AI Vibe Coding: Fun Prototypes vs Real Business Risk

“Vibe coding” — telling an AI tool to spin up a whole app from a simple prompt — feels like magic. 

Tools like Bolt, Lovable, and Replit can generate working apps in minutes and even auto-deploy them. But here’s the catch: vibe-coded apps often lack security, testing, and solid architecture. 

In this Dumb Monkey deep dive, Aamir Qutub unpacks when AI vibe coding is useful (rapid prototypes, one-off internal tools, research dashboards) and when it’s dangerous (anything customer-facing or handling sensitive data). 

We also explore how senior developers pairing AI assistants like Cursor or Claude can hit 80% efficiency gains without the risks. Leaders will walk away with a clear line between playful vibes and production-ready AI for business.

Transcript

00:00:04:05 - 00:00:26:08 

Aamir 

Hey, this is Amir from The Dumb Monkey Show and our episode with Raymond 

Rodriguez. We briefly touched on vibe coding, but we didn't get a chance to go into it. So 

let's quickly explore. What exactly is vibe coding? Why is it relevant for you and what are 

some of the key risks and considerations that you should be aware of before you start 

to vibe code? 

00:00:26:10 - 00:00:42:12 

Ramon 

I used to pay over $100 a week for online fitness trainer. Yeah. All right. This is actually 

where I saw the biggest amount of value for AI is I started thinking, this is too much. My 

wife's cracking it like we got a mortgage. You shouldn't be spending that much money 

on my party. I hope he doesn't listen to this if he does. 

00:00:42:12 - 00:01:06:21 

Ramon 

But I started experimenting by getting my WhatsApp logs with him and putting it into a 

notebook. LM at the time I then ChatGPT and actually measuring who is giving me 

better results. I interact the same way. Over a period of time. I started seeing that I was 

actually, delivering me a better ROI. I ended up cutting the train up, and that's been like 

the last six months, that I'm in better shape and better results than I was with him. 

00:01:06:21 - 00:01:23:19 

Ramon 

I'm not saying that I was. It was any better for my wallets. Obviously. I like definitely 

better off. And now I'm in the process of launching the product to market, hopefully. And 

it's just something it's just a good example of like a tool like lovable or above all, just 

puts opportunities in people's hands that you never thought would be there. 

00:01:23:21 - 00:01:45:06 

Aamir 

So these large language models are very good at writing the code. And then there are 

tools that have been built on the top of that, like Bolt or Lovable or Replit, and there are 

quite a few other tools out there that you can start to use to create any website or 

application or software without writing a single line of code. 

00:01:45:10 - 00:02:11:24 

Aamir 

So you how you interact with ChatGPT and give it command so you can interact with the 

likes of bold or lovable and say, I want an application or a website which is similar to 

Airbnb or Aruba, or you can specify what you want that application to do, and these 

tools can create that application for you. But not only create the application, they can 

actually deploy the application as well, which means they can actually help you make it 

live. 

00:02:12:01 - 00:02:37:02 

Aamir 

Now, the reason it's relevant for you is because we are moving into a world where we are 

moving away from SaaS based solutions to organizations having their own software 

that are customized for their work, which means every organization would be able to 

have their own tools and own softwares. But most importantly, people like you and me 

having access to our own personal tools that we would be able to develop by interacting 

with. 

00:02:37:02 - 00:02:58:13 

Aamir 

I like how Raymond talked about how he has built the fitness app that is customized to 

his requirements and his needs, and solving a particular problem for him. Now, the risk 

or consideration that you need to be aware of is that these tools, they are really good at 

writing the code, but building a piece of software or tool is not just about writing the 

code. 

00:02:58:15 - 00:03:20:11 

Aamir 

If you engage a software development team like us, there's like a lot of people who are 

involved in that process, right from project manager to business analyst to an architect 

who looks at the overall architecture of the application, there's a security person, there's 

a tester involved. So there's a whole lot of people that are involved in building one 

website or application or software. 

