Marc Andreessen explains why AI coding won't replace programmers, but fundamentally change what they do. He argues that AI coding is just the latest abstraction layer, and the job of a programmer has always evolved with each one. Andreessen's key reframe of what's actually happening: "AI coding actually abstracts away the process of actually writing the scripting code... This is the next layer of the task redefinition under the job of programmer." He's clear that the best programmers aren't being replaced. They're already adapting, even if their day-to-day looks radically different now. Their job has shifted from writing code line by line to managing dozens of AI agents working in parallel. "The world's best programmers today will tell you, 'My job is I'm sitting there and I'm orchestrating 10 code bots running in parallel.' Their day job now is kind of arguing with the AI bots to try to get them to write the right code." But @pmarca is adamant this doesn't make foundational knowledge obsolete — it makes it more important. "You need to still fully understand and learn how to write and understand code, because if it doesn't work or it's not doing what you expect, you need to be able to understand the results of what the AI is giving you." He draws a direct parallel: Just as someone writing scripting languages still needs to understand how a microprocessor works, someone orchestrating AI bots needs to understand the code those bots produce. "It's this upleveling of capability where you actually want the depth to go down and understand what the thing is actually doing, even if you're not spending your day doing that by hand." The result, in his view, is transformative: "Now programmers are going to be 10 times or 100 times or a thousand times more productive. And that is overwhelmingly a good thing." The pattern: New abstraction layer emerges → tasks change → the job gets redefined upward → productivity explodes It raises a question every programmer should be sitting with... Are you building the depth to evaluate what AI gives you, or just accepting the output?