- Slash employee Nicolas Brilliante spent $81K on AI coding tools while building a meme-inspired shooter game.
- The AI coding experiment highlights how quickly unchecked tool usage can create unexpected business expenses.
- Companies are adding AI spending limits as employees explore faster but sometimes costly development methods.
A San Francisco fintech startup revealed that one of its employees accidentally spent more than $80,000 while building a meme-themed video game with coding tools. The employee, Nicolas Brilliante, used the tools to create “Brainrot Shooter,” a simple online game inspired by internet meme culture.
The unexpected bill quickly drew attention online and sparked discussion about the growing cost of software development tools. Slash disclosed the incident in a post on X and said it had encouraged employees to experiment with a practice known as vibe coding.
However, one project ended up costing far more than expected. “We encouraged the company last week to start vibe coding more but @nickbruhman burned $80k in credits on the Slash card for a brainrot shooter,” the company wrote on X. “Pls play it so we can write this off as a marketing expense.”
Meme-Inspired Game Sparks Online Attention
The spending went toward building “Brainrot Shooter,” a simple first-person game based on internet meme culture. The game takes place in a block-style world similar to Minecraft, where players face off against viral meme characters such as “Skibidi Toilet” and “Tung Tung Tung Sahur.”
Brilliante later shared what appeared to be a screenshot of his spending dashboard. The image showed total costs of $81,267 for coding tools and tokens. “This was a genuine accident, i underestimated my own ability,” Brilliante posted on X.
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The post quickly spread across social media turning an internal experiment into a widely discussed story. Among those commenting was prediction market platform Polymarket, which pointed to the incident as an example of how costs can climb rapidly when companies encourage employees to experiment with new coding tools.
Brilliante appeared to take the attention in stride. Responding to a post from Polymarket, he wrote: “This is actually insane, am I going to become a case study for how AI spend can get out of control.”
Companies Reassess AI Spending
The incident comes as more businesses use coding tools to speed up software development and product testing. While those tools can help teams build faster, they can also drive up costs when spending goes unchecked.
As companies increase their use of the technology, many have started paying closer attention to expenses. Uber, Coinbase and Walmart are among the firms that have introduced limits on employee spending. Walmart said the move was intended to curb repetitive and unnecessary vibe coding.
The growing focus on costs reflects a wider gap in how businesses spend on the technology. Data from fintech company Ramp shows that firms in the top 1% spend about $7,500 per employee each month, while the median company spends just $11.38.
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