00:03:20:14 - 00:03:40:24 

Aamir 

So all the tools like Lovable or Replit are really good at writing the code and they will 

create a great UI and it would function the way you want it to function. However, it 

misses on a lot of edge cases, a lot of things that needs to be considered while building 

the app. One of the very important thing around that is privacy and security. 

00:03:41:01 - 00:04:01:04 

Aamir 

So if you do not have like how you would have a big development team and then you 

would have someone who's actually managing that development team that knows the 

skill of every person who's involved in there. So you would know, okay, this developer is 

really good at writing the database queries, but he cannot write a very optimized code. 

00:04:01:06 - 00:04:35:16 

Aamir 

So that team leader, that tech leader is the one who's actually managing that and 

making sure that the application is actually built with all of the security, accessibility, 

performance criteria and so on. And that's something that these tools miss. So if you 

are trying to build an application that's going to capture any information, like users 

information, or if you're going to hold any personal data in to that or your organization's 

data, then I would say it's not safe to do it at this point of time. 

00:04:35:18 - 00:05:00:04 

Aamir 

Technology might evolve in next six months to one year, and we might be able to build 

fully production ready apps through these tools. But right now, with the capacities at is 

that you can build really good working prototypes and even some internal tools for your 

business, but you wouldn't trust it with production ready apps that you can deploy in 

your organization. 

00:05:00:06 - 00:05:20:01 

Aamir 

So an example of an internal tool that you can build for your organization could be 

something that does not interact with your organization's data and something which 

doesn't capture any of the personal information. So a good example is that if you want 

to build a news aggregator that goes on to internet, find the relevant topics and build 

you a sheet. 

00:05:20:03 - 00:05:59:01 

Aamir 

Now that's that's not interacting with your own data. It's just interacting with the internet. 

And there are no logins to it. So that's something that is relatively safer to build with 

these tools. But I wouldn't build a tool where you are putting your organization's 

information because you have not properly tested it and properly secured it. Now, there 

is another aspect of why coding, which is more attractive and more relevant for your 

business, is where you have a senior developer who is using AI platforms, AI coding 

platforms like Cursor or Cloud Code to make their coding process faster. 

00:05:59:06 - 00:06:35:07 

Aamir 

So by using things like cursor and cloud code, we have improved our coding efficiency 

by 80%, which means the work that we used to do in six months, we are able to do it in 

two months or one month's time. So the opportunity is that if you have a senior architect 

or senior tech lead who was generally managing the team, but he or she gets really 

good at white coding, then he or she can actually build a team of coding agents that can 

work under him, still follow his, his or her instructions, and produce the code at a much 

faster rate. 

00:06:35:07 - 00:07:12:13 

Aamir 

So you can easily say that one senior developer tester can do the work of 5 to 10 

people. And that's something that is actually possible. Now at the moment. So here are 

the key things to consider. Number one, if you're paying a huge amount of fees in 

license and subscription to these large companies like Salesforce or, and or NetSuite, 

and they're still not quite meeting your needs, then there might be an opportunity to look 

at developing your own systems and softwares that might actually cost lower than the 

systems that you are using at the moment. 

00:07:12:13 - 00:07:41:21 

Aamir 

Over the three years, but also might be purpose built for your organization and match 

your requirements much better. So the cost of software development from that 

perspective has decreased. Secondly, if you have a software development team and 

they are not using AI or white coding, then you are leaving money on the table. Now 

again, as I said, there are a lot of risk and considerations around white coding, but if 

they are not embracing AI, they are not using it. 

00:07:41:21 - 00:08:05:22 

Aamir 

And if they're excuses or this is a legacy code, we can't actually use white coding ODI 

coding over here, then it might be the case that they are not comfortable with this 

change and this a bit of change management that you would need to do over there. And 

finally, if you are a technical person or a developer listening to this and you are not 

learning to code with AI, then I don't know how you would survive in this age. 

00:08:05:24 - 00:08:21:21 

Aamir 

It's a straight talk, straight message. If you are a developer, if you are a coder, then you 

need to learn lip coding, period. There's no other way that you will be able to have a job 

in next two years. I'll see you in the next episode.