Index — Curated Intelligence

Intel

Computers-in-the-90s analogy for AI adoption — Intel — VibeLeaderboard

Clip / Entertainment

Computers-in-the-90s analogy for AI adoption

From Reflecting on a Year of Claude Code (Boris Cherny) · ≈11:15

“Actually, what you have to do is you throw out the filing cabinet, you have to throw out all your paper and all your pens, and then you put a computer in the center and everything has to run through the computer.”

“And I feel like at Anthropic we do this thing where when you on board, you don't ask people questions like no one asks me questions when they on board. You probably have the same thing, they ask Claude.”

“And I think for computers, the transition took 10 to 15 years. But actually for AI, because so much of our work is already digitized and Claude can use a computer and it can write code and run code. This transition is happening a lot faster.”

What’s in it

Why AI adoption mirrors the 1990s PC productivity transition
How Anthropic puts Claude at the center of every workflow
Why the AI shift is happening far faster than computers did

Watch this moment ↗

Clip transcript

I have this, like, favorite case study. This is like a Harvard Business Review from the 90s. And they were talking about, like, computers are here. Why are we not seeing the productivity benefits? And it's just this, like amazing snapshot into like, what it actually felt like at the time because, like, you know, people used to use mainframes. At some point companies switch to personal computers. It was sort of a new thing, and the companies were trying to figure out how to use it. The same way they're trying to figure out how to use AI right now. And it turned out that to get the productivity benefits from computers, what you had to do isn't like you have your paper filing cabinet and your, like, paper and pen business process. And then there's like a computer on the side that does something. Actually, what you have to do is you throw out the filing cabinet, you have to throw out all your paper and all your pens, and then you put a computer in the center and everything has to run through the computer. It has to be at the center of every business process. And I feel like at Anthropic we do this thing where when you on board, you don't ask people questions like no one asks me questions when they on board. You probably have the same thing, they ask Claude. And this is kind of weird, like, this is the first company I've been at like that. And I feel like for us, Claude is just at the center of everything. Whenever I have a question, I ask Claude. Whenever I write code, I use Claude. Whenever I need a code review, Claude does it, whenever I need a security review, Claude does it, whenever I need to you know, fill out a form or something, Co-work does it. So it's just like Claude is at the center of everything. And I feel like the companies that are really figuring it out, and there's a bunch of them now, they're just putting Claude at the center of it. And I think for computers, the transition took 10 to 15 years. But actually for AI, because so much of our work is already digitized and Claude can use a computer and it can write code and run code. This transition is happening a lot faster.