Founder says AI has made hiring junior engineers unsustainable, shifts startup to elite ‘superstar’ model

Replika and Wabi founder Eugenia Kuyda says advances in AI coding tools have made hiring junior engineers “extremely expensive and completely unsustainable” for startups, arguing that every junior hire now competes with what she calls a “1,000x engineer.” In an interview with Platformer, Kuyda described her company’s shift to a small team of elite engineers—between 10 and 15 “players on the pitch”—supported by contractors, as a model for building a billion-dollar company in the AI era.

Kuyda’s latest venture, Wabi, is building a platform that lets users create apps via text prompts, positioning itself as a potential replacement for traditional enterprise software. She frames the current moment as “the Microsoft DOS era of AI interfaces,” and argues that an easy-to-use graphical user interface—akin to Windows—will soon let non-experts build and share personalized software. This, she predicts, could disrupt the long tail of subscription-based apps by enabling users to create their own tools.

The company is preparing to exit beta and launch publicly by the end of June 2026, according to Kuyda. Wabi’s approach contrasts with the industry’s prevailing optimism about AI’s impact on software engineering jobs, which has largely suggested that AI will increase demand for engineers rather than reduce it.

Kuyda’s perspective is grounded in her experience leading Replika, an AI companion app with more than 40 million users, and her observation that early-stage AI systems—despite technical limitations—could meet deep human needs. She recounts how Replika’s early, rudimentary chatbot technology still fostered meaningful emotional connections for users grieving a loss, underscoring both the technology’s early promise and its reliance on human vulnerability.