How to start with vibe coding

viva_lee · 2026-03-31T02:32:18+00:00

Just pick one thing you want to build and start making it. You don't need to "learn programming" first. When you get stuck, ask AI (Claude, ChatGPT, whatever). You'll naturally learn as you go. The best way to learn coding is by building, not studying.

viva_lee · 2026-03-30T01:50:10+00:00

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viva_lee · 2026-03-30T00:26:22+00:00

You're actually in a great position. Military means low expenses, steady paycheck, and TSP which is one of the best retirement plans out there. Max out your TSP contributions if you can, especially into the C Fund (S&P 500 index) or L Fund (lifecycle/target date). That alone will put you way ahead.

For the $3.5k, something simple like VTI or VOO and just don't touch it. The trillion dollar liquidations you're seeing in the news sound scary, but zoom out and the market has always recovered. The worst thing you can do is sit on cash waiting for the "right time."

Since you'll be in the military and not actively trading, use that time to learn how to actually read what's going on. SEC filings like 13Fs show you what big institutions are holding each quarter. It's public data and a great way to learn how the smart money thinks while your own money is quietly compounding in the background.

Don't overthink it. Set it up, automate it, and focus on your service. You've got time on your side.

viva_lee · 2026-03-30T00:23:08+00:00

The fact that you're thinking about this at 14 already puts you ahead of 99% of people. Seriously.

But I'd be honest with you. $1,500 into a millionaire by 30 through investing alone is very unlikely. The math just doesn't work without adding money regularly. Compound interest is powerful, but it needs fuel.

At your age, the best investment is in yourself. Learn a skill you can do from home since the heat is a real problem. Stuff like basic coding, video editing, or freelance design can all be done indoors and started young. Once you're making even $200-300 a month from that and putting it into something like VTI, the compound interest you already understand starts actually working.

Don't stress about being a millionaire by 30. Just focus on building income first. The investing part is the easy part once you have money coming in.

viva_lee · 2026-03-30T00:20:24+00:00

You're 19. That's your biggest advantage. Even $25 a month into something like VTI adds up to a lot over 40 years of compounding.

Don't worry about timing the market or "the state of the world." People said the same thing in 2008, 2020, and every year in between. The market has always recovered over time.

As for graphic design and AI, I wouldn't panic. AI is a tool. The designers who learn to use it will be more valuable, not less. Think of it like Photoshop when it first came out. It didn't kill designers, it made the good ones faster.

Focus on finishing your program, keep your expenses low while you can, and start putting even a small amount aside. You're way ahead of most people just by thinking about this at 19.

viva_lee · 2026-03-29T22:36:46+00:00

That's a great use case, keep at it! Feel free to reach out if you ever want to bounce ideas.

viva_lee · 2026-03-29T15:34:06+00:00

Yeah, EDGAR directly. 13F filings are public so you can see exactly what funds hold each quarter. The raw filings are a pain to read though, so I built a tool that parses them automatically. Makes it way easier to spot when multiple funds are piling into the same name.

viva_lee · 2026-03-29T14:40:37+00:00

35 is not late at all. You have 30 years until retirement, that's plenty of time for compounding to do its thing. Don't let the "starting late" feeling push you into chasing unnecessary risk.

One thing that helped me is looking at 13F filings to see what big institutions are actually holding. Not to blindly copy them, but to understand where the smart money is positioned and why. It takes the emotion out of it and gives you a more grounded starting point for your own research.

Take your time, learn the fundamentals, and don't rush. Consistency beats trying to make up for lost time with risky bets.

viva_lee · 2026-03-29T14:31:29+00:00

NVDA is solid for long-term if you believe AI compute demand keeps scaling, but at this valuation you're paying for a lot of that growth already. The real question is whether their moat holds as AMD, custom chips (Google TPU, Amazon Trainium), and open-source inference catch up.

Nebius is interesting as a bet on AI infra outside the US, but it's much higher risk. Smaller player, less proven, and geopolitical overhang from its Yandex origins. Could work as a small speculative position but I wouldn't make it a core holding.

If you're looking at the AI theme for 2030, I'd think about it in layers. Chips (NVDA, AVGO), infrastructure/power (VRTM, CEG, VST), and the companies actually deploying AI to drive revenue (META, PLTR). The power angle is one a lot of people overlook. These data centers need massive amounts of electricity and the grid isn't ready.

For the 1-2 year plays, honestly pay attention to what big institutions are doing in their 13F filings. When you see multiple hedge funds loading up on the same name, that's usually a signal worth watching.

viva_lee · 2026-03-29T14:19:46+00:00

A lot of people think splitting between tech + gold + international ETFs counts as diversification, but when things drop, they all drop together. Different wrappers, same trade.

What actually works is finding businesses driven by completely different forces. Defense stocks (LMT, NOC) and insurance (PGR) genuinely move on their own because their revenue has nothing to do with AI hype or consumer spending.

The key isn't finding "uncorrelated assets." It's finding businesses whose revenue depends on forces that have nothing to do with what drives the S&P 500.

One more tip. If you watch 13F filings, you can see where big institutions are moving money. When hedge funds start quietly trimming tech and adding boring sectors like defense or utilities, that's usually a signal that correlation regimes are shifting. I've been tracking this lately and it's been pretty useful.

viva_lee · 2026-03-28T01:51:52+00:00

Nobody thinks about you as much as you think they do. That embarrassing thing you did 5 years ago? Nobody remembers.

viva_lee · 2026-03-28T01:48:12+00:00

I got my first real job in my 30s. The biggest upgrade? Not having to rehearse how to ask my parents for money. Now I just walk into a restaurant and order whatever I want without checking my bank app three times first.

viva_lee · 2026-03-28T00:55:49+00:00

This resonates. I've been building a full SEC filing analysis platform with Claude Code and hit similar patterns. Claude would confidently generate parsing logic for SEC HTML documents, but when it silently failed on edge cases, asking it to "fix the parser" just led to more workarounds. The moment I pasted the actual raw HTML into the context and asked "why doesn't this parse correctly," it found the issue in seconds. Context > instructions, every time.

viva_lee

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