Vanity Metrics in Engineering, From Lines of Code to AI-Generated Percentages

Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, announced that 25% of Winter 2025 startups had 95% of their code generated by AI. The internet applauded. I read it twice to make sure that was actually the claim.

"% of code generated by AI" is a vanity metric. It is not the first one in the history of engineering, and it will not be the last. But it is the first to be narrated publicly by one of the Valley's most influential outlets as if it were a benchmark of technical maturity. That is where it becomes a problem.

Metrics on Thiago Avelino

Vanity Metrics in Engineering, From Lines of Code to AI-Generated Percentages