# Show Notes: Vibe Coding and Real World Problems: Why AI Still Needs a CTO

**Guest:** Anuraag Jain, CTO, Executive Coach and Author

**Website:** [growthvariable.com](https://www.growthvariable.com)

**LinkedIn:** [Anuraag Jain](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anuraagjain)

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## About This Episode

Anuraag Jain is a 30-year tech industry veteran who started as an Oracle DBA in India without an engineering degree and became a CTO in under nine years. He was the first developer hired at Betfair, where he built the betting exchange engine behind one of the era's biggest fintech IPOs, and served as CTO at The Hut Group (THG) during their run as the UK's fastest-growing tech company.

In this episode, Bhairav and Anuraag talk honestly about vibe coding: what it can do, where it breaks down, and why thirty years of building things under pressure still matters in an AI-assisted world.

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## What We Cover

- How two non-traditional hires found their way into tech and why that background shaped how they build

- The early days at Betfair: manual bet settlement, shoestring infrastructure, and recovering 36 hours of betting data from server log files at 2am

- What scaling really means when you have no safety net

- The 80/20 rule for vibe coding: what AI handles well and what still requires human judgment

- Security blind spots in AI-generated code and why even experienced engineers get caught out

- The hidden cost of running AI tooling against a large code base

- Repo to Pitch: the open source tool that turns a code base into a full pitch deck and documentation suite

- RepoWatch: how to track exactly what AI has changed in your code, commit by commit

- *Prompt Engineering the Subconscious*: the book that connects AI prompting to mindset and reached the UK top 50

- What the fractional CTO market actually looks like right now, and the three types operating in it

- Practical advice for anyone trying to break into tech or move toward a CTO role today

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## Key Takeaways

- AI can handle roughly 80% of what used to require a developer. The remaining 20% is the domain logic that requires someone who actually understands the problem.

- The AI does not know which parts of your code cannot be touched. Unless you tell it, it will modify anything, and you may not notice until something breaks.

- Vibe coding a product does not make it production-ready. Security, scalability, and edge-case logic still need human attention.

- Building something real, however small, is still the best way to develop the judgment the CTO role requires. The tooling available now means there is no excuse not to.

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## Links

- Anuraag Jain on LinkedIn: [linkedin.com/in/anuraagjain](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anuraagjain)

- Growth Variable: [growthvariable.com](https://www.growthvariable.com)

- Repo to Pitch (open source): [growthvariable.com/repotopitch.html](https://www.growthvariable.com/repotopitch.html)

- RepoWatch: [growthvariable.com](https://www.growthvariable.com)

- *Prompt Engineering the Subconscious*: [book.growthvariable.com](https://book.growthvariable.com)

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## About the Atom CTO Podcast

The Atom CTO Podcast, transitioning to Bits, Bytes and Business, features conversations with founders, CTOs and entrepreneurs about building technology businesses in the real world. Hosted by Bhairav Patel.

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