Claude Code Takes Pole Position

Hello, and happy Sunday! Agent-native coding is officially blowing up, and whether you’re ready to start building with agent-native software or still wondering what it’s about, we’re hosting two camps this week that are perfect for you. First, join us at Thursday’s Vibe Code Camp to watch more than a dozen of the very best vibe coders in action during an all-day livestream. Then, on Friday, paid subscribers are invited to Every’s first Agent-native Camp, where CEO Dan Shipper will go step-by-step from how the software works to how to use it yourself. We’ll be off Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but back in your inboxes Tuesday.—Kate Lee

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to get it in your inbox.

---

Knowledge base

“Vibe Check: Claude Cowork Is Claude Code for the Rest of Us” by Katie Parrott/Vibe Check: Developers have been losing their minds over Claude Code for months; now everyone else gets their turn. Cowork is a new tab in Claude’s desktop app that brings the same asynchronous, agentic workflow to nontechnical users. Hand off a task, come back an hour later—poof! It’s done. Dan Shipper ran an audit of his calendar that took an hour; Cora general manager Kieran Klaassen designed a 3D-printable chair using two Skills at once. The interface is rough, but no competitor is attempting anything like it. Read this for our day-zero verdict.

“OpenAI Has Some Catching Up to Do” by Dan Shipper/Chain of Thought: At a recent event, Dan asked what AI tools programmers are using daily. Almost everyone said Claude Code with Opus 4.5. A year ago, the whole room would have said GPT. OpenAI’s Codex is powerful and growing fast, but it’s built for senior engineers who want to read diffs and approve every change—a shrinking market. Meanwhile, the vibe coders building iPhone apps today will ship real software tomorrow, and whoever wins vibe coding wins how people work on their computers. Read this to understand how for all its trailblazing, OpenAI faces a real strategic challenge.

“The Boring Businesses That Will Dominate the AI Era” by Tina He/Thesis: As AI agents become the primary users of software—evaluating economics in milliseconds and switching without loyalty—startups building AI-native tools face a precarious future. The winners will be companies that control the infrastructure AI must flow through but cannot replace, writes Tina He: proprietary data, financial rails, compliance systems, workflow libraries. Read this for the five archetypes that’ll own this space.

“AI Can Build Anything. Social Dandelions Decide What Spreads” by Lewis Kallow: In 1933, 70 percent of Iowa’s farmers knew about a miraculous new corn seed that could save their crops—but only 1 percent adopted it. Why? High-risk ideas don’t spread through awareness; they spread through trust. Lewis Kallow traces a line from those skeptical farmers to ChatGPT’s explosive launch, revealing the sociology behind product adoption. Read this for his playbook.