Claude code creator shares an evergreen leadership lesson for users

Boris Cherny, creator of Anthropic's Claude Code, says the most common Claude prompting mistake is over-instruction. Speaking at a Y Combinator event, he told users to stop handing models step-by-step orders and instead describe the task, set guardrails, and define what success looks like. He also shared a framework for measuring enterprise AI returns beyond token-burn dashboards, arguing usage tracks activity, not value.