You can now attend Build School remotely

Cohort 3 just graduated. Cohort 4 starts May 4th. And for the first time you don’t have to be in Lisbon to participate.

Apr 24, 2026

We just ran seven non-technical people through a month of learning how to build apps with AI. All seven shipped working apps some already with traction.

But here is the kicker for Cohort 4: eight of the sixteen seats are now entirely remote.

Why this matters

IBM laid off 8,000 people earlier this year to replace them with AI agents. Intel: 21,000. Microsoft: 15,000. Here are some of the more striking moves with companies signaling or even explicitly stating they’re going AI-first:

Block (Jack Dorsey) - Feb 27, 2026 - ~40% of workforce cut, AI-attributed

Cut 4,000+ of 10,000+ employees. Dorsey’s shareholder letter: “the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company.” Stock jumped ~22-24% on the announcement. Dorsey followed with: “Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”

Shopify (Tobi Lütke) - March 20, 2025 - prove AI can’t do it before you hire

Leaked-then-shared internal memo: “Reflexive AI usage is now a baseline expectation at Shopify.” Core hiring policy change: “Before asking for more headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.”

Zapier (Wade Foster) — 2025 — 100% AI fluency required for new hires

Foster made AI fluency a hiring requirement across every role at Zapier, published a four-tier rubric (Unacceptable / Acceptable / Adaptive / Transformative), and ran a company-wide hackathon that took internal AI usage from ~10% to 97%.

Duolingo (Luis von Ahn) - April 2025 - “AI-first,” contractors phased out

Duolingo announces it will stop using contractors for tasks AI could handle (content creation + translation specifically), and tie AI usage to both hiring and performance reviews. Analogy Von Ahn drew: “We’re making a similar call now, and this time the platform shift is AI.”

Klarna (Sebastian Siemiatkowski) — Feb 2024 → 2026 — replaced 700 CS workers with AI

Klarna replaced 700 customer service agents with AI in Feb 2024 and initially claimed major wins (2-minute resolution vs 11-minute human baseline). CEO later (2025-2026) said AI had “halved the workforce without layoffs” via attrition + hire-freeze.

Basically you can stick your head in the sand or you can spend four weeks with a cohort of people who are all recognizing the profound moment we’re in and treating it like the industrial revolution shakeup that it is.

The good news: Cohort 4 welcomes you wherever you are

Same curriculum, same office hours, same Demo Night - just joining from wherever you are. The tools and methods taught are all remote-friendly.

Bonus: Agentic design. This cohort I’m teaching the same pattern I used to build Jax, my AI assistant who handles my customer support, outreach, devops, assists with content promotion and of course, engineers new features.

Cohort 4’s curriculum. Four Friday coworks, nine office hours, a kickoff, a Demo Night. You have an MVP launched and in-market by the end of the 30 days but most importantly you have the skills and experience to build whatever you need going forward.

The schedule

Kickoff: Monday May 4, 18:00 Lisbon
Four-week sprint: two office hours per week, Friday coworks
Demo Night: Saturday June 6 at Tribe Social Club (+ live stream for the remote cohort)
Price: €498.

How to apply

Apply here.

2min to fill out the application. If you are a fit, funds capture, you’re approved and you’re in.

One more thing: Cohort 3 Demo Night is next Wednesday

We are going to try to live-stream it this time, for people considering Cohort 4 who cannot make it to Lisbon. This is our first time live streaming so this is one big experiment but it will be available here vibecodelisboa.com/live

Watch talks from the seven amazing participants of Cohort 3 as they share their creations and the lessons they learned in the process of building them.

If you’re based in Lisbon come join us in-person here.

I will teach you how to thrive and not just survive in the coming storm. It’s not scary once you learn how to work with this stuff but the time to begin playing with these tools is today, not next year. Apply for Build School today.

I look forward to meeting you.

Sean

Sean Tierney

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