Meta’s newly appointed Chief AI Officer, Alexandr Wang, believes the next generation’s biggest opportunity lies in mastering artificial intelligence—just as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg once did with early computers. Speaking on the TBPN podcast during Meta Connect 2025, Wang said that today’s teenagers should dive deep into experimenting with AI tools if they want to stand out in the rapidly changing future economy.

Wang, who became the youngest self-made billionaire at 25 after founding Scale AI, compared the current AI boom to the personal computing revolution of the 1980s. “When personal computers first came about, the people who spent the most time with it and grew up with it had this immense advantage in the future economy,” he explained.

He urged young people to follow a similar path by dedicating thousands of hours to learning and experimenting with AI models. “If you’re 13 right now, you should spend all your time vibe-coding. This is the Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg moment. The people who grow up with these tools will have an immense advantage in the future economy,” Wang emphasised.

Wang even shared anecdotes from tech history, recalling how Bill Gates used to sneak into labs at night just to practice programming. He believes teenagers today should adopt that same passion—but with AI assistants and coding models instead.

What is ‘Vibe-Coding’?

The concept at the heart of Wang’s advice—vibe-coding—represents a hands-on, experimental way of learning. Instead of relying solely on formal classes or tutorials, vibe-coding encourages young people to build, test, and break things with the help of AI coding tools. It’s a process of learning by doing—prompting AI models, analysing their responses, iterating on code, and gradually understanding how these systems “think” and execute tasks.

According to Wang, this approach builds both creativity and technical fluency. “If you just happen to spend, like, 10,000 hours playing with the tools and figuring out how to use them better than other people, that’s a huge advantage... You just have to figure out how to use the tools maximally,” he said.

Wang’s perspective echoes that of Andrew Ng, co-founder of Google Brain, who has previously stated that this is “the best time yet to learn to code.” Ng believes that as AI simplifies programming, those with a solid understanding of coding fundamentals will be best positioned to thrive.

Meta’s AI Push Amid Restructuring

Wang’s comments come as Meta doubles down on AI investments while undergoing internal restructuring. The company recently laid off around 600 employees from its AI division in an effort to streamline operations and accelerate innovation. Notably, the cuts did not affect members of Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, a division closely associated with Wang’s leadership.

Despite the layoffs, Meta continues to pour billions into its AI ambitions, aiming to lead the next wave of intelligent computing. And if Wang’s advice proves right, the future leaders of that revolution may just be the kids who start vibe-coding today.