AI prototyping velocity makes multi-year software engineering bets completely obsolete
Jay Parikh · The most expensive mistake in outsourcing your tech stack | Jay Parikh (EVP CoreAI, Microsoft) · Aug 27, 2026 · at 40:30
Jay Parikh, EVP of CoreAI at Microsoft and former head of engineering at Facebook, explains why engineering leadership should replace 12-month software roadmaps with faster iterative bets.
“I think it is hard these days to take a bet that is multi-year at this point. Maybe not on the, I would say, Adams-level infrastructure, because those do still take a while, but if it's in, you know, in, in product, in software, because I don't know that it needs to take that long anymore, right, because of the power of the tools that we have accessible. So the thing that may have taken You know, in my career, a software team, a year to write. Well, I actually think we can get something pretty good in a month, maybe, you know, at least as a prototype.”
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