The Engineer Who Coded Like an AI Before AI Existed | Michael Novati

Michael Novati's agents have made 4M lines of code changes YTD — that's 20 KLOCs a day. On Feb 13th alone, he committed 417 PRs to GitHub on a production project. Though KLOCs are a flawed way to measure productivity, it's clear that when Novati codes, his way of operating is qualitatively completely different from most people's.

Get an inside peek into how a unique mind does its best work.

0:00 Intro

0:50 First Day at Facebook (and the PhD He Skipped)

2:49 Two Commits All Summer at IBM

4:53 The Big Brother Bot That Got Him Banned for Life

9:04 Lego Mindstorms and Books by the Pound

15:45 Why Early Facebook Was the Perfect Fit

19:12 What His Day Looked Like Before AI

25:17 The Codebase in His Head

32:45 When Speed Meets a Team

35:42 The 417-PR Day (and Why He Calls It Cheating)

39:37 Overnight Agents and 4 Million Lines

42:52 How Many Agents He Runs at Once

45:56 Why His Agents Read the Docs First

50:22 From Zero Tests to a Million

52:13 Judgment Tests: Testing for Taste

1:02:01 Not Reading Every Line Anymore

1:05:09 AI Went From Intern to Peer

1:07:56 The Beginning or the End of Engineers?

1:12:25 Why "Follow Your Passion" Isn't Enough

1:16:03 Advice to His 19-Year-Old Self