Claude Code is making software development accessible to non-coders. Here’s the “Marvel” behind it. [Monday: Marketing Marvels]

From the desk of Miles Everson:

Hi!

I hope your week is off to a great start!

Let’s kick off the week by putting the spotlight on another “Marvel.” Today, I’ll talk about the man who created Claude Code.

Eager to know more?

Keep reading below!

Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic is having a great 2026 so far. It is on pace to rake in a revenue of USD 10.9 billion for the second quarter of 2026, a number that leapfrogs the revenue it generated for all of 2025.

After spending the early years of the AI boom catching up with AI heavyweight OpenAI , Anthropic has now positioned itself as one of the leading players in the AI space.

With momentum on its side, the company behind the popular Claude AI model confidentially filed its S-1 paperwork a few weeks ago. This essentially means Anthropic intends to go public… and it could be worth at least a trillion dollars.

So, how did Anthropic put itself at the upper levels of the AI totem pole?

The AI startup steadily grew its footprint and adoption by targeting enterprise customers instead of the mass consumer market, thereby positioning Claude as a sophisticated model that can be used for a variety of purposes instead of a general-use product.

One of the fields that Anthropic has done well is software development.

Claude Code, the purpose-built agentic AI offering for coding workloads, has seen widespread enterprise adoption, as large firms like Uber , Netflix , Accenture , and Spotify have used it to help their developers scale their productivity.

Claude Code’s rapid adoption speaks volumes about its utility, but behind every great innovation is a visionary.

With this tool clearly firmly positioned as a game-changer, the next question is obvious: Who built it?

The answer is none other than Boris Cherny!

Cherny is a software developer who has years of software development experience under his belt.

Prior to creating Claude Code, Cherny spent six years working for Meta (from 2017 to 2024). He served as principal software engineer and team lead for code quality and server architecture and developer infrastructure at various points throughout his tenure.

One of the major projects he worked on included the integration of Messenger with Facebook.

Fast forward to 2024, Cherny decided to leave Meta for Anthropic.

When asked about his decision, Cherny mentioned being inspired after using ChatGPT, remarking how the AI tool blew him away. His discovery and use motivated him to look into the labs working on AI models.

According to him, AI is “transformative to society” and there are many ways for AI to go wrong.

That’s where his decision to join Anthropic comes in. For him, joining the startup “was just obvious choice” because it would enable him to make sure AI development goes well.

Fast forward to now, Claude Code has become an important part of developer workflows and is one of Anthropic’s flagship offerings.

A Massive Productivity Boost

AI-assisted coding has drastically improved the productivity of developers, enabling them to deploy code at a faster rate than ever before.

Even Cherny himself has benefitted immensely. He admitted in an interview that he hasn’t written a line of code in nearly a year. Instead, he managed hundreds to even thousands of AI agents who are doing his work for him.

Cherny even noted that Claude Code writes all the code for Anthropic itself, leading to an 8x increase in code written since the start of 2026.

Aside from helping developers, Cherny emphasized that AI coding tools have lowered the barrier of entry to software creation, enabling non-coders to create their own software tools.

That said, what enabled Cherny to become this successful? What were the traits that enabled him to create such a transformative AI model?

• Thinking Big and Looking Ahead

  When he was starting out at Anthropic, Cherny said Benjamin Mann, the co-founder of the AI startup, pushed him to think bigger.

  Instead of building “for the model of the day,” Cherny said Mann encouraged him to “build for the model six months from now.”

  That kind of thinking has pushed Cherny to always “think a step ahead.”

• Knowing the Target Audience

  As previously mentioned, Anthropic has focused on targeting the enterprise segment.

  Just like the company, Cherny adopted the same mindset. According to him, the firm is an “enterprise AI company” that coincidentally builds consumer products.

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Given these traits, it’s unsurprising why Cherny became the software development “Marvel” he is today.

By creating Claude Code, he has opened the doors to new possibilities in the realm of software development for both coders and non-coders.

… and with his penchant for thinking big, looking ahead, and knowing who he’s making products for, Cherny has helped fuel his and Anthropic’s rise to the top.

Hope you’ve found this week’s topic interesting and helpful.

Stay tuned for next Monday’s Marketing Marvels!

Some people—or characters—come along and quietly remind us that blending in is overrated.

Learn more about Wednesday Addams in next week’s article!