SAN FRANCISCO — The tech industry is reeling after Base44, a six-month-old “vibe-coding” startup, sold for $80 million. The deal was announced via TikTok, with founder Maor Shlomo playing ukulele in his Palo Alto garage. Within hours, companies slapped on numerical suffixes: QuickBite became Hunger73; ZenSpace morphed into Chakra51. Analyst Jennifer Chen called it a paradigm shift while googling “what is vibe-coding” live on CNBC. Shlomo was hailed as a “solo unicorn,” despite eight developers, two designers, and a part-time office dog named Algorithm. Founders now argue “solo” means “fewer than a basketball starting lineup.” “It’s basketball team mathematics,” said blogger Marcus Rodriguez. One rival insisted his 47-person team is “solo” because they share one vibe. Meanwhile, a dozen startups announced vibe-coding pivots, ranging from lo-fi playlists to lunar-cycle sprints. Peak absurdity arrived when founder Derek Williams admitted his strategy is asking ChatGPT to “make the code more viby,” then adding rainbow emojis to function names. “Eighty million is eighty million,” he said. As experts shrugged, Shlomo teased his next venture: Aura88—“like Base44, but for feelings.”