Chris Coyier
A web developer known for building tools and writing for front-end developers, Chris Coyier founded CSS-Tricks, ran it from 2007 to 2022, and co-founded CodePen...
“I think buying your way out of business problems is still a very interesting and good thing to do sometimes… Maybe it's like the bar is even higher, though. You know, I'm like, man, if I'm going to pay you a bunch of money, just can you please do a great job?”
CodePen Radio · Hands-On Engineering Podcasts · October 2026
Context
Chris was responding to the idea that SaaS is dead because AI lets anyone build anything. He says AI helped CodePen build its new feeds, but he still pays for other people's software; his point is that the bar for paid software has risen.
Transcript
…like, oh, you know, this was hotter a while ago. I think it's cooled off a little bit, but like a SaaS is dead. AI, you could just do anything now. Why does anybody need to build any software? You just, you know, AI. I'd say that's like, you know, it's not like there's none of that in this story.
Just a grand of truth, of course.
AI helped us do some of that stuff. And I'm in talks regularly with software I want to buy, you know, and I'm paying for a different variety of software and stuff. I still am very interested in buying other people's high-quality software. I think buying your way out of business problems is still a very interesting and good thing to do sometimes. So it's like there's just more nuance to that discussion, but it's like, yeah, there's some truth to it and some like, yo, I'm still paying for Finny of software and rightfully so. Maybe it's like the bar is even higher, though. You know, I'm like, man, if you're, if I'm going to pay you a bunch of money, just can you please do a great job?
Well, there's also, I mean, there's different places that you're at as your own company. Like, you know, as CodePen, we're in a different place than we were when we added this in the first place. Like, we were a very different team at that time. We had different capabilities and different…
gone through all these phases. It's not like we use any of the same technology we did when we started. We're old.
That's true. We're