u/javaprofin r/Kotlin • Recommends
Kotlin 2026: Layoffs, AI, Google — Is the Golden Age Over? Jake Wharton Explains
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Kotlin 2026: Layoffs, AI, Google — Is the Golden Age Over? Jake Wharton Explains
JetBrains
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- Recommended by 2 people: 2 in engineering communities.
- Presented by Jake Wharton, former Cash App engineer
- Made by the vendor. The company whose product it covers made or sponsored it.
- May be out of date. The tools, versions or practices it shows have likely moved on.
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.
335K views1 month ago2 recommendations
Programming languagesCareers and interviewsKotlinCareer growthThe tech industry
Jake Wharton discusses his career choices, his stance against AI, Google's adoption of Kotlin, and the state of the software industry.
Jake Wharton quit his job at Cash App in November 2025, in the middle of massive tech layoffs. After that, he published nine values for his next employer, number one was "No AI." Jake explains why and what else made the list. Vitaly talked to Jake about: - Why Jake refuses to use AI - Layoffs: "They got rid of 70% of engineers" - Why Google adopted Kotlin - What makes Swift better than Kotlin (and why Jake still chooses Kotlin) - Is Kotlin's golden age over? Intro Why Kotlin Was Created Who Is Jake Wharton? Google's First Kotlin Engineer Pushback Against Kotlin (at Google) Pitch Kotlin to a Java Dev in 60 Sec Who Uses Kotlin in Production in 2026? Why Jake Left Google What Jake Dislikes About Google Quitting Cash App: Today's Job Market $200K Salary Who Pays More? Is Kotlin a Career Advantage in 2026? Why Jake Refuses to Use AI Crypto Is "Basically a Ponzi Scheme” Remote Work “Every Company Is Built on Someone Else's Work” Customers Over Shareholders Ensh*ttification of Software The Gig Economy Trap Why Big Companies Kill the Fun Same Job, Half the Pay: The Geography Problem “No Work Apps on My Phone” The Value That Eliminated 95% of Companies Which Company Did Jake Join? Did Jake Compromise His Values? Building a "Family Operating System" Layoff "They Got Rid of 70% of Engineers" VC Money Behind the LLM Industry "Throw Away Engineers, Offload to an LLM" Have You Coded With AI Agents? "Never” What If Token Prices Go Up 20x? Jake's Plan B If AI Wins Has AI Killed Kotlin's Advantage? Is the Golden Age of Kotlin Over? Swift vs Kotlin What Kotlin does better than Swift? Best Error Handling? Rust Where Jake Would NOT Use Kotlin Why Rust for Hardware How Cash App Used Kotlin Multiplatform Kotlin Multiplatform vs Flutter vs React Native Wharton: ”Flutter is sort of offensive” Why Native UI Is the Best UI Library vs Framework: Why It Matters Jake Wharton's Dev Setup Why Firefox, Not Chrome "A Bug in the Compiler": Life as a Legend Kotlin's Most Annoying Feature Why Everyone Hates Gradle How Jake Avoids Burnout After 20 Years Why Learn More Than One Language Bringing Rust's Ownership to Kotlin How Big Is Kotlin in Open Source? Dependencies: Trust or Fork? Why Companies Invest in Open Source Getting Paid for Open Source Can Kotlin Outlive Its Creator? Andrew Kelley and Zig's Future How Jake Shaped Kotlin Who Controls Kotlin: JetBrains, Google or Community? What If Kotlin Disappeared? "Please Don't Make It Go Away" Document "Using Project Kotlin for Android": jb.gg/jake-wharton-document Jake’Why it's here
2 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended for Jake Wharton's insights on Kotlin, the 2026 job market, and his perspective on AI in software engineering.
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u/Cool_Technician_6380in r/ProgrammingLanguages • Recommends
Kotlin 2026: Layoffs, AI, Google — Is the Golden Age Over? Jake Wharton Explains link to this video
u/FreemanAMGin r/Kotlin • Mentions
On “Kotlin 2026: Layoffs, AI, Google — Is the Golden Age Over? Jake Wharton Explains”
I was hoping for the "9 Principles" to be a public post, but I couldn't find it, so I transcribed them. He starts talking about that at 15:53
>
1. No AI companies, AI-based products or forced usage for development
1. No crypto - cryptography is good, but cryptocurrencies are bad
1. Remote work - I work remotely, but happy to visit offices a couple of times a year
1. Open source - you use open source software, and you publish your own open source projects or want to start
1. Customers over shareholders - Your product focuses on providing value to customers, not enriching shareholders
1. People over profits - no gig workers or exploitative practices to squeeze every cent from customers
1…
u/Cool_Technician_6380in r/Kotlin • Mentions
On “Kotlin 2026: Layoffs, AI, Google — Is the Golden Age Over? Jake Wharton Explains”
Jake says сash cut 70% of engineers after he left. How can the remaining 30% maintain a product with such a huge user base even with AI doing some of the work?
this moment in the video \45:44\: [video