Episode · Lenny's Podcast · 2026-02-19
Lenny Rachitsky & Boris Cherny: books mentioned on Lenny's Podcast
Head of Claude Code: What happens after coding is solved | Boris Cherny
Boris Cherny is the creator and head of Claude Code at Anthropic. What began as a simple terminal-based prototype just a year ago has transformed the role of software engineering and is increasingly transforming all professional work.
Boris Cherny recommended Functional Programming in Scala by Paul Chiusano and others, Accelerando by Charles Stross, and The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu, and discussed A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge. Lenny Rachitsky recommended A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Functional Programming in Scala
Recommended“One is it is functional programming in Scala. This is the single best technical book I've ever read. It's very weird because you're you're not going to use Scala”
Where to get it
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Accelerando
Recommended“Second one is uh Accelerando by Stross. This is probably, you know, like my my big genre is uh is sci-fi. Uh like probably sci-fi and fiction. Accelerando is just this incredible book”
Where to get it
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The Wandering Earth
Recommended“Maybe I'll I'll do one more book. Uh The Wandering Earth, uh Wandering Earth by uh Cixin Liu. So, he's the guy that did uh Three-Body Problem. I think a lot of people know him for that.”
Where to get it
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A Fire Upon The Deep
Recommended“I'll quickly recommend a sci-fi book to you if you haven't read it. Have you read Fire Upon the Deep? Uh this is Vinge, right? Yeah, it's great.”
Where to get it
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A Deepness in the Sky
Discussed“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like how deepness in the sky also. I think those parts are the greatest. sequel is greater.”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (2) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
Passing The Three-Body Problem
“I actually I think Three-Body Problem was awesome, but I actually like his short stories even more. So, Wandering Earth is one of the short story collections and he just has some really, really amazing stories.”
Passing The Three-Body Problem
“Um I did watch I I I'm going to bring up another Cixin Liu, but The Three-Body Problem series on Netflix I I really loved. Um I thought that was like a great rendition of the book series.”