MCP: The First Sign Anthropic Got It

In my last post, I talked about why Claude Code stands out—it’s built on enduring fundamentals: command line, text files, markdown. Simple tools, powerful outcomes.

But this didn’t start with Claude Code.

In November 2024, Anthropic released MCP (Model Context Protocol). While everyone else was building vendor-locked AI integrations, Anthropic released an open protocol. That’s when I first took Claude seriously—not because the LLM was different, but because MCP showed they understood what developers actually need.

🔧 Why MCP Matters

Think about a car. Thousands of complicated parts under the hood, but you get a simple interface: steering wheel, pedals, gear shift. The complexity is hidden, not eliminated.

MCP does this for software, but better—you can just talk to it.

💡 The SQL Example

Here’s something every developer knows: SQL is powerful. It’s one of the most widely-used declarative languages. But ask someone to write “rows 10 through 15” or “remove duplicates while preserving the first occurrence ordered by date”—suddenly you’re looking up syntax.

You know what you want. You can say it in plain English. But converting that to exact SQL? That’s friction.

With an MCP server for your database, you just ask. The power remains, the friction disappears.

This is the pattern Anthropic saw early: most professionals only use a small subset of any tool’s capabilities—not because they don’t need more, but because the learning curve isn’t worth it. MCP offered a different path: keep the powerful tool, simplify the interface.

🧩 What MCP Revealed

MCP wasn’t just a protocol release. It revealed something about how Anthropic thinks: developers don’t want more complexity. They want power made accessible.

And they kept thinking this way. Claude Code embodies the same philosophy. MCP was just the first sign of a consistent pattern.

But here’s what really caught my attention: Anthropic released MCP as an open standard that anyone could copy. Why would they do that? And what else did they build into Claude Code with this same philosophy?

P.S. I drafted this in scattered thoughts across three days—Claude Code pulled it together in one session.