Guillermo says "read the code" and he's right

I love this post from Guillermo about reading the code. Thank you for saying this. I feel more tech leaders think this but may be afraid for one reason or another to say it out loud. 

Contents:

"If you’re not reading the code, whether explicitly or through agentic inquiry, one or more of these is true:

○ You’re a beginner
○ Software is throwaway
○ You’re prototyping
○ You have no users / revenue
○ You’re taking on debt & risk
○ Your problems are basic

And btw. All of this is fine. But the reality is that models are still not at the “full autonomy” stage yet.

They make rookie mistakes, they go down bad architectural paths. I just had the best model in the world add a nonsensical 700ms delay to “settle” something and it told me “you’re right, I was cargo-culting” 🤨

I am on the camp that this need will diminish more and more. Most code is indeed going to be assembly-like. But we also have the global internet and software infrastructure riding on these models and narrative, and we have to respect that."


Let me be clear on a point Guillermo makes: this is where we're at right now. It will change in the future. But as long as humans are building on top of the code, fixing bugs and supporting the code in Production then code has to be understandable to humans (unless your system is one of the systems he calls out)

This should not be a controversial statement in August 2026.



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