Transcription
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So, I got invited by Anthropic to Claude Code's first birthday in San Francisco. And I figured while I'm out there, I might as well visit the offices and teams behind the tools that I use every single day. This is not the usual type of video, but it's been a while since we've done a vlog, and this was such a rare opportunity. And I did even get the chance to talk to Boris, who created Claude Code. We'll definitely talk about that in the video, but I just had to take you guys along for this one.
If you're new here, welcome to the channel. My name is Chris and I build productivity apps. But today, we're going to be talking about my time in SF.
So, I flew it on Friday and honestly, the flight was pretty uneventful. I was just coding the whole time. But something cool did happen at the airport. We actually got recognized. So Cecilia had a bet that someone would recognize me from my videos in San Francisco. We didn't even get to San Francisco, but someone actually did recognize me in the airport in Dallas. I don't think the channel's that big, but that was kind of surprising that someone did actually recognize me here.
After we landed, we met up with some friends and grabbed dinner. Food and SF was incredible, by the way. We ate so much food while we were there. I would honestly go back just for the food alone.
And then the next day, we had the Claude Code event. If I'm being honest, I didn't really know what to expect. I had no idea how big it was going to be, who was going to be there, and I definitely didn't know I was going to be able to meet Boris and Cat, who are the two people behind Claude Code. The event was really well organized. It was a really, really nice venue, beautiful view. The event was also supposed to be a wrap-up of this virtual hackathon that they were running. So, they had demos lined up from all the hackathon winners, which you can go check out. And all of this stuff was built with Cloud Code. They had a bunch of different talks, and then we got to see the winners present, which was really cool.
Something that stood out to me from the hackathon stuff was that the winners were non-technical people. like two of the winners were a doctor and an attorney. Just very different people from what I was expecting. But that was really cool to see because I think that's what makes me most excited about the tech. We're going to see a wave of new builders who are in a bunch of different industries that usually don't have a lot of technical innovation. And honestly, I think the world needs more of that.
But the talk that everyone was excited about was the conversation with Boris and Cat Woo, who were the two creators of Claude Code. After the talk, these two were absolutely mobbed by people, which makes sense. They are basically celebrities in the tech world. But I was lucky enough to be able to talk to Boris a little bit and I know you guys are interested. So here's what we talked about.
There were two main things we talked about. The first was I wanted to ask him what makes Claude Code so special. If you've used it, you know exactly what I'm talking about, especially the first time you use it. It's just different than any other coding agent that exists. And it still kind of is. There's definitely some magic behind Claude Code. I've been going down a huge rabbit hole trying to figure out what makes it special. I've watched every single podcast and conversation Boris has done to try to figure out the answer to this. So, I wanted to tell him my hypothesis and ask him if the conclusion I was coming to was right.
You guys have no idea how happy I was to have that opportunity. Orus, if you're watching this, I am so sorry if I'm misremembering any of this. So, please feel free to correct me. But my hypothesis is that Claude Code is so good because of how simple it is. And I'm not talking about the UI. I'm talking about the architecture down to the fact it doesn't really have many tools. And the tools that it does have are really simple. We're talking like a search tool, a file editing tool. There are not many tools inside of Cloud Code. But those tools are really, really good. And I think the other big thing is that Claude code relies on the model way more than other tools. Most people build a lot of stuff around the model, but I feel like Claude Code really lets the model do all of the heavy lifting. That was a conclusion I came to, and he basically confirmed it. He also said it's not really just one big thing. It's probably a lot of these little things that have added up, the simplicity, the tooling philosophy, all of it. So, it was really good to be able to get his take on that.
The second thing I asked him was about the agent SDK. Something he said is that he's really excited once people figure it out because he feels like people don't really understand how to work with it well yet. it's a different way of thinking. And when he said that, I got really excited because that's been in the back of my mind, too. I told him I recently made an agent SDK video, and a lot of people think I probably just researched it and made the video in like 2 or 3 days, but no, I probably threw away like 10 different projects until it finally clicked for me. It was really hard to understand how to use it effectively. And honestly, I'm still trying to figure it out, but it was really cool. He brought this up because I was feeling the exact same way. He also said, "Enthropic uses the agent SDK internally very heavily." and he gave me some examples which I'm not going to share here. But he said that they are using it a ton which surprised me. I didn't want to take much of his time and honestly I was surprised I got any time with him at all. So those were the two main questions that I asked. I'm going to work really hard to see if I can get him on this channel and hopefully ask him a couple more questions.
