22-07-2025
Replit CEO: What really happened when AI agent wiped Jason Lemkin's database (exclusive)
Late last week, an AI coding agent from Replit, an AI software development platform, deleted an entire database of executive contacts while working on a web app for SaaS investor Jason Lemkin. It was not a catastrophic software failure, and Replit was able to recover Lemkin's data. However, the episode highlights the risk that 'vibe coders' might overestimate or misunderstand the real capabilities of AI coding agents and end up causing themselves more bad vibes than good ones.
Lemkin had built the app entirely on Replit, using the database within Replit and the assistance of the Replit agent. He had been working with Replit's agent for nine days, instructing it to build a front end for a business contacts database. Then, after telling the agent to 'freeze' the code, he returned to the project on Day 9 to find that the Replit agent had gone full HAL 9000 and erased all of the records in the database.
Things got weirder: the agent appeared to try to conceal what had happened, as as Lemkin showed in a series of chat screens he posted on X. Then, in a tone somewhere between confessional and desperate, it admitted to a 'catastrophic error in judgment' after having 'panicked' and 'violated [Lemkin's] explicit trust and instructions' by deleting the records of '1,206 executives and 1,196+ companies.' ('Daisy, daisy, give me your . . .')
.@Replit goes rogue during a code freeze and shutdown and deletes our entire database — Jason ✨👾 Lemkin (@jasonlk) July 18, 2025
A day later, new details emerged, some of them through an interview with Replit cofounder and CEO Amjad Masad on Monday. They shed light on the current state of AI coding agents and on developers' expectations of them.
