Bain tests software takeover targets by vibecoding AI replicas

macleginn 28 points 50 comments June 22, 2026
www.ft.com · View on Hacker News

https://archive.is/6BUJw

Discussion Highlights (9 comments)

mmarian

Hard to see it'll help them much. There's so many other aspects to a successful software business vs just ease of build.

rich_sasha

Is the future of software really vibe coded by management consultants..?

RugnirViking

the ease of making a prototype is not at all related to the ease of productising/releasing/bringing to market and that, in turn, is not at all related to the ease of maintenence/maturization/scaling. You didn't even want the same kind of guy or team doing each one before ai. Turns out, AI is great at prototyping, ok at productizing and terrible at maintenence and scaling

peder

I mean, this is just basic smart investing today. Software is now very easily replicable, and you wouldn't want to invest in software that has absolutely no moat. At a minimum, this gives Bain more leverage when negotiating with these companies.

su8898

If only Bain could use their AI skills to fix their website. It's a horrible and convoluted mess!

xnx

Very good idea. For every company that is valuable because of software + knowledge + service + loyal customers there are a dozen that only exist because of weak competition and inertia. Easy to imagine there are a lot of software products that could be cloned and out-competed by taking 15% profit margin instead of 50%.

hackingonempty

This is like saying Twitter isn't worth much because every web framework tutorial produces a "Twitter clone."

xg15

Somewhat fitting that we just got the Backrooms movie which is about making Uncanny Valley copies of locations (and people) and here we have Uncanny Valley copies of software...

etchalon

This seems incredibly logical if the application is claiming its IP has value without accounts/revenue that justify that value.

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