But a huge thank you to him for giving me the time and for making Claude code. Huge shout out to Anthropic, especially Lexi, Amy, and Casey for inviting me out and putting on such a great event. You guys did an incredible job. This event was definitely the highlight of the trip.
But while I was there, I also got to meet some of the teams behind the tools that I use every single day. First, I got to meet up with the Whisper Flow team. And if you've been following the channel, you know that I use Whisper Flow constantly. So, being able to actually meet some of their engineers and talk to people from their team was really awesome. They actually launched their Android app while I was there. And they were doing these pop-ups around the city to promote it. And I actually got to see them doing this protest against Siri outside of an Apple store. But as a heavy user of the product, it was really cool to be able to congratulate their team in person. So, a huge congrats on the launch if you guys are watching this.
I also got to visit the anything.com office. This is the tool I've been recommending for a while now if you're just getting started building apps. I actually met some of their team before the last time I was in SF, but they just moved to a new office, so I got to check that out and catch up with them.
And then I checked out the Convex office. If you saw my agent video about the agent SDK, you know that I just recently started using Convex. So, I was really excited when they invited me to have lunch at their office. We talked about Convex for a while, what my experience has been, where they're taking the product. This is a very, very smart team. And what shocked me the most was how small they are. I think they're around 20 people. And for the kind of impact they're having, this is absolutely insane. I thought there were like 200 plus people at least.
I also got to meet up with a couple creators, including Will Wang, who works out of Founders, Inc.
"You want to say something, Chris?"
"I'm so excited to color grade this footage."
"I'm pretty sure he can do the exact same thing as the stuff you know."
"Oh, see? Okay. He's actually teaching me how he color grades his videos because they just look incredible. And we're talking about his startup, which is in the AI video gen space. Just a really cool conversation. Talking to him made it click a little bit for me that I really need to come down here more."
"All jokes aside, I think if you move to SF"
"Yeah."
"There'll be so much promotion, dude. If you start vlogging, too."
"I know. Yeah."
"You'll get everything over."
"Yeah. No one wants to see a Dallas vlog. They want to see like"
"the SF vlog."
"No, trust me. When I was in Vegas, nobody wants to see a Vegas start."
"I did. I did. I'm about to go look those up."
"Yeah, man. Let me know next time you're back, bro. Yeah."
"Dude, always, bro. Always. Yeah."
One thing I kept noticing during the entire trip is just how different the energy is compared to Dallas. It's hard to explain, but you can feel it. Everyone is building something. Every coffee shop has people with their laptops out working on something. You walk down the street and you pass the offices of companies you use every single day. Everything is just so close together. I had dinner at this really good Greek restaurant with another creator, grab brunch with friends, and spend a lot of time walking around the city. And you can't help but notice, but the default mode here is doing. Everyone's building or doing something. Everyone's excited about what they're working on.
To be honest, I think there's something about a place like SF you just can't replicate anywhere else. And I'm not saying you can't build great things from other cities, but being around other builders like this, meeting these teams in person, having these spontaneous conversations, it really does feel different. I'm definitely going to try to come back a few more times because every time I visit, I leave way more motivated than when I arrived. And I think that alone makes the trip worth it.
Anyways, that was the trip. 4 days in San Francisco. Huge thank you to everyone who took the time to meet up with me. I really appreciate it. If you like this vlog style video, let me know in the comments and we can do another one. I got a couple more trips coming up and I'm definitely down to make more of these.
If you like this content, check out my Instagram and Tik Tok. I post almost every other day about building productivity apps. And obviously, if you like this content, don't forget to subscribe. But thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you guys in the next video.