Houston Mechanical Engineer + Claude Code = Silicon Valley’s Nightmare

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I know Silicon Valley startups don't want to hear this.....

But the combination of someone in the trades with deep domain expertise and Claude Code will run circles around your generic software.

I talked to Cory LaChance this morning, a mechanical engineer in industrial piping construction in Houston. He normally works with chemical plants and refineries, but now he also works with the terminal

He reached out in a DM a few days ago and I was so fired up by his story, I asked him if we could record the conversation and share it.

He built a full application that industrial contractors are using every day. It reads piping isometric drawings and automatically extracts every weld count, every material spec, every commodity code.

Work that took 10 minutes per drawing now takes 60 seconds. It can do 100 drawings in five minutes, saving days of time.

His co-workers are all mind blown, and when he talks to them, it's like they are speaking different languages.

His fabrication shop uses it daily, and he built the entire thing in 8 weeks. During those 8 weeks he also had to learn everything about Claude Code, the terminal, VS Code, everything.

My favorite quote from him was when he said, "I literally did this with zero outside help other than the AI. My favorite tools are screenshots, step by step instructions and asking Claude to explain things like I'm five."

Every trades worker with deep expertise and a willingness to sit down with Claude Code for a few weekends is now a potential software founder.

I can't wait to meet more people like Cory.

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