Claude Code Isn't What You Think
Excel for the Rest of Us
The hottest thing in AI right now is Claude Code.
Earlier this month a principal engineer at Google posted this on X: “I’m not joking and this isn’t funny. I gave Claude Code a description of the problem [we’d been working on for a year]. It generated what we built last year in an hour.”
Her post went viral, racking up over 8 million views. There were many more. One engineer built a docusign clone over a weekend. A tech CEO let AI take control of her life, managing her sleep, email inbox and personal finances.
The hype is going mainstream. On Friday the WSJ published an article titled “We have no idea how to code. So we got claude to code this article for us”. The article included a number of interactive graphics they created with the tool.
If you’re deep into AI, you might need a breath. We’re in our first hype moment of 2026.
If you’re not, here’s the skinny: where it’s overhyped, where it’s valuable, and what it means for you.
Side note: Claude Code and similar AI tools have major implications for programmers, software companies and IT departments. I’ll write a follow-up edition on that next week.
What Claude Code Actually Does
Claude Code uses AI to make building software simple. You type “create a website for my company”, answer a few questions and it builds it. Want a dashboard for expenses? Just ask. You never have to see a single line of code.
Claude Code promises software creation for the masses, but so far only techies are excited.
Why isn’t everyone else?
Some Assembly Required
Despite its promise, Claude Code still isn’t plug-and-play. The interface looks like MS-DOS, and installation tripped me up enough that I had to get my son’s help with a “git-bash” error message. 🤔
Hooking it up to outside tools also takes finagling. Want it to work with Gmail? You’ll need to configure third-party permissions. Put a website online? Connect it to a hosting provider. Use audio or translation plugins? Set up API keys and payment info.
We Already Have Apps for That
The tech CEO who gave Claude Code control over her life shared examples: she had it wake her up 6 hours after falling asleep, cancel unused subscriptions, fight parking tickets and send her stock alerts.
That’s impressive. But these tools exist already: Sleep Cycle, Rocket Money, WinIt, and Yahoo Finance.
Other examples got stranger: reprogramming a home automation system and growing a tomato plant with AI-controlled temperature and watering.
These are fun, but most of us aren’t looking for weekend projects. We just want things to work.
So what’s the point? It took me a few weeks to figure that out.
A New Excel
Things finally clicked when I built a tool to add my Ironman workouts to my Google calendar. I felt clever for about ten minutes. Then I discovered the feature already existed. 🤦
That failure taught me something. Claude Code isn’t really about programming. It’s a new Excel.
Excel was created for complex calculations. But it became a swiss-army knife: schedules, pro vs. con lists, lead tracking, grocery lists. We don’t think of it as “software”, it’s something we pull out when nothing else fits.
Claude Code is like that. It helps with problems that live in the cracks of your life. Problems that are too small, too specific, or too temporary to exist as real products.
Now I‘m on a roll. I used it to analyze my last three Ironmans and years of Garmin training history. I built a tool that ranks AI news based on past newsletter topics. Another one summarizes my week across three inboxes and calendars.
I even built stuff for other people: a bridge rules chatbot for my dad and an app to help my wife’s ESL students practice English before calling the doctor’s office.
My projects wouldn’t make money, but they are valuable to me. And they were so easy to build that I don’t mind if they only get used once.
Should You Try It?
If this sounds like more trouble than it’s worth, you’re probably right. The apps you use are more than enough for your day-to-day life, and they’ll only get better with AI.
If you’re adventurous, Claude Code is powerful but pretty technical. For a friendlier experience, ‘Cowork’ offers similar capabilities in a desktop app. Both require a $20/month subscription.
Start small: have it organize your downloads, build a study app or analyze some personal data.
You probably won’t create the next billion-dollar startup. But you’ll build something valuable to you. And that’s enough.
Dad Joke: Man, that AI installation was complicated but I finally “Claude” my way through it. 😂
Projects I completed with Claude Code:
English practice app (2 hours) → link
Bridge rules chatbot (2 hours) → link
AI News research (1 hour) → link
Ironman training analysis (30 min) → link
Thanks for reading!
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