Agentic AI, Vibe Coding, and the Death of the Backlog - Ryan Henry, VC @ Sand Hill North

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AI startups in 2025 are throwing out the roadmap. In this episode, investor Ryan Henry shares what he’s seeing at the frontier: agentic workflows, founder-led experimentation, and why traditional product roles are fading fast. We also revisit a debate about “vibe coding” - intuition-led building in a world of moving targets.

📍 Key Moments

• 00:00 - Introduction to Ryan Henry and his family office VC approach
• 02:40 - Ryan's fund structure: investing in other funds for deal flow
• 07:12 - Different return expectations compared to traditional VCs
• 18:30 - Debating "vibe coding": what it is and its implications
• 21:32 - The evolution of AI-assisted development capabilities
• 27:10 - Concerns about rapid prototyping vs. proper customer discovery
• 33:30 - Current YC trends: AI agents, robotics, and advanced manufacturing
• 41:55 - The state of AI agents today and what they can reliably do
• 47:38 - Building companies with anticipation of improving AI capabilities

⁠Subscribe to my newsletter here to stay up to date on the new startup world⁠!