Wall Street Journal bestselling author and founder of IT Revolution, pioneering DevOps transformation and now leading the exploration of AI-assisted software development. Author of The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook, Accelerate, and Wiring the Winning Organization—books that have collectively sold over 1 million copies.
Architect of the DevOps Movement
Gene Kim has been studying high-performing technology organizations since 1999, transforming how the industry thinks about software delivery, organizational design, and technology leadership. As founder and former CTO of Tripwire (13 years), he built enterprise security software while developing insights that would reshape modern software development practices.
Current Focus: Vibe Coding & AI Productivity
Gene is at the forefront of exploring how AI will transform software development and organizational structures. His latest work with Steve Yegge, Vibe Coding: Building Production-Grade Software With GenAI, Chat, Agents, and Beyond, captures the paradigm shift where AI generates code and humans supervise.
Key areas of exploration:
- FAAFO Framework - Faster, Ambitious, Autonomous, Fun, Optionality: The Value of Vibe Coding
- Enterprise AI Adoption - Tracking case studies from Booking.com, Capital One, Cisco, Fidelity on 10x productivity gains
- Trust & Fingerspitzengefuhl - Building intuitive understanding of AI collaboration patterns
- The Vibe Coding Loop - Iterative conversations resulting in workable code: Article
Key Publications & Resources
Books:
- The Phoenix Project - Novel introducing the Three Ways framework
- The DevOps Handbook (2nd Ed.) - Definitive DevOps implementation guide
- Accelerate - Science of lean software and DevOps (with Dr. Nicole Forsgren & Jez Humble)
- Wiring the Winning Organization - Organizational transformation theory (with Dr. Steven Spear, 2023 Shingo Award winner)
- Vibe Coding - AI-assisted software development with Steve Yegge
Articles & Research:
- The Three Ways: Principles Underpinning DevOps
- What is Vibe Coding? It’s Not About Turning Off Your Brain
- DORA State of DevOps / State of AI-Assisted Software Development Report
- IT Revolution Articles by Gene Kim
Podcast: The Idealcast - 90-minute conversations with enterprise technology and business leaders
IT Revolution
IT Revolution is a platform helping technology leaders succeed through research, education, and community. The organization hosts the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit (formerly DevOps Enterprise Summit), publishes influential books on technology leadership, and provides workshops on AI productivity and organizational transformation.
Philosophy on AI Transformation
Gene’s work emphasizes critical shifts in software development:
Developers as supervisors, not typists - “Vibe coding” means AI writes code while humans provide direction and supervision—fundamentally changing the developer role.
Trust through experience - AI trust increases with familiarity. Organizations need to build “fingerspitzengefuhl” (intuitive feel) for AI capabilities and limitations.
Economic accessibility - At $100/day for unlimited AI model access, the economics of software development have fundamentally changed—making ambitious projects economically viable.
Organizational readiness - Some senior developers resist adoption, but leading enterprises (Cisco, Capital One, Fidelity) are requiring production deployments to build organizational capability.
Conference Appearance
Event: AI Engineering Code Summit 2025 Date: November 20, 2025 Time: 10:05 AM Session: 2026: The Year the IDE Died (with Steve Yegge)
Gene presented alongside Steve Yegge on how coding agents will fundamentally transform developer tools. His portion focused on enterprise adoption patterns, the FAAFO framework for AI productivity gains, and case studies demonstrating 10x improvements. He emphasized that trust in AI systems grows with experience, and highlighted how leading organizations are mandating AI-assisted development to build organizational capability.