Are they? Still seems way more convenient to just connect Claude to whatever people are already running.

Nobody is replacing excel anywhere.

davidhunter 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This isn’t true. Today we needed to build a model for our startup to forecast headcount. Usually I’d use excel. Instead Claude built an app for me. More powerful features in a fraction of the time.

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NichoPaolucci 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You built an "app" though - you could have done that with the model du jour, right?

You now have that app forever and nothing connects it to Claude other than the comment saying "this isn't just rounding — it's the single source of truth for the shared ledger boundary, not a formatting concern."

While I agree that spreadsheets are likely to be used less by regular folk, the idea that we'll become reliant on claude feels unlikely.

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BeetleB 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You're a single person in a startup.

For good or bad, big companies run on Excel.

At my last job - a large tech company - if it wasn't in Excel, then engineers and HR wouldn't use it. The team had a tool that collected data from various databases for the end user and did some analytics. The code was in Python. The output was an Excel file.

I asked why they didn't use pandas.

"Because the users are just going to take the output and put it in Excel."

It was a very successful tool. No one needed to use it so we had to ensure users liked it. All due to the team lead's wisdom on how big companies operate.

They also wanted us to autogenerate PowerPoint files. We gave up on that. The spec is a mess.

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davidhunter 3 hours ago | parent [-]

They run on excel today. They will run on code in the future. Excel was a way for normies to write code with all the limitations that came with it. Now normies can just write the code.

I used to work as a trader for a major investment bank. Everything was excel. I can’t see it staying that way.

	▲	BeetleB 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Now normies can just write the code. Normies know enough Excel to debug their "code". Will they be able to debug code AI produces? > I used to work as a trader for a major investment bank. Everything was excel. I can’t see it staying that way. How much of that Excel usage is part of the regular flow? As in several different teams using and sharing Excel files with a common template, so they can have macros that depend on the shape of data in the spreadsheet? If the traders are mostly just using it for their own individual analyses, I can believe you. If they're sharing the Excel files across disparate departments ... it will be tougher. A much simpler solution that a full blown replacement is simply having AI read, understand and edit Excel files. Why go with a completely different solution if the AI can solve all your problems within Excel?

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partiallypro 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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closewith 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My experience is that a lot of former Excel use cases have been completely subsumed by Claude/LLMs. Excel files may risk becoming just an interchange format.