A pointed remark from Y Combinator President Garry Tan questioning the future of Zoho’s business turned into a heated exchange after Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu stepped in with a strong response. What began as a passing comment on “vibe coding” soon became a back-and-forth about how modern software actually works, with Vembu ultimately challenging Tan, vowing to “outshine and outlast his vibe-coding companies!”
‘Why pay for SaaS?’ Garry Tan takes swipe at Zoho
Earlier, Tan reacted to an article discussing Vembu’s doubts about the fast-growing trend of vibe coding. In his post on X on December 2, Tan claimed Zoho would be among the first companies to lose customers to people who build their own customised apps using AI tools. He wrote, “Zoho’s business would be first to be competed away by people building their own custom software built by people using Replit, emergentlabs and Taskade.”
He added, “Why pay $30/seat/month for over-bundled SaaS when soon even nontech ops ppl can vibe-code a custom solution in a weekend?”
Vembu responds
Vembu didn’t let it pass. He replied by asking why email, spreadsheet or accounting apps built through vibe coding still don’t exist if the technology is really that capable. He also said Zoho continues to see strong momentum, claiming the company is growing rapidly with customer growth above 50%. “If our business would be the first to be competed away by vibe coded apps, why are we seeing such rapid customer growth (exceeding 50%) right now? And why don’t we see vibe coded email or spreadsheet or accounting app or messaging apps yet?” He wrote.
Vembu explained why he remains sceptical. He said vibe coding may help people create quick prototypes, but without strong security, privacy and compliance guarantees, it builds dangerous “tech debt” that eventually crashes under its own weight. He added that his own personal research is focused on combining AI and compiler technology to boost programmer productivity in a way that still maintains these protections. “My own personal R&D project is to enable huge gains in programmer productivity by _combining_ compiler technology with AI. Our goal is to enable a quantum leap in programmer productivity while being able to provide security, privacy and compliance guarantees. Without those guarantees, vibe coding just piles up tech debt faster and faster until the whole thing collapses,” Vembu added.
Vembu suggested that people like Tan treat tech debt lightly and pass it on to “unsuspecting acquirers.” In the same breath, he confidently said Zoho would outperform the new wave of vibe-coding startups. “Let me make a bet with Garry Tan: we will outshine and outlast his vibe coding companies!”
If our business would be the first to be competed away by vibe coded apps, why are we seeing such rapid customer growth (exceeding 50%) right now? And why don't we see vibe coded email or spreadsheet or accounting app or messaging apps yet?
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) December 2, 2025
My own personal R&D project is to… https://t.co/2ozug26IQQ
Rise of vibe coding
Vibe coding allows people to describe what they want in simple language, while AI platforms like Google’s AI Studio, Cursor, Replit or Windsurf generate the actual code. The idea, flaunted by OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy, has led to an explosion of startups like Emergent, Composio, Bolt and TableSprint.
But tech leaders are split on this new trend. Google CEO Sundar Pichai has praised vibe coding, saying it makes coding more fun and more accessible. Sridhar Vembu, however, believes it oversimplifies a more skilled craft. “All code is magic until it is lowered by the compiler to another form of code, and that code is magic until magic all the way down,” he wrote on X.
