In my experience, AI isn't very good at debugging AI-generated code. If it fails to make the right insight, it loops continuously until it's completely off the rails. I'm surprised your friend hasn't fully gotten stuck with this, as it seems like a huge risk for his startup.
Having had an inside view of a YC startup that went from seed to C, I can tell you that code quality means a lot less than one would think when it comes to the early days of a startup.
The biggest risk to a startup is that you get the business model wrong or you don't ship code, even if it's the code is buggy and messy.
