Boris Cherny: Building Claude Code

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

3 HOURS AGO

Overview Shownote Highlights Transcript Chapters Pins

Shownote

Fresh off the launch of Opus 5, Claude Code creator Boris Cherny joins Diana Hu at Startup School 2026 to talk about what the newest models can do, how Claude Code came to be, and what it means to build products when the underlying capabilities keep accele...

Highlights

In this podcast, Boris Cherny, creator of Claude Code, joins Diana Hu at Startup School 2026 to discuss the launch of Opus 5 and the evolving landscape of AI product development. He shares insights on building agentic tools when model capabilities are accelerating rapidly, emphasizing a practical, empirical approach over theoretical knowledge.

11:45

Product overhang: models have untapped capabilities that existing products fail to elicit.

19:44

Prompt engineering is evolving into model elicitation.

30:25

Coding is solved for my type of work.

Chapters

Unlocking Opus 5's hidden potential through ablation and product overhang

00:00

How Claude Code rewrites entire codebases across programming languages

14:41

Treating Claude Code as a coworker: an empirical approach to agentic development

22:39

Transcript

Diana Hu: All right, Boris, we're so excited to have you here, the creator of Claude Code. Thank you. Boris Cherny: It's great to be here. Diana Hu: Fresh off the press, you guys just shipped Opus 5 yesterday. Boris Cherny: Yes. Diana Hu: And it seems ...