Kotlin 2026: Layoffs, AI, Google — Is the Golden Age Over? Jake Wharton Explains

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? 00:00 Intro 00:50 Why Kotlin Was Created 02:23 Who Is Jake Wharton? 02:40 Google's First Kotlin Engineer 04:30 Pushback Against Kotlin (at Google) 07:16 Pitch Kotlin to a Java Dev in 60 Sec 08:07 Who Uses Kotlin in Production in 2026? 08:51 Why Jake Left Google 10:42 What Jake Dislikes About Google 11:11 Quitting Cash App: Today's Job Market 12:30 $200K Salary 13:13 Who Pays More? 14:30 Is Kotlin a Career Advantage in 2026? 15:53 Why Jake Refuses to Use AI 22:29 Crypto Is "Basically a Ponzi Scheme” 23:37 Remote Work 24:37 “Every Company Is Built on Someone Else's Work” 25:54 Customers Over Shareholders 26:23 Ensh*ttification of Software 27:27 The Gig Economy Trap 29:08 Why Big Companies Kill the Fun 31:40 Same Job, Half the Pay: The Geography Problem 34:02 “No Work Apps on My Phone” 36:09 The Value That Eliminated 95% of Companies 37:40 Which Company Did Jake Join? 39:54 Did Jake Compromise His Values? 41:10 Building a "Family Operating System" 42:22 Layoff "They Got Rid of 70% of Engineers" 43:14 VC Money Behind the LLM Industry 45:24 "Throw Away Engineers, Offload to an LLM" 47:13 Have You Coded With AI Agents? "Never” 45:28 What If Token Prices Go Up 20x? 50:43 Jake's Plan B If AI Wins 53:38 Has AI Killed Kotlin's Advantage? 56:53 Is the Golden Age of Kotlin Over? 58:44 Swift vs Kotlin 01:03:12 What Kotlin does better than Swift? 01:04:56 Best Error Handling? Rust 01:06:26 Where Jake Would NOT Use Kotlin 01:10:10 Why Rust for Hardware 01:11:29 How Cash App Used Kotlin Multiplatform 01:15:50 Kotlin Multiplatform vs Flutter vs React Native 01:19:43 Wharton: ”Flutter is sort of offensive” 01:23:09 Why Native UI Is the Best UI 01:27:06 Library vs Framework: Why It Matters 01:30:07 Jake Wharton's Dev Setup 01:30:48 Why Firefox, Not Chrome 01:31:19 "A Bug in the Compiler": Life as a Legend 01:32:31 Kotlin's Most Annoying Feature 01:35:53 Why Everyone Hates Gradle 01:37:36 How Jake Avoids Burnout After 20 Years 01:44:00 Why Learn More Than One Language 01:48:06 Bringing Rust's Ownership to Kotlin 01:49:53 How Big Is Kotlin in Open Source? 01:53:16 Dependencies: Trust or Fork? 01:58:30 Why Companies Invest in Open Source 02:03:12 Getting Paid for Open Source 02:07:28 Can Kotlin Outlive Its Creator? 02:08:41 Andrew Kelley and Zig's Future 02:09:48 How Jake Shaped Kotlin 02:13:12 Who Controls Kotlin: JetBrains, Google or Community? 02:14:33 What If Kotlin Disappeared? 02:15:06 "Please Don't Make It Go Away" Document "Using Project Kotlin for Android": https://jb.gg/jake-wharton-document Jake’s Website: https://jakewharton.com/ Jake Wharton on Mastodon: https://mastodon.jakewharton.com/@jw Vitaly Bragilevsky (host) on X: https://x.com/VBragilevsky Oxana Mazurchak (showrunner) on X: https://x.com/OxanaMazurchak #Kotlin #KotlinLang #JakeWharton #programming #Android #rust #java #opensource #AI