AI is Overrated – Why ThePrimeagen Ripped Out GitHub Copilot From His Code Editor [Podcast #124]

On this week’s episode of the podcast, freeCodeCamp I interview The Primeagean. He’s a software engineer who streams himself programming. He recently left his job at Netflix to stream full-time.

We talk about:

• Prime’s journey from his teacher telling him he’ll never accomplish anything in life to working as an engineer at one of the most prestigious tech companies.

• Prime’s love of “Nintendo Hard” video games, and how his love of challenge propelled him to “get good” at coding

• What it’s like to live stream coding in front of more than 1,000 people for a dozen hours each week

• Leaving San Francisco to move his family of 6 to a horse ranch in South Dakota

• Prime’s thoughts on AI and how he thinks it will actually create more developer jobs than it destroys

I had a blast talking with this guy. Though I don’t agree with everything he says, I am right there with him on AI and how it’s useful but over-hyped. We’ll see what future versions hold and whether a “Moore’s Law of AI” is really at work here, or whether it will plateau.

I also agree with Prime that devs need to slow down and improve their foundational skills. There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going.

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Can you guess what song I’m playing on my bass during the intro? It’s from a 1996 rock song.

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Links we talk about during the interview: