# Me, Myself & I.T. Leadership — Vibe Coding vs. Standardization

## Episode summary

Daniel and Nova discuss how Vibe Coding changes the economics of software delivery: custom solutions become dramatically cheaper to build, but not necessarily cheaper to operate. The episode argues for **Smart Standardization** instead of reflexive radical standardization.

## Key ideas

- Vibe Coding can reduce the one-time build cost of software from weeks to days.

- Cheap customization can become dangerous when lifetime maintenance costs are ignored.

- Radical standardization made sense when custom software was expensive, but that assumption is shifting.

- The new discipline is to standardize the foundation while allowing carefully governed differentiation at the edge.

- Prompts, agents, Markdown instructions, and AI guardrails become new standardization objects.

- AI can help estimate and challenge lifetime costs independently, reducing political bias.

## Daniel’s three-layer model

1. **Foundation:** uncompromising standardization of code base, core processes, prompts, agents, and guardrails.

2. **Edge:** Vibe Coding for real competitive advantages, but only when attributable market value exceeds lifetime costs.

3. **Earn Your Place loop:** successful edge solutions move into the standard foundation; weak ones are refactored or killed.

## Core takeaway

Vibe Coding is not a reason to abandon standardization. It is a reason to make standardization smarter: standardize what enables scale, individualize where there is measurable value, and continuously clean up what no longer earns its place.