While the AI coding revolution led by tools like Anthropic’s Claude is dominating headlines and startup conversations, some senior engineers appear largely indifferent — they are focused instead on stock price and personal retirement timelines, as shared by venture capitalist and social media influencer Deedy Das.
Das quoted an unnamed Google Senior Staff Engineer, stating, “Yeah, I have no clue what Claude Code / Codex is but I hear it’s all the rage. No, I don’t really care, I just need GOOG to hit $400 and keep this job for 2-3 more years so I can retire!”
Das, who is a partner at Menlo Ventures and a former Google Search team member, is also an investor in Anthropic. Once his followers started to raise concerns regarding the matter, he later clarified that the conversation was not an isolated incident. “It was hard for me to believe too… but this is apparently not a one-off case, it’s pretty widespread in bigtech,” he replied to sceptics.
“Rest and Vest” mentality meets the AI coding revolution
Deedy’s comment has ignited intense debate online about the so-called “rest and vest” culture in Big Tech. Many replies from current and former engineers described the attitude as common among long-tenured senior staff, who are heavily compensated through stocks and have little incentive to master rapidly evolving AI tools like Claude’s coding capabilities for staying relevant in the game.
Some critics argue that this mindset leaves Google vulnerable to smaller teams and startups, who use AI agents to ship code dramatically faster. On the contrary, his supporters counter that not every engineer needs to chase every new tool, especially when internal systems and financial stability remain priorities.
The discussion comes at a time when there’s growing external pressure on Google. Anthropic’s Claude has been widely praised for its advanced coding performance. Moreover, terms like “vibe coding” and “vibe physics” have entered the arena as developers shift toward natural-language AI assistance.
Meanwhile, Google has been aggressively pushing its own AI initiatives, including Gemini and internal agent experiments such as Agent Smith, which claims to make it easy for employees to go about their work.
Is Big Tech falling behind on latest tech trends?
While Das’s post reveals internal goals in larger tech organisations tied to financial rewards, the companies still want to stay at the top of the game with the latest tech trends. Some Google engineers in the comments pushed back strongly, insisting that the AI momentum inside the company remains high. Google, however, hasn’t shared any official view on this matter.
At the moment, Google is among the leading names in the AI race, offering the latest AI tools to consumers for coding and enterprise usage. Rival firms Anthropic and OpenAI are also focusing on the enterprise side to keep the business profitable while ensuring that AI development happens at a pace that keeps them ahead in the race.