How Claude Code Is Reshaping Software—and Anthropic

Engineers in Silicon Valley have been raving about Anthropic’s AI coding tool, Claude Code, for months. But recently, the buzz feels as if it’s reached a fever pitch.

Earlier this week, I sat down with Boris Cherny, head of Claude Code, to try to understand how the company is meeting this moment.

“We built the simplest possible thing,” said Cherny. “The craziest thing was learning three months ago that half of the sales team at Anthropic uses Claude Code every week.”

AI-powered coding has evolved quickly. From 2021 to 2024, most tools functioned as little more than autocomplete, suggesting a few lines of code as developers typed. By early 2025, startups like Cursor and Windsurf began rolling out early “agentic” coding products, which let developers describe a feature in plain language and leave the rest up to an AI agent.

Claude Code launched around this time too. Cherny ...