Midjourney founder says new AI coding tools are leaving his friends more productive — and ‘extremely drained’

Your programmer friend is thrilled — and tired.

Midjourney founder David Holz summarized the feeling among many programmers in an X post. His friends are “all feeling extremely productive and also extremely drained with the latest coding models,” Holz wrote.

“This makes me feel like something is wrong, and also that there might be a big opportunity,” he wrote.

Holz concluded the post by asking: “Does anyone have any strategies they use to make it feel better day-to-day?”

Commenters replied with their own solutions — and greater diagnoses of the problem. Ex-Meta engineer Shuming Hu wrote that “vibe coding doesn’t get you into a flow state.”

Catherine Wu, Anthropic’s head of product for Claude Code, replied that she liked “focused work on a hard task with a single agent.”

“Usually I run 10s of agents, but it’s nice to get into the zone and in the weeds of one task to get it done well,” Wu wrote.

Former X and Cash App designer Brandon Kainoa Jacoby said the problem was “probably going to get worse before it gets better.”

He recommended getting away from AI for just a bit: “I’ve noticed doing some sort of deep cognitive task, entirely away from any model, helps a tad.”

Others suggested similarly analog solutions to the drain, like staring at a tree or playing with their kids.

As AI coding tools transform their daily workflows, engineers are ringing the alarm on AI fatigue. In February, programmer Siddhant Khare argued the fatigue was real and that “nobody talks about it” in a viral essay.

Other coders told Business Insider that they struggled to keep up with the tech’s rapid advancements, leading to a sense of workplace paralysis.

There’s a frenzy to the AI era, one that keeps coders up late and grinding longer. Ben South, a serial founder and former Postmates VP, shared his drive in Holz’s comments.

“Even an hour of rest feels like a ton of productivity lost,” South wrote.