# Everything we knew about software has changed — Theo Browne (AIE)

#source

## Source Metadata

- **Date:** talk at AIE (year not stated in source; references Nov–Dec 2024 as recent past)
- **Raw path:** `raw/sources/Everything we knew about software has changed.md`
- **Source type:** conference talk (conclusions/notes), 16:01 — https://youtu.be/xUnRQ9vLXxo
- **Speaker:** [[theo-browne]] (t3.gg)
- **Ingestion date:** 2026-07-14

## Core Claims

- Models improve faster than developers can. You can't keep pace by "getting better" — you must **[[think-wider-not-bigger|think wider]]** and pick ideas that feel embarrassingly ambitious. "If your idea doesn't feel stupid, it isn't big enough."
- Recent releases are **qualitatively distinct eras**, not increments (see [[ai-agent-evolution]]): tool-call → long-running-task → orchestration.
- You only feel a new model's gain if you **push scope to match it**. Work that made sense on the prior model won't feel different on the new one.
- Long-tenured engineers carry identity baggage (tools, language, git norms, sunk cost) that now actively holds them back — the "skeuomorphic phase" of development. See [[decoupling-identity-from-profession]].
- Every project category shifted **down exactly one tier**; a brand-new bottom tier appeared: **a markdown file as executable prose**. See [[code-as-throwaway]].
- Compete on **breadth**, not just depth — breadth is now viable for small teams. Be the right *shape* so users extend you (Slack effect).

## Key Evidence / Details

- **Three model eras** (speaker's framing/names): tool-call era = "Sonnet 3.5" (first reliable tool calls in a real codebase); long-running-task era = "Opus 4.5" (multi-hour tasks, self-testing; his "AI psychosis" began Nov–Dec 2024); orchestration era = "Mythos / Fable" (understands *itself*, spawns sub-models, verifies afterward — a prompt replaces a "software factory").
- **iOS skeuomorphism analogy:** iOS 6 imitated physical objects to convince you the phone could replace them; iOS 7 dropped the pretense and got more useful. Developers are in their iOS-6 phase.
- **Identity symptoms:** terminal fetishism, language-as-identity ("he writes JavaScript"), ceremonial git norms (why *can't* we commit `.env`?), guilt-merging PRs. One gift of agents: no guilt throwing work away.
- **Tier shift table:** side project → shifts down; startup (his "Ping / Zoom for streamers", YC) → becomes a side project; "too big" (full-stack cloud: Vercel + auth + DB) → becomes a startup; new "too big" is unknown (train your own model? your own OS? compete with npm?).
- **"G-brain tier" = a markdown file.** He replaced a PR-triage service with a markdown file piped to Codex/Claude on a 9 AM cron; by 9:15 it read four repos, prioritized the day, and shipped a static HTML file to S3.
- **Breadth vs depth:** old rule — pick a vertical, go deep (Vercel vs AWS). New reality — bolt a serviceable database/platform layer into your product in a day or two of prompting; cover enough that users can *start*. **Slack** accidentally became everyone's agent platform because its *shape* invited extension, not because it's good.

## Connections

- **Entity:** [[theo-browne]]
- **Concepts:** [[think-wider-not-bigger]] · [[code-as-throwaway]] · [[decoupling-identity-from-profession]] · [[context-as-scarce-resource]] (implied by orchestration)
- **Timeline:** [[ai-agent-evolution]] (his eras align with Konstantin's tooling timeline)
- **Related sources:** [[2026-07-14-skills-based-on-git]] (orchestration/harness view from the model-builder side); [[2026-07-14-gap-between-ai-users-irreversible]] (markdown-as-skill echoes G-brain tier); [[2026-07-24-youre-reading-way-too-much-code]] (Theo's follow-up: the *discipline* behind code-as-disposable — [[make-more-cheap-code]])
- **Tools mentioned:** [[claude-code]], Codex, Vercel, AWS, Slack, npm

## Open Questions

- What is the new "too big" ceiling now that orchestration models exist? (Speaker explicitly doesn't know.)
- Model names "Mythos / Fable" are the speaker's framing — how do they map to shipped model IDs? (Fable 5 is a real current model; "Mythos"/"Opus 4.5" mapping unverified.) Status: tentative.

## Change Impact on Wiki

- Created concept pages [[think-wider-not-bigger]] and [[code-as-throwaway]]; contributed to [[decoupling-identity-from-profession]] (shared with [[2026-07-14-sebastian-eugene-interview]]).
- Seeded the [[ai-agent-evolution]] timeline with the three model eras.
- Added [[theo-browne]] entity.
