“Vibe-Coder” Wins 200+ Hackathons with AI: Rene Tursios Builds Software Without Writing a Single Line of Code

In San Francisco, anyone who has ever attended a hackathon knows his name. Rene Turcios is neither a programmer, nor an engineer, nor a graduate of an elite university. In fact, he doesn’t even write code. Yet since 2023, this unconventional contender has triumphed in over two hundred hackathons—amassing prizes, admiration, and substantial cash rewards. His secret? He “vibe-codes.”

The term “vibe-coding” was coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy to describe the process of articulating a task in natural language and having artificial intelligence translate it into functional code. Initially dismissed as a novelty, this approach has now gained traction among both startups and tech giants alike, with tools such as Cursor and Claude becoming industry staples.

Turcios adopted this technique long before it had a name. At his very first hackathon, he simply typed an idea into ChatGPT: a tool that transforms any song into a lo-fi version. Without writing a single line of code himself, he took second place. When the results were announced, he shouted with unrestrained joy. At the time, no one knew who he was—but in that moment, he realized he could hold his own against Stanford graduates and seasoned engineers from top firms.

Rene is 29 years old. He hails from Missouri and was raised in a family of circus performers who tamed lions and bears. Instead of attending college, he became a professional Yu-Gi-Oh! player, spending several years traveling across the United States, competing in tournaments and sleeping on friends’ couches. Eventually, weary of the nomadic life, he moved to San Francisco with his girlfriend. He tried various gigs before launching a startup focused on building infrastructure for the metaverse. The venture folded quickly when engineers refused to work with AI.

One developer even threatened to resign if asked to use a neural network again. In response, Turcios shut down the company and began learning on his own. He started frequenting nearly every hackathon in the city—from AGI House to Frontier Tower. He didn’t write code; he simply knew how to phrase the right prompt and extract maximum value from artificial intelligence. And, more importantly, he knew how to win.

Hackathon organizers and participants have come to expect his booming voice, cyberpunk streetwear, and signature declaration: “I haven’t written a single line of code.” Victories followed one after another. Startups began hiring him to develop MVPs and prototypes—projects that would take development teams weeks, he completed in mere hours. Today, he leads workshops, teaching both newcomers and seasoned developers how to collaborate effectively with AI.

Lately, Turcios has slowed his pace to focus on his own venture: building AI agents. No team, no investors, no engineers—just himself and his neural network co-pilot. At a recent gathering, he opened his laptop and asked, “What shall we build?” The discussion centered around his beloved Labubus figurines, which he stores by the box at home. Within fifteen minutes, a resale website for the dolls was live.

Rene has no interest in degrees, programming languages, or corporate ladders. He simply understood how the new world operates—and learned to play by its rules. Or rather, he rewrote them altogether.