— Sam Altman (@sama) March 17, 2026 From Altman's end of things, maybe it's been years since he knew anyone who was still doing any hand-coding, and it's not clear if there was a particular story in the news that he may have been responding to here. But, with greater frequency, we are going to be hearing about — if not personally knowing — coders and engineers getting laid off as companies move many activities into the hands of AI. And this "thank you" from Altman feels pretty up there in the annals of tech CEOs speaking from inside their bubbles to the frightened masses. Remember when, a few months ago, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said he'd welcome Trump sending the National Guard into San Francisco, to like, fix crime and homelessness or something so that he could have a tech conference in peace? Sam Altman and husband Oliver Mulherin attend the 2026 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Mark Guiducci at Los Angeles County Museum of Art on March 15, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/WireImage) Altman also appears to be getting back to work after doing the tour of Oscar festivities in Los Angeles over the weekend. Among the reactions on Xitter to Altman's sentiments, we have "Also thank the artists who painted complex images stroke by stroke. It already feels difficult to remember how much effort it really took." And there's, "You’re welcome. Nice to know that our reward is our jobs being taken away." There's also, "How are you always so tone deaf with anything you say?" One more measured criticism from a user named Nyx says, "character-by-character discipline produced code [that] humans could audit line by line. AI-generated code at scale removes that. we're trading craftsman-level understanding for velocity, and nobody's accounting for what we lose in security review when the person who 'wrote' it can't explain why it works." Altman has yet to comment further or walk back his pre-9 am tweet.