A few days ago I watched a video that has given me a lot to think about. Jeffrey Way, founder of Laracasts and one of the most influential people in the Laravel/PHP community, shared a brutally honest reflection on how artificial intelligence is transforming his business and his profession.
The video starts with a phrase that leaves you cold: “I’m done”. It’s not a goodbye to programming, but an acceptance of the reality to come.
The Laracasts Dilemma
Jeffrey describes a paradoxical situation he’s currently experiencing: on one hand, they’ve published more content, courses, and educational material in the last three months than in any other three-month period in Laracasts history. The quality of their content has never been better.
On the other hand, he’s had to lay off 40% of his team. “If the money’s not there, the job’s not there”, he summarizes bluntly. And the underlying reason is clear: AI has devastatingly affected his business model, which consists of teaching people how to write code when AI and “agentic coding” say you no longer need to write line by line.
The Canary in the Coal Mine
Jeffrey uses an example that impacted me: the Stack Overflow traffic graph. From 2008 to 2022, their traffic only went up. But in the last year it has fallen so much that it’s now equal to its first month of existence.
When was the last time you went to Stack Overflow to answer a programming question? For me, it’s been over a year. Now we use AI for these things.
The Personal Paradox
What’s most interesting is the contradiction Jeffrey personally experiences. On one hand, AI is destroying his business model. On the other, he’s never had more fun programming than he does now.
He describes how before he would end the day mentally exhausted, sometimes without energy for his children, after struggling with bugs or Stripe/webhook problems all day. Now he has a “pair programmer buddy” who helps him and he no longer has those headaches.
From Resistance to Acceptance
Jeffrey confesses that in mid-2025 he tweeted that he didn’t like this, that he didn’t get into programming to ask a computer to write code for him. He liked problem solving.
But December 2025 was, according to him, a pivotal moment in web development. People had free time and played with AI tools, and discovered they were much better than they thought.
“It is what it is”, he repeats several times. “Those days are numbered and you have to get on board. You can choose not to, but you’ll see so many other people get on board and they’re going to fly right by you”.
The New Way of Programming
Jeffrey describes his current workflow: he makes a plan, works on it quite a bit, interacts with the agent to execute the plan, and then the agent executes it. Sometimes he even has the agent interview him to discover things he hadn’t considered.
What used to take him two to three weeks (figuring out, architecting, refactoring, making it look pretty), he now does in a day. Or more honestly: in 20 minutes.
But there’s an important caveat: the code that AI generates technically works, but it’s not how he would approach it. So he spends the rest of the day reviewing it, refactoring, wondering if they need five files or could be just one, if he should use a registry pattern instead of the agent’s approach.
The Final Message
“I’m sad that things have changed. But now I’m done. I’m over being sad. Things have changed and I’ve migrated. That’s it. We have to adapt. That’s the only path we can take”.
Jeffrey is right when he says this is not a trend. It’s clearly how things are going to be done going forward.
You may feel that the last 5, 10, or 20 years learning these things have been in vain. But Jeffrey doesn’t believe so: that knowledge you acquired you’re going to use every day, only in a different form, with a different shape. And maybe it’s always been this way and this is simply the next iteration.
My Reflection
This video has made me reflect a lot on my own career. I see the same pattern Jeffrey describes: less traditional development consulting, more architecture work and review of AI-generated code. Programming changes from “writing code” to “directing agents that write code.”
The question Jeffrey leaves open is: How are you feeling about this right now? Are you bitter? Are you angry? Are you ignoring it? Or are you more excited than ever?
Personally, I’m in a phase of active acceptance. I don’t know if it’s better or worse, but it’s definitely different. And as Jeffrey says: “It is what it is”. All that remains is to adapt.
Original video: Jeffrey Way - “I’m Done” Twitter: @jeffrey_way
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