions.

I’ve been in this industry long enough to know that the companies that survive disruption aren’t the ones with the best technology. They’re the ones that figure out how to use the new technology to serve customers better, faster, and cheaper than everyone else.

The question isn’t whether vibe coding is here to stay. The question is whether your revenue model can survive when anyone can build software.