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← People and their mental models

Boris Cherny's mental models

2 claims Boris Cherny made fit 2 mental models. Most often: Make it real, Value moves to what stays scarce. Everything they said here.

Models we see in what they say

Our reading: their claim applies the idea without naming it. The claim is theirs; filing it here is ours.

Make it real

Build a prototype; it settles arguments a description cannot.

Others who think with this model

Dylan FieldDavid Heinemeier HanssonFlora GuoIan SilberJosh PuckettJulie Zhuoand 3 more

Open the model page

Working prototypes have replaced product requirement documents.

  1. Boris Cherny Creator of Claude Code at Anthropic There’s just no way we could have shipped this if we started with static mocks and Figma or if we started with a PRD. Building Claude Code with Boris Cherny — The Pragmatic Engineernewsletter.pragmaticengineer.com · 4 Mar 2026
    Their wordsThere’s just no way we could have shipped this if we started with static mocks and Figma or if we started with a PRD.

    Where this was said

    ↗Building Claude Code with Boris Cherny — The Pragmatic Engineernewsletter.pragmaticengineer.com

    4 Mar 2026 · spoken · official transcript

Value moves to what stays scarce

When something becomes cheap and plentiful, the value moves to whatever is still rare next to it.

Others who think with this model

Adam MosseriAlexandr WangAnn HandleyAustin VernonJeff DeanJohn Baiand 1 more

Open the model page

The scarce skill is now context switching across parallel agents, not sustained deep work.

  1. Boris Cherny Creator of Claude Code at Anthropic It’s not so much about deep work, it’s about how good I am at context switching and jumping across multiple different contexts very quickly. Building Claude Code with Boris Cherny — The Pragmatic Engineernewsletter.pragmaticengineer.com · 4 Mar 2026
    Their wordsIt’s not so much about deep work, it’s about how good I am at context switching and jumping across multiple different contexts very quickly.

    Where this was said

    ↗Building Claude Code with Boris Cherny — The Pragmatic Engineernewsletter.pragmaticengineer.com

    4 Mar 2026 · spoken · official transcript