A CEO just said he'll hire anyone who can vibe code — skill doesn't matter
Steven Bartlett now prioritizes hiring people who use AI to write code over traditional developers — regardless of technical background. His 35-question 'Culture Test' screens for it.
Steven Bartlett — the CEO behind "The Diary of a CEO" podcast empire and media company Flight Story — just flipped his hiring strategy upside down. Instead of looking for experienced developers, he now prioritizes anyone who can "vibe code": using AI tools to build software, regardless of whether they actually understand the code underneath.
What 'vibe coding' actually means
Vibe coding (a term coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy) is when someone describes what they want in plain English and lets AI write all the code. The person doesn't need to understand programming languages, algorithms, or software architecture. They just need to clearly communicate what they want — and know how to test whether the AI got it right.
It's the difference between a chef who knows every technique and someone who tells a robot chef exactly what dish they want. Both get dinner — but only one understands why the soufflé rises.
The 35-question filter
Bartlett's company now screens candidates with a 35-question "Culture Test" that explicitly asks whether applicants "embrace new innovations or are resistant to change." According to Isaac Martin, director of innovation at Flight Story, the company is "very much now looking for people who are much more within that vibe coding space — people who have experience across almost any area."
The key phrase: almost any area. A marketer who uses AI to build internal tools. A designer who ships a working prototype without writing a line of code. A project manager who automates their own workflows. Bartlett wants people who use AI as a lever to do things they couldn't do before — even if their background has nothing to do with software.
The counterargument
Critics point out that vibe-coded software tends to produce what developers call "spaghetti code" — tangled, fragile programs that break in unexpected ways. Futurism notes that Amazon Web Services recently suffered outages traced back to AI-generated code, including one incident where the AI tool deleted an entire coding environment. When nobody on the team understands the code, nobody can fix it when it breaks.
Why this is bigger than one CEO's opinion
Bartlett isn't alone. A growing number of companies are discovering that the most valuable skill isn't writing code — it's knowing what to build. AI tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Replit now let anyone with a clear idea turn it into working software in hours rather than months. The question companies are asking has shifted from "can you code?" to "can you think clearly about what needs to exist?"
This creates a strange new job market. Traditional developers who spent years learning programming languages are watching non-technical people ship working products faster. Meanwhile, those non-technical people hit walls the moment something breaks — because they can't read the code the AI wrote for them.
The uncomfortable middle ground
The truth likely sits between the extremes. Companies that only hire vibe coders will eventually face a codebase nobody can maintain. Companies that refuse to embrace AI-assisted development will move too slowly to compete. The sweet spot? Teams where some people direct the AI and others understand what it built.
Whether Bartlett's approach is visionary or reckless, one thing is clear: the definition of "qualified" is changing faster than most hiring managers realize. If you've been building things with AI tools — even without a technical background — your resume just became a lot more interesting to a growing number of companies.
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