📉 Stack Overflow is Dying

Stack Overflow signs a major AI licensing deal with Google, Mistral drops an open-source LLM built for real-world dev work, and we look at how LLMs are reshaping coding workflows, and possibly killing off SO in the process. Plus, the quirky origin story behind Rust.

Author

Travis Media
May 27, 2025

Hey everybody,

Stack Overflow signs a major AI licensing deal with Google, Mistral drops an open-source LLM built for real-world dev work, and we look at how LLMs are reshaping coding workflows, and possibly killing off SO in the process. Plus, the quirky origin story behind Rust.

Let’s dive in!

Quick Links

🧠 Peer Programming with LLMs, For Senior+ Engineers
Programming with LLMs is a mixed bag, they’re helpful for quick fixes and brainstorming, but also prone to time-wasting detours. Senior engineers, though, are finding value when pairing LLMs with real peer collaboration. This blog curates real-world insights from experienced devs, skipping the fluff and diving into how LLMs actually fit into serious senior workflows.

📉 Stack overflow is almost dead
Stack Overflow’s decline is no longer speculation, it’s happening. Question volume in May 2025 is set to dip below what it was just three months after the site launched in 2009. LLMs didn’t just compete, they accelerated the downfall of a platform once essential to dev culture. While SO might fade, developer communities will live on.

⚙️ How a broken elevator changed software forever
Frustrated by a broken elevator and bad C++ code, Graydon Hoare decided to fix both. Tired of climbing 21 flights of stairs, he set out to build a safer systems language, fast, powerful, but without the memory bugs.

The result? Rust, named after a resilient fungus, built for programmers who were equally stubborn about reliability.

đź‘ą Google pays Stackoverflow to use its data...that we created?
Stack Overflow just landed its first paying AI customer, Google. The deal lets Google Cloud tap into SO’s Q&A database to boost its Gemini chatbot, especially for developer support. This could be a turning point in how AI companies pay for training data, with Stack Overflow hoping to turn its declining traffic into a sustainable revenue stream. Expect Gemini to start quoting your old SO answers, with credits, links, and your username attached.

🤖 Mistral’s Autonomous LLM for Software Development
Mistral AI just dropped Devstral, an open-source LLM purpose-built for real-world software engineering. While most LLMs handle basic coding, Devstral dives into messy GitHub issues, navigating full codebases and debugging with context. On the SWE-Bench Verified benchmark, it hits 46.8% accuracy, beating previous open-source leaders by over 6 points, and even outpacing some massive closed models like GPT-4.1-mini by 20%+.

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Until next week,

Travis.

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