Software Is Changing (Again)

Andrej Karpathy's 2025 Y Combinator AI Startup School talk explains software's third era: programs written in English prompts, LLMs understood as utilities, fabs, and 1960s-style operating systems, and a coming decade of partial-autonomy products and agent-ready infrastructure.

6 sections ยท 16 lessons

Course outline

Three Software Paradigms

  1. Software 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0
  2. Prompts Are Programs in English
  3. How Software 2.0 Ate Autopilot
  4. Three Software Paradigms

The LLM Ecosystem

  1. LLMs as Utilities and Fabs
  2. LLMs as Operating Systems
  3. The 1960s of Computing, Again
  4. Flipped Technology Diffusion
  5. The LLM Ecosystem

LLM Psychology

  1. People Spirits with Superhuman Memory
  2. Jagged Intelligence, Amnesia, and Gullibility
  3. LLM Psychology

Partial Autonomy

  1. Anatomy of an LLM App
  2. Spin the Generation-Verification Loop
  3. The Decade of Agents
  4. Partial Autonomy

Everyone Is a Programmer

  1. Vibe Coding: A Gateway Drug
  2. MenuGen: Code Was the Easy Part
  3. Everyone Is a Programmer

Building for Agents

  1. A Third Consumer of Software
  2. Meet the LLMs Halfway
  3. Building for Agents

Start learning with Wondering