The Compiler Is Having Its Punch Card Moment

Forbes

29-07-2025

Richie Etwaru, Co-founder & CEO of Mobeus, is an evangelist for the probabilistic math revolution and a pioneer in emerging technologies.
When I say the compiler is having its punch card moment, I mean it in the most literal and historic sense possible. I want this to be remembered—quoted, even—because we are living through something that's not just a technical shift, but a cultural and economic one. This moment deserves a sentence that describes it at its core. And this is the sentence I find to be most fitting.
I grew up around code. As a child, I played with my father's discarded punch cards, not knowing at the time that those perforated sheets were how people talked to machines. Each line of logic was represented by holes in the cards, and every bug meant waiting a full day to find out what went wrong. Those early systems made programming feel more like praying—structured offerings, delivered to a silent god who answered on its own schedule. The people who knew how to speak that language were few, and the barriers were high. Still, it was magical.
Then came the compiler. FORTRAN, Pascal, C++, Java—languages that introduced a layer of abstraction between humans and hardware. We no longer had to manage memory or punch holes. We could think in logic, in instructions, in code that resembled human speech. It didn't just accelerate computing. It accelerated inclusion. Millions of people, myself included, found careers in technology because the compiler made programming more accessible and less punishing. It was still technical, still formal, but it was closer to us. Closer to how we think.
And now, here we are again—at the edge of another leap. But this one isn't just a productivity boost. It's a full shift in who gets to build and how. Today, I'm programming again. Not in FORTRAN or C++, but in English. Or Guyanese patwah. Or Portuguese. I'm describing what I want, and the machine understands. Sometimes it gives me Python. Sometimes it gives me a working dashboard. Sometimes it gives me a fully edited video, or a song, or a policy memo written in the tone of a specific executive. I'm not just programing software as the only work product—I'm programming digital everything, by just talking.
This is what I mean when I say the compiler is having its punch card moment. The compiler once opened programming to a new class of builders. Now, compilers themselves are being absorbed into something even larger—models that don't need us to learn their rules, because they've learned how to use our natural language, to convert it to programming code. Natural language is no longer just the way we describe ideas. It's now the way we execute them. The machine isn't waiting for perfect syntax anymore. It's listening. And it's responding. In every language, every tone, every modality.
We're not just telling computers what to do. We're asking them to create with us. A single sentence can now generate an image that would've required a camera crew. A few lines of context can generate an original soundtrack. A teacher in Kenya can write a quiz in Swahili and generate five versions of it, complete with answer keys and illustrations. A child can describe a story and see it animated in minutes. What used to require a team, a budget, and technical training now requires nothing more than a voice, an idea and a connection.
If the compiler brought us into the age of software, then this new era is bringing us into the age of everything. And just like the punch card became obsolete—not overnight, but unmistakably—the compiler as we know it is becoming background noise. It's still there, but it's no longer the bottleneck. Just as punch cards gave way to compiled code, compiled code is giving way to prompt-driven creation. The output is expanding. The speed is increasing. The need for specialization is dropping. And the number of people who can now participate is exploding. Generative models are the new compilers, and the programming languages of today are the ones we're all already fluent in.
This is not about code. This is about power. When language itself becomes the interface, creation becomes a human right, not a technical privilege. For the first time in modern computing, someone with zero engineering background can make software, media, audio, design, documents, campaigns, simulations and conversations—just by describing them. Not only has the circle of creators expanded but the definition of "creator" itself has changed.
In this moment, executives must understand that the entire structure of digital production is being rewritten. Those whose instinct is to centralize, to govern, to wait for an 'AI strategy' to be finalized will lose to those who embrace the messiness of experimentation and the chaos of fast feedback. Because the people who are already fluent in language are already building. It's not just that your employees can use AI—it's that they no longer need you to give them permission. And that will either terrify you or transform your company depending on what you do next.
I've lived long enough to see three paradigms: when we spoke to machines, when we learned to speak with them, and now when they've learned to speak like us. This is not a moment of enhancement. It's a moment of inversion. And it deserves to be remembered the same way we remember the moment the compiler changed everything.
So I'll suggest it again, and I hope it sticks: The compiler is having its punch card moment. And if we're paying attention, we'll build a future where everyone gets to speak—and everyone gets to build.
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