Y Combinator Startup Podcast Inside Claude Code With Its Creator Boris Cherny
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Feb 17, 2026 
Boris Cherny, engineer who built Claude Code at Anthropic, shares the origin story from a terminal prototype to a widely used AI coding tool. He talks about empowering workflows with CLI-first design, automating git/tests/DevOps, agent and subagent strategies for parallel debugging, and expanding form factors from terminal to GUI for nontechnical users.
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Design For The Next Model
- Build for the model six months from now, not today's capabilities.
- Anticipate model improvements and design products that will benefit from near-future advances.
Models Prefer Tooling
- Models want to use tools and interact with the world, not just answer chat prompts.
- Enabling tool use unlocks capabilities the model already seeks to exercise.
Terminal Prototype Spread Organically
- Boris prototyped a terminal CLI to use the Anthropic API because it avoided building a UI.
- The terminal prototype spread internally by coworkers sharing it and dogfooding it.