---
title: "Eleven Steps to the Epiphany[^1]"
description: "When I asked Claude Cowork to read my tools folder, it learned how I work in eleven steps. That moment revealed something about where computing is headed."
categories: ["AI","product"]
keywords: ["Claude Cowork","Anthropic","AI agents","operating system","AI coworker","productivity"]
ai_summary: "What happens when your tools belong to the AI instead of the app? Claude Cowork offers an early answer."
date: 2026-01-13
lastmod: 2026-07-27
canonical_url: https://www.tomtunguz.com/thoughts-on-claude-coworker/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---


I asked [Claude Cowork](https://claude.com/blog/cowork-research-preview) to read my tools folder. Eleven steps later, it understood how I work.

{{< email_image src="jn6o2v94bajg7dspsldu" alt="Claude Cowork reading custom tools from the code_mode_tools folder" width="540" height="537" >}}

Over the past year, I built a personal operating system inside Claude Code : scripts to send email, update our CRM, research startups, draft replies. [Dozens of small tools wired together](/tools-evolution/). All of it lived in a folder on my laptop, accessible only through the terminal.

Cowork read that folder, parsed each script, & added them to its memory. Now I can do everything I did yesterday, but in a different interface. The capabilities transferred. The container didn't matter.

My tools don't belong to the application anymore. They're portable. In the enterprise, this means laptops given to new employees would have Cowork installed plus a collection of tools specific to each role : the accounting suite, the customer support suite, the executive suite.

The name choice must have been deliberate. Microsoft trained us on copilot for three years : an assistant in the passenger seat, helpful but subordinate. Anthropic chose cowork. You're working with someone who remembers how you like things done.

We're entering an era where you just tell the computer what to do. Here's all my stuff. Here are the five things we need to do today. When we need to see something, a chart, a document, a prototype, an [interface will appear on demand](/if-dos-spoke-english/).

The current version of Cowork is rough. It's slow. It crashed twice on startup. It changed the authorization settings for my Claude Code installation. But the promised power is enough to plow through.

[^1]: With apologies to Steve Blank's [Four Steps to the Epiphany](https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507).