Vibe Coding and The Rise of AI Agents with Amjad Masad and Yohei Nakajima

Amjad Masad (@amasad), founder and CEO of Replit, and Yohei Nakajima (@yoheinakajima), Managing Partner at Untapped Capital, joined Village Global partner Ben Casnocha for a live masterclass with Village Global founders. Takeaways: AI agents are rapidly evolving, with coding and deep research agents showing the most traction today. But general-purpose assistants are still brittle — trip-planning and high-context tasks remain hard. Replit Agent shows how quickly full-stack applications can be built today, sometimes in under an hour — even by non-technical users. What matters most isn’t a CS degree, it’s traits like curiosity, grit, and systems thinking. Many AI startups are too quick to claim “moats” when most don’t really have one. True defensibility requires deep domain insight, unique data, and the right founder traits. The rise of vertical AI agents is compelling — specialists outperform general agents for now. A real AGI will change everything, and it’s so disruptive it’s not even worth planning around. The best investors still look for timeless traits: hard-charging, resourceful founders, attacking stagnant industries. AI changes a lot — but not what makes a great early-stage team. Tools like Replit are making vibe coding (yes, even for non-coders) a superpower. From executive dashboards to lightweight Crunchbase clones, agents are already creating real enterprise value. Don’t over-engineer AI use cases. Start with internal tools or things you’ve always wanted to build. The best projects often come from personal curiosity and side projects.Resources mentioned:Replit – The coding platform behind Replit Agent, enabling fast full-stack app creation with AI VCpedia by Yohei Nakajima – A startup intelligence platform vibe-coded with Replit Agent Tweet: $150k → $400 NetSuite extension – Real-world example of arbitrage using Replit TED Talk on Grit by Angela Duckworth – Referenced by Amjad as a key trait for AI builders “Perfectionism” blog post by Amjad Masad – Why it holds builders back and how to overcome it Seven Powers by Hamilton Helmer – The strategy book Amjad calls the best resource on real moats NEO – A fully autonomous ML engineer Layers – An autonomous AI marketing agent that lives in your IDE Basis – A vertical AI agent for accounting firms NDEA – A new lab (founded by François Chollet & Mike Knoop) exploring AGI with program synthesisThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal. Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup