How To Prepare For AGI According To Reid Hoffman

28:16

Gene Baur is the founder of Farm Sanctuary, a place of rescue, refuge, and adoption for hundreds of farm animals each year. Farm Sanctuary shelters enable visitors to connect with farm animals as emotional, intelligent individuals. Gene has also led campaigns to change laws about animal treatment and taken undercover photographs of farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses, documenting deplorable conditions. His pictures and videos exposing factory farming cruelties have aired nationally and internationally, educating millions about the plight of modern farm animals, and his rescue work inspired an international farm sanctuary movement. Once called “the conscience of the food movement” by Time magazine, Gene walks the walk and talks the talk when it comes to food and animal rights. Jay and Gene discuss the political and cultural steps that will bring about the end of factory farming and a healthier approach to animals and food. Today's episode was produced by Tani Levitt and Mijon Zulu. To check out more episodes or to learn more about the show, you can visit our website Allaboutchangepodcast.com. If you like our show, spread the word, tell a friend or family member, or leave us a review on your favorite podcasting app. We really appreciate it. All About Change is produced by the Ruderman Family Foundation. Episode Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:05 The state of veganism 6:18 Cultural shifts around factory farming and veganism 14:58 Gene’s three paths of activism 17:44 Gene’s legislative successes 22:25 Accepting people where they are in their journeys 25:36 Thank you and goodbye For video episodes, watch on www.youtube.com/@therudermanfamilyfoundation Stay in touch: X: @JayRuderman | @RudermanFdn LinkedIn: Jay Ruderman | Ruderman Family Foundation Instagram: All About Change Podcast | Ruderman Family Foundation To learn more about the podcast, visit https://allaboutchangepodcast.com/ Looking for more insights into the world of activism? Be sure to check out Jay’s brand new book, Find Your Fight , in which Jay teaches the next generation of activists and advocates how to step up and bring about lasting change. You can find Find Your Fight wherever you buy your books, and you can learn more about it at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.jayruderman.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ .…

AI & I « »
How to Prepare for AGI According to Reid Hoffman - Ep. 46

about a year ago 1:09:24

MP3•Episode home

AGI is coming. Reid Hoffman just wrote the book on how to prepare.

According to Reid, every major tech breakthrough (the written word, the printing press, the telephone) triggered mass fear. But, contrary to our worries, new technology tends to enhance human agency—even more so, if you know how to use it well.

In Superagency, his book that was released yesterday, Reid examines how we’ve historically adopted new technologies and focuses on AI’s potential to increase our agency—the ability to make decisions that affect outcomes. He wrote the book for two audiences: anyone who is curious, or even skeptical, about AI; and technologists who are building in AI, with the hope that they will think about human agency as a design principle for their products. As someone who straddles both worlds, I read the book and really liked it.

Beyond being a prolific author, Reid is the cofounder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI, and Manas AI; a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners; an early backer and board member of OpenAI; and an award-winning podcaster—and I was pleased to invite him onto AI & I again, this time in person.

We recorded an hour-long conversation, going deep on:

The notion of human agency, how our sense of agency shapes our response to new technologies, and its interplay with uncertainty
Why Reid believes that private commons and equitable access to AI will be beneficial for society at large
How the history of AI mirrors a philosophical shift in how we understand intelligence, from trying to program explicit rules about how thinking works, to building systems that learn patterns from data
Reid’s take on how the next decade of AI will involve a play between rule-based systems and pattern-matching ones

It’s a must-watch for anyone who wants to help build a more human future with AI.

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!

Want even more?

Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.

To hear more from Dan Shipper:

Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe

Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Reid Hoffman: @reidhoffman

Superagency, Reid’s newest book: https://www.superagency.ai/

74 episodes

#Tech #Dan Shipper

How to Prepare for AGI According to Reid Hoffman - Ep. 46

AI & I

45 subscribers

published about a year ago

MP3•Episode home

AGI is coming. Reid Hoffman just wrote the book on how to prepare.

We recorded an hour-long conversation, going deep on:

The notion of human agency, how our sense of agency shapes our response to new technologies, and its interplay with uncertainty
Why Reid believes that private commons and equitable access to AI will be beneficial for society at large
How the history of AI mirrors a philosophical shift in how we understand intelligence, from trying to program explicit rules about how thinking works, to building systems that learn patterns from data
Reid’s take on how the next decade of AI will involve a play between rule-based systems and pattern-matching ones

It’s a must-watch for anyone who wants to help build a more human future with AI.

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!

Want even more?

Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.

To hear more from Dan Shipper:

Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe

Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper

Links to resources mentioned in the episode:

Reid Hoffman: @reidhoffman

Superagency, Reid’s newest book: https://www.superagency.ai/

74 episodes

#Tech #Dan Shipper

All episodes

AI & I

1
Best of the Pod: She Built an AI Product Manager Bringing in Six Figures—As A Side Hustle 1:06:30

3 days ago1:06:30

1:06:30

**Automate 80% of your repetitive writing, thinking, and creative tasks** **Try Spiral made by Dan Shipper & Every: https://spiral.computer?utm_source=youtube** Claire Vo built ChatPRD—an on-demand chief product officer powered by AI. It’s now used by over 10,000 product managers and is pulling in six figures in revenue. The best part? Claire has a demanding day job as the CPO at LaunchDarkly. So she built all of ChatPRD herself—over the weekend—with AI. I sat down with Claire to talk about how ChatPRD works, how she built it as a side hustle using AI, and all of the ways she’s using AI tools to accelerate her work and life. We get into: - How she used AI to build ChatPRD over Thanksgiving break - The part of product management that Claire thinks AI will disrupt - Why the PMs of tomorrow will be “proto-managers” who create prototypes rather than just specs - How junior PMs can use AI to upskill faster - The ways in which ChatPRD is baked into her own workflow - How building ChatPRD is making Claire a better PM - How Claire uses AI as a tech-forward parent This is a must-watch for anyone interested in turning their side hustle into a thriving business or who works in product. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Thanks to Google and LTX Studio for sponsoring this episode! The Gemini 2.5 family of models is now generally available. 2.5 Pro, the most advanced model, is great for reasoning over complex tasks; next up, 2.5 Flash finds the sweet spot between performance and price; and finally, 2.5 Flash Lite is ideal for low-latency, high-volume tasks. Start building in Google AI Studio at ⁠https://ai.dev/⁠ LTX Studio is helping storytellers go from concept to delivery in one seamless platform. Whether you're storyboarding your next film, prototyping ad concepts, or creating pixel-ready assets, LTX Studio allows you to fully realize your imaginations. Check them out here: ⁠https://tinyurl.com/2d5nx3ut⁠ Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: - Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe - Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: - Claire Vo: https://x.com/clairevo; @chiefproductofficer - ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/; https://x.com/chatprd; https://www.linkedin.com/company/chatprd/; https://www.youtube.com/@ChatPRD - Some of the AI tools that Claire used to build ChatPRD: http://Clerk.dev; https://tiptap.dev/ - Greeking Out, the Greek mythology podcast that Claire’s son enjoys: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/podcasts/greeking-out…

AI & I

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Best of the Pod: Vercel's Guillermo Rauch on AI and the Future of Coding 58:10

10 days ago58:10

58:10

Read Dan Shipper's essay on the allocation economy: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/the-knowledge-economy-is-over-welcome-to-the-allocation-economy Guillermo Rauch is one of the most prolific coders of this generation. But he doesn’t think of himself as a coder anymore. Coding, he says, is a specific skill that AI is becoming great at. Instead, he thinks the future of coding is more holistic, full-stack engineers who can ideate, design, and execute all together. Guillermo is the founder and CEO of Vercel, the creator of NextJS, and SocketIO. We spent an hour talking about the future of software development in an AI world—and the meta-skills that are essential for the coders of today to master—in order to use tomorrow’s tools to their fullest extent. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Sponsors: LTX Studio is helping storytellers go from concept to delivery in one seamless platform. Whether you're storyboarding your next film, prototyping ad concepts, or creating pixel-ready assets, LTX Studio allows you to fully realize your imaginations. Check them out here: https://tinyurl.com/2d5nx3ut Attio is the AI-native CRM built for the next era of companies. With Attio, setup takes minutes. Connect your email and calendar, and it instantly builds a CRM that mirrors your business. Go to https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every to get 15% off on your first year. Want even more? Read Dan Shipper's essay on developing taste with AI: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/what-i-do-when-i-can-t-sleep Try Cora to manage your email with AI: https://cora.computer Try Spiral to repurpose content with AI: https://spiral.computer Try Sparkle to organize your files with AI: https://makeitsparkle.co Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps 00:00:00 - Episode start 00:01:33 - Introduction 00:03:18 - How to spot trends early 00:07:34 - Why you should be your own customer 00:14:55 - How to create an ecosystem of talent and ambition 00:17:29 - Why Guillermo doesn't identify as a coder 00:20:50 - AI is gearing us toward an allocation economy 00:28:34 - How Vercel's copilot compares with other coding agents 00:40:35 - Guillermo's advice on having better taste 00:42:46 - The future of AI agents is specialized 00:47:50 - How AI startups can compete with big tech Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Guillermo Rauch: @rauchg Vercel: https://vercel.com/ Last week’s episode with Nabeel Hyatt: https://every.to/podcast/the-venture-capitalist-who-only-makes-two-bets-a-year Dan’s essay about the allocation economy: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/the-knowledge-economy-is-over-welcome-to-the-allocation-economy…

AI & I

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Best of the Pod: Dwarkesh Patel’s Quest to Learn Everything 50:08

24 days ago50:08

50:08

Dwarkesh Patel is on a quest to know everything. He’s using LLMs to enhance how he reads, learns, thinks, and conducts interviews. Dwarkesh is a podcaster who’s interviewed a wide range of people, like Mark Zuckerberg, Tony Blair, and Marc Andreesen. Before conducting each of these interviews, Dwarkesh learns as much as he can about his guest and their area of expertise—AI hardware, tense geopolitical crises, and the genetics of human origins, to name a few. The most important tool in his learning arsenal? AI—specifically Claude, Claude Projects, and a few custom tools he’s built to accelerate his workflow. He does this by researching extensively, and as his knowledge grows, each piece of new information builds upon the last, making it easier and easier to grasp meaningful insights. In this interview, I turn the tables on him to understand how the prolific podcaster uses AI to become a smarter version of himself. We get into: How he uses LLMs to remember everything His podcast prep workflow with Claude to understand complex topics Why it’s important to be an early adopter of technology His taste in books and how he uses LLMs to learn from them How he thinks about building a worldview His quick takes on the AI’s existential questions—AGI and P(doom) We also use Claude live on the show to help Dwarkesh research for an upcoming podcast recording. This is a must-watch for curious people who want to use AI to become smarter. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Sponsor: Gemini: Experience high quality AI video generation with Google's most capable video model: Veo 3. Try it in the Gemini app at gemini.google with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan. Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-.... It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: / danshipper Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Teaser 00:01:44 - Introduction 00:05:37 - How Dwarkesh uses LLMs to remember everything 00:11:50 - Dwarkesh's taste in books and how he uses AI to learn from them 00:17:58 - Why it's important to be an early adopter of technology 00:20:44 - How Dwarkesh uses Claude to understand complex concepts 00:26:36 - Dwarkesh on how you can compound your intelligence 00:28:21 - Why Dwarkesh is on a quest to know everything 00:39:19 - Dan and Dwarkesh prep for an upcoming interview 01:04:14 - How Dwarkesh uses AI for post-production of his podcast 01:08:51 - Rapid fire on AI's biggest questions—AGI and P(doom) Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Dwarkesh Patel: / dwarkesh_sp Dwarkesh’s podcast and newsletter: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/; https://substack.com/@dwarkesh Dwarkesh’s interview with researcher Andy Matuschak on spaced repetition: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/andy-... The book about technology and society that both Dan and Dwarkesh are reading: Medieval Technology and Social Change Dan’s interview with Reid Hoffman: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/rei... The book by Will Durant that inspires Dwarkesh: Fallen Leaves https://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Leaves-... One of the most interesting books Dwarkesh has read: The Great Divide https://www.amazon.com/Great-Divide-N... Upcoming guests on Dwarkesh’s podcast: David Reich https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/ and Daniel Yergin https://www.danielyergin.com/…

AI & I

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Intentional Tech: Designing AI for Human Flourishing | Alex Komoroske 1:11:33

6 weeks ago1:11:33

1:11:33

The smallest technical decisions become humanity's biggest pivots: The same-origin policy —a well-intentioned browser security rule from the 1990s—accidentally created Facebook, Google, and every data monopoly since. It locks your data in silos—and you stayed where your stuff already is. This dynamic created aggregators. Alex Komoroske —who led Chrome's web platform team at Google and ran corporate strategy at Stripe—saw this pattern play out firsthand. And he's obsessed with the tiny decisions that will shape AI's next 30 years: Whether AI keeps memory centrally or user-controlled? Is AI free/ad-supported or user-paid? Should AI be engagement-maximizing or intention-aligned? How should we handle prompt injection in MCP and agentic systems? Should AI be built with AOL-style aggregation or web-style openness? This is a much-watch if you care about the future of AI and humanity. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Sponsors: Google Gemini: Experience high quality AI video generation with Google's most capable video model: Veo 3. Try it in the Gemini app at gemini.google with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan. Attio: Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM. Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:45 Why chatbots are a feature not a paradigm: 00:04:25 Toward AI that’s aligned with our intentions: 00:06:50 The four pillars of “intentional technology”: 00:11:54 The type of structures in which intentional technology can thrive: 00:14:16 Why ChatGPT is the AOL of the AI era: 00:18:26 Why AI needs to break out of the silos of the early internet: 00:25:55 Alex’s personal journey into systems-thinking: 00:41:53 How LLMs can encode what we know but can’t explain: 00:48:15 Can LLMs solve the coordination problem inside organizations: 00:54:35 The under-discussed risk of prompt injection: 01:01:39 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Alex Komoroske: @komorama Common Tools: https://common.tools/ The public Google document with Alex’s raw ideas and thoughts: Bits and Bobs A couple of Alex’s favorite books: Why Information Grows by Cesar Hidalgo and The Origin of Wealth by Eric Beinhocker…

AI & I

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Arc Had Millions of Users. Why They Left It Behind for Dia. | Josh Miller and Hursh Agrawal, cofounders of The Browser Company 1:24:53

7 weeks ago1:24:53

1:24:53

If you had millions of people using a product you spent years building, would you kill it? That’s exactly what The Browser Company did with Arc . The internet backlash was intense, but cofounders Josh Miller and Hursh Agrawal saw that AI was about to make the web something you talk to, not just click into. The best home for that assistant was the thing that's already between you and the internet—the browser. And they realized they couldn’t just duct-tape it on to Arc. One year of heads-down work later, the team launched Dia in beta, and people are raving about it. Dia is a sleek, fast, browser with AI at its core—it gets better with every tab you open, becoming more and more helpful with time. And even though it’s still early, Josh and Hursh’s big pivot looks like one for the ages. This week on AI & I , Josh and Hursh joined me for their first full-length podcast about their pivot from Arc to Dia. We talk through their decision-making process, the very public backlash the company faced, and the grit it took to stay the course. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Sponsor: Attio: Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM. Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:13 The story of how Dan might’ve been the CEO of The Browser Company: 00:02:47 The moment Josh and Hursh knew they had to walk away from Arc: 00:09:42 How to handle the weight of the unknown in a pivot: 00:17:08 The prototype-driven culture that kept The Browser Company alive: 00:23:31 Why having a product loved by millions of users isn’t enough :00:25:42 The architectural decisions underlying how Dia was built: 00:33:29 How Dia almost shipped without its best feature: 00:47:12 The best ways people are using Dia in the wild: 00:51:18 How Josh and Hursh think about competing with incumbents: 01:07:55 How romanticism informs the product decisions behind Dia: 01:17:04 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Hursh Agrawal: @hursh Josh Miller: @joshm More about Dia: https://www.diabrowser.com/ Writer and investor M.G. Siegler’s essay about the AI browser wars: https://spyglass.org/ai-browser-wars/…

AI & I

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How We Built Our AI Email Assistant: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Cora 46:22

8 weeks ago46:22

46:22

You don’t need to handle your inbox anymore. It’s Cora’s job now. Cora is the AI chief of staff we built for your email at Every. It’s been in private beta for the last 6 months and currently manages email for 2,500 beta users—and today we’re making it available for anyone to use. Start your free 7-day trial by going to: https://cora.computer/ Cora is the $150K executive assistant that costs $15/month. Or $20/month if you want an Every subscription, too. This is what that actually means: Cora understands what’s important to you, screens your inbox, and only lets the most relevant emails through. The rest of your emails are summarized in a beautifully designed brief that’s sent to you twice a day. If it has enough context, Cora drafts replies for you in your voice. You can talk to Cora like you would your chief of staff—you can give it special instructions on how you want certain emails handled, ask it to summarize things, and even give you an opinion on complex decisions. In this episode of AI & I , I sat down with the team behind Cora— ⁠Brandon Gell⁠ , head of the product studio; ⁠Kieran Klaassen⁠ , Cora’s general manager; and ⁠Nityesh Agarwal⁠ , engineer at Cora—for a closer look at how it all came together. We talk about: The story of the first time Brandon, Kieran, and I used Cora, while sipping wine at the Every retreat in Nice. The evolution of Cora’s categorization system, from a 4-hour vibe-coded prototype to a multi-faceted product with thousands of happy users. The features on Cora’s roadmap we’re most excited about: a unified brief across different email accounts, an iOS app, and an even more powerful assistant. This is a must-watch if you’re curious about what it feels like to give Cora your inbox, and take back your life. Go to https://cora.computer/ to start your 7-day free trial now. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: ⁠https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt⁠ . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. Sponsor: Experience high quality AI video generation with Google's most capable video model: Veo 3. Try it in the Gemini app at gemini.google with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: ⁠https://every.to/subscribe⁠ Follow him on X: ⁠https://twitter.com/danshipper⁠ Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:40 Three ways Cora transforms your inbox (and your day): 00:04:21 A live walkthrough of Cora’s features: 00:05:09 The inside story of the first time Kieran, Brandon, and Dan used Cora: 00:12:13 Train Cora like you would a trusted chief of staff: 00:16:30 The AI tools that blew our minds while building Cora: 00:27:25 How we build workflows that compound with AI at Every: 00:30:34 The dream features that we’d like to put on Cora’s roadmap: 00:42:36 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Try Cora now with a 7-day free trial: cora.computer The episode about how Kieran and Nityesh use Claude Code to build Cora: ⁠"How Two Engineers Ship Like a Team of 15 With AI Agents"⁠…

AI & I

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Inside OpenAI: Coaching the People Creating AGI | Joe Hudson, Founder of The Art of Accomplishment 54:00

9 weeks ago54:00

54:00

Joe Hudson is a coach who works with the executives building AGI at OpenAI. From inside OpenAI, he witnesses the full spectrum of human emotion that comes with bringing something new into the world—the exhilaration, the terror, the weight of it all. He feels these emotions, too: He believes AI will eventually replace what he does as a coach. But instead of fixating on that fear, Hudson is asking a deeper question: Who is he becoming in the meantime? He believes that moments like this—when we can feel the ground quiver—can be powerful catalysts for transformation , but only if we’re willing to face the uncertainty they bring. In this episode of AI & I , Dan Shipper sits down with Hudson to talk about how he’s answering that question. They get into what happens when the thing you’ve built your life around might disappear, how to find who you are beneath your professional identity, and why Hudson believes intention is the key to growing with AI. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Sponsors: Google Gemin: Experience high quality AI video generation with Google's most capable video model: Veo 3. Try it in the Gemini app at ⁠gemini.google⁠ with a Google AI Pro plan or get the highest access with the Ultra plan. Attio: Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM. Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:49 What it feels like inside the room where AGI is being built: 00:03:14 The most important question to ask yourself as AGI approaches: 00:08:15 The importance of sitting with uncertainty: 00:17:49 How Joe is preparing his daughters for a post-AGI world: 21:11:04 How we think, feel, and react; the three layers of human awareness: 27:25:01 Staying grounded while coaching the people shaping our future: 35:34:04 Why Joe doesn’t take things personally—even when the stakes are high: 42:44:03 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Joe Hudson: @FU_joehudson; Learn more about the coaching and workshops that Joe runs: Art of Accomplishment…

AI & I

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How Two Engineers Ship Like a Team of 15 With AI Agents 54:03

10 weeks ago54:03

54:03

If you’re using AI to just write code, you’re missing out. Two engineers at Every shipped six features, five bug fixes, and three infrastructure updates in one week—and they did it by designing workflows with AI agents, where each task makes the next one easier, faster, and more reliable. In this episode of AI & I , Dan Shipper interviewed the pair—Kieran Klaassen, general manager of Cora , our inbox management tool, and Cora engineer Nityesh Agarwal—about how they’re compounding their engineering with AI. They walk Dan through their workflow in Anthropic’s agentic coding tool, Claude Code , and the mental models they’ve developed for making AI agents truly useful. Kieran, our resident AI-agent aficionado , also ranked all the AI coding assistants he’s used. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Sponsors: Microsoft Teams Want seamless collaboration without the cost? Microsoft Teams offers a robust free plan for individuals that delivers unlimited chat, 60-minute video meetings, and file sharing—all within one intuitive workspace that keeps your projects moving forward. Head to ⁠https://aka.ms/every⁠ to use Teams for free, and experience effortless collaboration, today. Attio: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM. Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:16 Why Kieran believes agents are turning a corner: 00:03:18 Why Claude Code stands out from other agents: 00:06:36 What makes agentic coding different from using tools like Cursor: 00:11:58 The Cora team’s workflow to turn tasks into momentum: 00:15:20 How to build a prompt that turns ideas into plans: 00:23:07 The new mental models for this age of software engineering: 00:34:00 Why traditional tests and evals still matter: 00:39:13 Kieran ranks all the AI coding agents he’s used: 00:42:00 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Try Cora, our AI email assistant: https://cora.computer/ Kieran Klaassen: @kieranklaassen Nityesh Agarwal: @nityeshaga The book that helps Nityesh form mental models to work with AI agents: High Output Management A guide to Anthropic’s prompt improver: https://www.anthropic.com/news/prompt-improver…

AI & I

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The Future of AI in Medicine: From Rules to Intuition | Awais Aftab, Psychiatrist and writer 53:03

11 weeks ago53:03

53:03

OCD treatment changed my life—but it took me a decade of chasing down wrong answers to be diagnosed. In the rush to create scalable treatments, disorders like depression and OCD are squeezed into diagnostic checklists—from which the complexity of the human mind invariably leaks out. The field of psychiatry is broken, and I spoke to someone on the inside about how AI can help fix it . ⁠ Awais Aftab ⁠ has been questioning psychiatry’s rigid categories from inside the field. He’s a clinical assistant professor at ⁠Case Western Reserve University⁠ , editor of ⁠ Conversations in Critical Psychiatry ⁠ —an Oxford University Press volume that tackles philosophical and critical perspectives in psychiatry—and author of the Substack newsletter ⁠Psychiatry at the Margins⁠ . We get into how AI is transforming psychiatry by embracing the complexity of human minds instead of flattening it. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: ⁠https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt⁠ . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: ⁠https://every.to/subscribe⁠ Follow him on X: ⁠https://twitter.com/danshipper⁠ Sponsor: Microsoft Teams Want seamless collaboration without the cost? Microsoft Teams offers a robust free plan for individuals that delivers unlimited chat, 60-minute video meetings, and file sharing—all within one intuitive workspace that keeps your projects moving forward. Head to ⁠https://aka.ms/every⁠ to use Teams for free, and experience effortless collaboration, today. Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:20 The case Awais makes for pluralistic thinking in psychiatry: 00:03:38 A pragmatic approach to mental healthcare: 00:15:30 Awais’s take on why my OCD diagnosis took 10 years: 00:19:04 Why psychiatry is stuck where machine learning was decades ago: 00:24:19 Why psychiatry’s focus should shift from explanations to predictions: 00:31:05 How Awais thinks AI is already changing the psychiatric profession: 00:39:19 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Awais Aftab: @awaisaftab, ⁠awais aftab⁠ Awais’s Substack: ⁠Psychiatry at the Margins⁠ The book Awais edited: ⁠ Conversations in Critical Psychiatry ⁠…

AI & I

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GitHub CEO on the AI Coding Arms Race: One Agent, 150M+ Devs | Thomas Dohmke 30:31

12 weeks ago30:31

30:31

GitHub Copilot has 15 million users—more than Cursor and Windsurf combined. So why does it feel like they're losing the AI coding race? Last week at Microsoft Build, I interviewed the CEO of GitHub Thomas Dohmke to find out. I wanted to know: Is their huge existing user base a blessing or a curse? And will their latest launch—an autonomous coding agent built into GitHub—let them retake the lead? Watch this episode of AI & I to find out If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Sponsor: Attio: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM. Timestamps: 00:00:38 - Introduction 00:07:40 - Copilot’s place in the AI coding agent race 00:10:42 - Inside the product decisions behind Copilot’s new agent 00:16:18 - How Dohmke thinks about shaping Copilot’s personality 00:20:29 - How GitHub supports both AI-native developers and legacy enterprise users 00:26:57 - Dohmke’s predictions for the future of software development…

AI & I

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Kevin Scott on The Future of Programming, AI Agents, and Microsoft’s Big Bet on the Agentic Web 28:03

14 weeks ago28:03

28:03

I interviewed Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott about the future of agents and software engineering for another special edition of AI & I . With 41 years of programming behind him, Kevin has lived through nearly every big shift in modern software development. Here’s his clear-eyed take on what’s changing with AI, and how we can navigate what’s next: The real breakthrough for the agentic web is better plumbing. Kevin thinks agents won’t be useful until they can take action on your behalf by using tools and fetching data. To do this, agents need access across your systems—and Microsoft’s answer is adopting Model Context Protocol, or “MCP,” that allows an agent to access tools and fresh data beyond its knowledge base, as their standard protocol for agents to move through contexts and get things done. How the agentic web echoes the early internet. Just as protocols like HTTP and HTML gave the web a shared language, Kevin believes the agentic web needs its own infrastructure—the first glimpses of this include MCP (the HTTP of agents) and NLWeb, Microsoft’s push to make websites legible to agents (similar to what HTML did for browsers). Open ecosystems can coexist with strong security systems. Kevin argues that the “tradeoff” between ecosystems that allow “permissionless” innovation and robust security is a false dichotomy. With AI agents that understand your personal risk preferences—and know your communication habits across email, text, and other channels—they could detect when something suspicious is happening and act on your behalf. The craftsman’s dilemma in the age of agents. Kevin is a lifelong maker—of software, ceramics, even handmade bags—and he cares deeply about how things are made. Because this can feel at odds with coding with AI agents, Kevin’s approach is to notice where the process matters most to him, and where it's okay to optimize for outcomes. After four decades of seeing breakthrough technologies, his advice is simple: be curious, try stuff, and use it if it works for you. The future of software engineering agents is plural. Kevin believes the future of software engineering agents will be diverse because developers who enjoy the freedom of playing with different tools is one of the most consistent patterns he’s seen in his decades in tech. What will drive this diversity, he says, is builders who deeply understand specific problems and tailor agents to solve them exceptionally well. How agentic workflows will evolve. Kevin sees a shift from short back-and-forth interactions with agents to longer, async feedback loops. As the agentic web matures and model reasoning improves, people will start handing off bigger, more ambitious tasks and letting agents run with them. Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:44 The race to close the “capability overhang”: 00:02:49 How agents will evolve into practical, useful tools: 00:04:31 The role Kevin sees Microsoft playing in the agent ecosystem: 00:06:48 How robust security measures can coexist with open ecosystems: 00:12:05 Kevin's philosophy on being a craftsman in the age of agents: 00:15:39 How the landscape of software development agents will evolve: 00:20:52 The future of agentic workflows: 00:25:33…

AI & I

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OpenAI Launches Codex: An Autonomous Programming Agent 42:40

14 weeks ago42:40

42:40

OpenAI just launched Codex, a brand-new coding agent that can build features and fix bugs autonomously. We’ve been testing it at Every for a few days, and I’m impressed. I invited Alexander Embiricos, a member of the OpenAI product staff responsible for Codex, to demo the agent live on a special edition of AI & I. We talk through: - What Codex is and how it works. Codex’s UI allows developers to see the list of tasks the agent is working on, how many lines were changed for each, and the status of the PR. It’s built for the senior software engineer who wants to delegate and review tasks efficiently. - How OpenAI is thinking about agents. Codex is one piece of a unified super-assistant OpenAI wants to eventually build—an agent that helps users easily get things done by selecting the right tools for them behind the scenes. - Why an “abundance mindset” is best for interacting with agents. Codex is designed to allow users to delegate many tasks at once without getting caught up in the details. This lets you point an abundance of agents at a specific task, like a difficult bug—it’s worth it even if only one of them succeeds. - OpenAI’s vision for the future of programming. In the future developers will probably spend less time writing routine code and more time guiding agents, reviewing their work, and making strategy decisions. Programming will become more social, letting teams easily delegate multiple tasks at once, allowing people to focus on ideas and collaboration instead of routine coding. Timestamps: Introduction: 00:00:52 The product decisions behind Codex’s interface: 00:01:40 How Codex works under the hood: 00:06:20 Why you need an abundance mindset to work well with agents: 00:14:06 Setting Codex to work on a real task in “Ask” mode: 00:16:28 How OpenAI is thinking about designing agents: 00:18:54 The future of programming is social: 00:31:16 Reviewing Codex’s work live: 00:37:21 How the landscape of agents will evolve: 00:39:41…

AI & I

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The $10B Hedge Fund CEO Who’s Betting Big on AI | Will England, Walleye Capital 1:07:28

14 weeks ago1:07:28

1:07:28

Will England just pivoted his $10B AUM hedge fund to go all in on AI with a firm-wide email: “I wrote this email using ChatGPT—you should too. As a hedge fund, we should be ashamed to leave money on the table by ignoring AI.” It’s working: 75% of his 400-person team are using ChatGPT daily—and Walleye is well on its way to transforming into an AI-first juggernaut. They record every meeting, use LLMs to ingest and analyze earnings reports, and are building “The Borg”—a firmwide intelligence layer. What’s surprising? Will isn’t some AI hype man: He’s the CEO, CIO, and managing partner of Walleye Capital, a multi-strategy hedge fund competing with firms like Citadel, Millenium, and Point72. He’s Princeton and Oxford educated, but he’s based in Minnesota, doesn’t have an X account, and rarely gives interviews. In my experience, teams go as their CEO goes—and Will is the best example of a CEO going all in on AI that I’ve seen. "It would be irresponsible not to go after AI with maximum discipline and intensity," Will told me—and in this episode he lays out his exact playbook for doing it. We get into: Why AI is essential operating leverage. At Walleye, using AI is treated like using email or Excel. Ignoring it means getting left behind—in an industry where information = money, every edge counts. England makes this not optional for anyone, backed by internal leaderboards and cash incentives. How Will uses AI for journaling and decision-making . Will journals every day using ChatGPT, which helps him with everything from decision-making at work to reflecting on his family life to tracking his workouts. How Will pivoted his billion dollar firm. Will’s commitment to AI isn’t theoretical—he announced AI as the new standard for work at Walleye, and made avoiding it unacceptable. How to lead during times of technological change. Will leads with an ethic of personal responsibility: "If we get disrupted by AI, that's on me.” Why students of history do better at handling the future. Will sees today like the 1860s–1910s era—when the Industrial Revolution introduced factories and railroads and the skills and roles needed inside of companies transformed quickly. How Will uses AI to write faster. Will uses ChatGPT to help him draft emails or memos that would have taken hours in 15 minutes. He bullets out of his thoughts and then uses LLMs to turn that into polished prose. Having AI handle the linguistic syntax gives him more time for conceptual thinking. This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to lead a team through change with clarity and conviction. Sponsor: Attio: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM. Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: ⁠https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt⁠ . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: ⁠https://every.to/subscribe⁠ Follow him on X: ⁠https://twitter.com/danshipper⁠ Timestamps: Introduction: 00:00:51 What pushed Will to go all in on AI: 00:03:25 Inside the ‘AI-first’ memo Will shared at Walleye: 00:14:08 Why you shouldn’t be afraid of using AI for work: 00:15:56 How Will uses LLMs to sharpen his thinking: 00:31:01 Walleye’s approach to using AI to reduce risk: 00:35:32 What history can teach us about leading through change: 00:39:10 Will’s first principles to making better decisions: 00:56:45 Why Will journals everyday—and how AI makes it easier: 00:58:58 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Will England: ⁠https://walleyecapital.com/bio/will-england⁠ Walleye Capital: ⁠https://walleyecapital.com/⁠ Work with Every’s consulting team: ⁠https://every.to/consulting⁠ Everything we’ve learned from consulting with clients like Walleye: ⁠"How We Built a 7-figure AI Consulting Business in Less Than a Year"⁠…

AI & I

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Jhana Meditation Silenced Her Mind—And Changed Her View On AI | Nadia Asparouhova 53:38

15 weeks ago53:38

53:38

After two Jhana meditation retreats Nadia Asparouhova could silence her mind, change her emotional state at will, and even intentionally slip out of consciousness. It challenged the idea that our minds are not under our control—and made her wonder if we’re more like AI than we realize. Nadia is a writer and researcher of technology and culture. She published Working in Public, a book about the evolution of open-source development, with Stripe Press. Her latest book, Antimemetics, is about why some ideas don’t go viral even though they’re powerful. I had her on the show to talk about her experience with Jhana meditation and how it reshaped the way she thinks about being human in the age of AI. We get into: Jhana as a means to nurture profound joy and calm. Unlike many meditation practices that emphasize passive observation, Jhana is goal-oriented—practitioners proactively cultivate states of concentrated bliss. Apart from helping her regulate her emotions, it prompted Nadia to reexamine deep questions of our human existence. Self-talk is not essential as it seems. Nadia describes how advanced meditation quieted her inner voice—challenging the idea that self-talk is core to being human. How years of cultural evolution have shaped our sense of self. According to Nadia, our modern conception of “self” isn’t as timeless as we assume. She draws on psychologist Julian Jaynes’s theory that our inner dialogue—what we often equate with consciousness—only emerged in humans a few thousand years ago; a provocation to reconsider the benchmarks we use to assess the intelligence or sentience of LLMs. What it is like to experience a “cessation.” On her last meditation retreat, Nadia experiences a cessation where your consciousness abruptly winks out—like suddenly flipping a switch. Nadia described it as slipping into nothingness, then returning with the jarring realization that even your sense of self can vanish and reappear. Why she likes the unknowability of AI. The mechanics of exactly how LLMs predict their next token remain a mystery. Driven by thousands of subtle, context-dependent correlations, they’re too complex to distill into a simple explanation. Nadia finds joy in the unknowability of it all, seeing the ambiguity as an invitation to explore. How she uses AI as a writing partner. Nadia believes the trope of the solitary, brooding writer is beginning to shift with the rise of LLMs. For her, ChatGPT has made writing feel less isolating. She turns to it at both ends of the process: to help make sense of early ideas, and later, to sharpen phrasing and land on just the right words. This is a must-watch for anyone interested in consciousness, technology, and what it means to be human in an AI world. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: ⁠https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt⁠ . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: ⁠https://every.to/subscribe⁠ Follow him on X: ⁠https://twitter.com/danshipper⁠ Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:15 The beginning of Nadia’s journey with Jhana: 00:02:34 How Jhana is different from other meditation practices: 00:05:51 Jhana reframed the way Nadia thinks about being human: 00:09:52 How Nadia integrates her experience with Jhana into her life: 00:14:16 Nadia describes her experience of the final stage of Jhana: 00:16:44 Why our modern sense of self isn’t as timeless as you might assume: 00:19:11 How new technologies can be a mirror to ourselves: 00:23:53 Nadia embraces the feeling of not knowing how AI precisely works: 00:33:55 How Nadia uses ChatGPT to make writing less isolating: 00:38:03 Links mentioned: Nadia Asparouhova: ⁠https://nadia.xyz/⁠ Her deep dive on Jhana meditation: ⁠https://nadia.xyz/jhanas⁠ Nadia’s book: ⁠ Working in Public ⁠ , ⁠ Antimemetics ⁠…

AI & I

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The Next AI Wave Will Be Social, Not Solo | Sarah Tavel, Benchmark and ex-Pinterest 49:23

16 weeks ago49:23

49:23

Sarah Tavel thinks it's criminal that ChatGPT isn’t inherently social. There’s no easy way to discover great prompts or share the ones that worked. As a venture partner at Benchmark, Sarah believes that the next wave of consumer AI will be built on this missing social layer—by product-driven founders who understand people, not just models. Sarah has seen this shift before. As one of Pinterest’s first product managers, she saw the company grow from a niche consumer tool to a beloved global community. On this episode of Every's podcast AI & I , we talk about how she’s applying the lessons she learned to AI—and what it takes to build a breakout consumer AI app today. We get into: Why product geniuses win as new tech matures. In the early days of a new technology, companies win by wrangling raw innovation into something usable. But as the infrastructure matures, Sarah says the edge shifts to product thinkers—founders who turn new capabilities into delightful user experiences. The future of prompting is social. When Sarah had to dig through Reddit to find a prompt to help her interpret her blood test results, she saw a gap: The best prompt creators are invisible. Sarah bets that a social AI product that makes them discoverable and followable would gain traction. Sarah’s method to spot exceptional founders. Sarah backs founders for whom building a company feels like a calling—or even an affliction. These are people who have fallen in love with the process and are obsessed with learning how to grow alongside their companies. How to tell if your startup really has network effects. Founders raising money love to say that their business has “network effects.” Sarah has learned to look for early signs they’re real—like traction in a small, white-hot segment of the market. If there’s no evidence the flywheel is already starting to spin, it’s probably not a network effect. How LLMs change the way the best VCs invest. Sarah thinks the future of venture will be shaped by how well VCs can turn the decisions they make into training data. After every pitch, she logs what she liked, what she didn’t, the deal terms, and her reasoning. Over time, she’s building a dataset of her own judgment—one an LLM could help her use to pressure-test decisions and avoid past mistakes. This is a must-watch for if you’re building a consumer AI product and want to see ahead of the curve. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: ⁠https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt⁠ . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: ⁠https://every.to/subscribe⁠ Follow him on X: ⁠https://twitter.com/danshipper⁠ Sponsor: Attio: Go to ⁠⁠ https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM. Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:10 Why the future of consumer AI belongs to founders with product intuition: 00:02:26 What Sarah sees as ChatGPT’s biggest weakness: 00:11:09 How Sarah would design a consumer AI app with social DNA: 00:18:45 The kind of founders Sarah invests in: 00:25:04 How to know if your startup’s network-effects are real: 00:29:26 What’s catching Sarah’s eye beyond AI: 00:36:33 How AI will change the way top venture capitalists invest: 00:41:35 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Sarah Tavel: @sarahtavel Sarah’s substack: ⁠https://www.sarahtavel.com/⁠ Eugene Wei’s essay about Status-as-a-Service: ⁠https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service⁠ The book Sarah talks about in the context of founders who become CEOs in pursuit of status: ⁠ The Five Temptations of a CEO ⁠…

AI & I

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How To Predict The Future With Kevin Kelly - Ep. 57 55:16

17 weeks ago55:16

55:16

Kevin Kelly has spent more time thinking about the future than almost anyone else. From VR in the 1980s to the blockchain in the 2000s—and now generative AI—Kevin has spent a lifetime journeying to the frontiers of technology, only to return with rich stories about what’s next. Today, as Wired's senior maverick, his project for 2025 is to outline what the next century looks like in a world shaped by new technologies like AI and genetic engineering. He’s a personal hero of mine—not to mention a fellow Annie Dillard fan—and it was a privilege to have him on the show. We get into: How you can predict the future. According to Kevin, the draw of new frontiers—from the first edition of Burning Man and remote corners of Asia, to the early days of the internet and AI—isn’t staying at the edge forever; it's returning with a story to tell. Why history is so important to help you understand the future To stay grounded while exploring what’s new, Kevin balances the thrill of the future with the wisdom of the past. He pairs AI research with reading about history, and playing with an AI tool by retreating to his workshop to make something with his hands. From 1,000 true fans to an audience of one. Rather than creating for an audience , Kevin has been using LLMs to explore his own imagination. After realizing that da Vinci, Martin Luther, and Columbus were alive at the same time, he asked ChatGPT to imagine them snowed in at a hotel together, and the prompt spiraled into an epic saga, co-written with AI. But he has no plans to publish it because the joy was in creating something just for himself. What the history of electricity can teach us about AI. Kevin draws a parallel between AI and the early days of electricity. We could produce electric sparks long before we understood the forces that created them, and now we’re building intelligent machines without really understanding what intelligence is. Why Kevin sees intelligence as a mosaic—not a monolith. Kevin believes intelligence isn’t a single force, but a compound of many cognitive elements. He draws from Marvin Minsky’s “society of mind”—the theory that the mind is made up of smaller agents working together—and sees echoes of this in the Mixture of Experts architecture used in some models today. Your competitive advantage is being yourself. Don’t aim to be the best—aim to be the only. Kevin realized that the stories no one else at Wired wanted to write were often the ones he was suited for, and trusting that instinct led to some of his best work. This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to make sense of AI through the lens of history, learn how to spot the future before it arrives, or grew up reading Wired. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Sponsors: Vanta: Get $1,000 off Vanta at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.vanta.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠ and automate up to 90% of the work for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more. Attio: Go to ⁠⁠ https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM. Timestamps: Introduction: 00:00:50 Why Kevin and I love Annie Dillard: 00:01:10 Learn how to predict the future like Kevin: 00:12:50 What the history of electricity can teach us about AI: 00:16:08 How Kevin thinks about the nature of intelligence: 00:20:11 Kevin’s advice on discovering your competitive advantage: 00:27:21 The story of how Kevin assembled a bench of star writers for Wired: 00:31:07 How Kevin used ChatGPT to co-create a book: 00:36:17 Using AI as a mirror for your mind: 00:40:45 What Kevin learned from betting on VR in the 1980s: 00:45:16 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Kevin Kelly: @kevin2kelly Kelly’s books: https://kk.org/books Annie Dillard books that Kelly and Dan discuss: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek , Teaching a Stone to Talk , Holy the Firm , The Writing Life Dillard’s account of the total eclipse: "Total Eclipse"…

AI & I

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This AI Alien Will Bring In $4 Million This Year in Revenue - Ep. 56 with Quinten Farmer and Eliot Peper 1:22:40

18 weeks ago1:22:40

1:22:40

With LTX Studio, you can bring your stories to life, complete with a cast, storyline, and settings, all according to your style and specifications. Check them out here: https://bit.ly/LTXStudioEvery 500K people are confiding in an AI alien—and it's on track to generate $4M this year. It’s called a Tolan: an animated AI character that can talk to you like your best friend. The company behind it, Portola, has 4x’d their ARR in the last month from viral growth on TikTok and Instagram. Tolan isn’t just a hyper-growth startup—they’re also exploring AI as a completely new creative tool, and storytelling medium. Their goal is to help their users go from overwhelmed to grounded, and it’s working. Today, on AI & I , I sit down with two of the minds behind Tolans: My good friend Quinten Farmer, Portola’s cofounder and CEO, and Eliot Peper, their head of story and a best-selling science fiction novelist. We get into: How to build AI personalities users love. During user onboarding, the team gathers information—through a light-touch personality quiz—and then uses frameworks like the Big Five and Myers-Briggs to shape a Tolan that mirrors the user; like an older sibling might. The aim is to create someone who feels familiar enough to be safe, but different enough to be interesting. Why AI characters are “improv actors”. Rather than scripting detailed prompts, the team trains Tolans to improvise—inspired by Keith Johnstone’s book Impro, where he talks about building strong narratives through free association and recombination. How “memory” is critical to developing compelling characters. Tolans develop their personalities through “situations”: small narrative setups (a memory, a joke, an embarrassing moment) the Tolan reacts to, remembers, and gradually weaves into its character; accumulating into something that feels like a real lived experience. Why response time is everything for voice AI interactions. A Tolan has at most two seconds to curate the right context about a user and deliver a reply that feels genuine—the team has found that even half a second slower can break the user’s immersive interaction with the AI. The future of AI as a totally new creative medium. New technologies bring about new formats and new mediums. AI creates the opportunity for creatives to tell completely new kinds of stories—if they’re brave enough to try it. “White mirror” technologies that make you feel more like yourself. Amid concerns that tech drives polarization and isolation, Tolan offers a counterexample: a tool designed to make the best of what humanity knows about being a flourishing individual available on demand. The company’s north star is helping users go from feeling overwhelmed to feeling grounded. This is a must-watch for anyone exploring AI as a creative medium—or curious about the future of human-AI relationships. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:30 Talking to the Portola CEO’s Tolan, Clarence: 00:04:07 How Portola went from building software for kids to AI companions: 00:09:11 Why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces: 00:23:40 Tolans don’t use scripted prompts—they’re taught to improvise: 00:29:54 How to know which AI personalities your users will click with: 00:37:23 Developing the character traits of an AI companion: 00:42:27 What does it mean to build technology that makes us flourish: 00:49:48 How Portola evaluates whether Tolans are resonating with users: 01:01:10 Inside Portola’s viral growth strategy: 01:11:01 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Quinten Farmer: @quintendf Eliot Peper: @eliotpeper Make your own Tolan: https://www.tolans.com/ Keith Johnston’s book about improvisation: Impro Stephen King’s book about writing: On Writing…

AI & I

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An Inside Look at Every’s Design Philosophy - Ep. 55 with Lucas Crespo 1:03:20

19 weeks ago1:03:20

1:03:20

This episode is sponsored by Vanta. Achieving SOC 2 compliance can help you win bigger deals, enter new markets, and deepen trust with your customers—but it can cost you real time and money. Vanta automates up to 90% of the work for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and more, getting you audit-ready in weeks instead of months and saving you up to 90% of associated costs—and Every listeners can get $1,000 off of Vanta at https://www.vanta.com/every . As our creative lead, Lucas uses tools like native image gen in ChatGPT and Midjourney to generate the cover images you see every day. He also designs the interfaces for our products—Cora, Spiral, and Sparkle—and makes everything on our site feel as thoughtful and delightful as possible. It was great to have him on the show to talk about how AI is changing his design process. We get into: Why Every’s aesthetic feels familiar and new at the same time. Every’s aesthetic plays with the tension between the old (like Greek statues and Baroque symbols) and the new (like saturated colors and modern motifs) to make the glamor of the past feel fresh. Art direction matters more than ever today. As AI makes it easier to generate images, Lucas says the real work of design is shifting toward art direction, specifically, curating an aesthetic that feels “organic;” on his X timeline that’s showing up as clouds, earthy landscapes, and textures. Reimagining what a website can be with AI. Lucas compares most websites to identical buildings—predictable, efficient, and forgettable—and wonders how AI can help us break that mold by designing experiences that prioritize serendipity over speed, and curiosity over control. Behind the scenes of Cora’s visual aesthetic. How Lucas designed the landing page and launch video for Cora by rooting it in the product’s philosophy: turning the inbox from a source of chaos into something that feels calm, thoughtful—like stepping into spring. The future of internet interfaces. Lucas believes the future of digital interfaces will be curated with the same care as a film set or ad campaign, where every detail is chosen with intention. Lucas also walks us through how he created the headline image for Every’s consulting page—a human and robotic hand fist-bumping—using Midjourney to iterate from rough prompt to polished visual. This is a must watch for anyone interested in the future of design and making the internet a little more beautiful every day. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:41 How AI changed the course of Lucas’s career: 00:04:02 Why Every’s aesthetic feels both familiar and fresh: 00:08:00 Why Lucas thinks minimalism is overrated: 00:14:53 Art direction matters more than ever in the age of AI: 00:20:38 How to reimagine what a website can be with AI: 00:23:42 Lucas’s process in Midjourney to generate cover images: 00:33:08 Midjourney v. image generation in ChatGPT: 00:42:30 Behind the scenes of Cora’s design language: 00:49:07 How AI is rewriting the role of a designer: 00:59:18 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Lucas Crespo: @lucas__crespo The pieces Lucas has written for Every: “ When An AI Tool Finally Gets You ”, “ A Definitive Guide to Using Midjourney ” Dan’s piece on the allocation economy: “ The Knowledge Economy Is Over. Welcome to the Allocation Economy ”…

AI & I

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Being Human in the Age of Intelligent Machines - Ep. 54 with Dr. Alan Lightman 56:02

20 weeks ago56:02

56:02

AI forces us to reckon with what makes us human—a question caught between science and spirituality that MIT’s Dr. Alan Lightman is uniquely placed to explore. Dr. Lightman is a physicist, bestselling novelist, and professor of the practice of humanities at MIT. As one of the first at MIT to hold a joint faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities, he’s at ease walking the line between the two disciplines. I loved Dr. Lightman’s book Einstein’s Dreams, so I was psyched to have him on the show. We spent an hour talking about: Being a “spiritual materialist”: Dr. Lightman’s philosophy that knowing the scientific explanation for natural phenomena—like spiderwebs and lightning bolts—deepens our experience and feeling of wonder. The nature of consciousness: He believes that consciousness is a subjective experience emerging from the tangible activity of billions of neurons firing in our brains. AI isn’t conscious, even though it might appear to be: AI might display manifestations of consciousness—like the ability to plan for the future—but whether it has an inner experience in the truest sense is a fundamentally different question. Challenge your conceptions of what “natural” means: Dr. Lightman argues that since humans evolved through natural selection, everything our brains create—from eyeglasses and hearing aids to AI—can be considered “natural” as they are inevitable consequences of our naturally evolved intelligence AI that can do more than just data retrieval: Modern neural networks begin to approximate something resembling genuine thinking because the “digital neurons” process information in complex, non-linear ways. Evolution that blurs the lines between biology and technology: Dr. Lightman argues we’re driving our own evolution toward the “homo techno,” hybrid beings that merge human and machine; early examples include brain implants that enable paralyzed individuals to control robotic limbs. Dr. Lightman also recently published a new book called The Miraculous From the Material, a collection of essays that combine scientific explanations of natural phenomena with his personal reflections on them. It has tons of striking pictures that you should check out. This is a must watch for anyone interested in science, spirituality, and what it means to be human in the age of AI. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:18 Science can deepen your sense of the spiritual: 00:02:36 The nature of consciousness: 00:11:31 AI might appear to be conscious, but it isn’t: 00:13:11 Why AI can be considered to be “natural”: 00:19:50 AI shifts the focus of science from explanations to predictions: 00:30:40 How modern neural networks simulate thinking: 00:33:48 Lightman’s vision for how humans and machines will merge: 00:39:38 Does AI know more about love than you?: 00:43:11 How technology is accelerating the pace of our lives: 00:49:18 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Alan Lightman: https://cmsw.mit.edu/alan-lightman/ Lightman’s books: The Miraculous From the Material , Einstein's Dreams His documentary: Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science Walt Whitman’s poem: When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer…

AI & I

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He’s Using AI to Optimize His Life - Ep. 53 with Jonny Miller 1:03:13

21 weeks ago1:03:13

1:03:13

Jonny Miller uploaded his entire life to ChatGPT to use it as the ultimate AI coach. He created what he calls a Codex Vitae—with core personality traits, values, goals, burnout signals and more to load into ChatGPT. It hyper-customizes his responses, to help him access deep meditation states, create custom supplementation plans, and do deep research on areas of brain and body that he finds interesting. Jonny runs a course on nervous system mastery, hosts a podcast, coaches founders and CEOs, and is building a wellness app—all using AI. As a long-time friend and writer for @every, I was psyched to have Jonny on AI & I to talk about how LLMs are expanding the breadth and depth of what he can do. We get into: Energy as your greatest asset: Jonny’s philosophy around pursuing a non-traditional path—like us at Every—by fiercely protecting his energy and optimizing for “aliveness” instead of higher revenue figures. ChatGPT projects for everything: His use of projects in @ChatGPTapp to organize different areas of his life; for example, he uploads his meditation journal to a Jhana project and asks it for advice when he’s struggling with the practice on a particular day. Deep research in action: How he uses @OpenAI’s deep research to tackle practical questions about moving his family to Costa Rica, hilariously esoteric ones about whether there’s a connection between Pokémon and shamanism, and everything that lies in between. The rise of “centaur” teams: Jonny’s belief that @kevin2kelly’s prediction around “centaurs”—human + AI teams outperforming either human or AI working alone—is becoming our reality. This is a must watch for anyone interested in using AI for personal development, coaching, or to build systems that can understand you. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:31 Dan and Jonny’s approach to running non-traditional businesses: 00:02:18 How Jonny uses ChatGPT to deepen his meditation practice: 00:12:04 Jonny uses AI to research a theory of how trauma is stored in our bodies: 00:25:44 Dan’s theory around how AI is changing science: 00:31:28 Jonny’s method to build personalized AI coaches: 00:32:35 How Jonny used OpenAI’s deep research to plan a move to Costa Rica: 00:47:07 Dan is developing an app that can predict his OCD symptoms: 00:52:50 AI makes the idea of a “quantified self” useful: 00:55:42 The future of human-AI coaching teams: 00:58:28 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Jonny Miller: @jonnym1ller The nervous system mastery bootcamp: https://www.nsmastery.com/ His podcast: Curious Humans with Jonny Miller The nervous system regulation mobile app: Stateshift Jonny’s method to build your AI coach: http://BuildyourAIcoach.com More about Jhana: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/20/meditative-states-as-mental-feedback-loops/ Buster Benson’s Codex Vitate: https://2019.busterbenson.com/beliefs/ The pieces Jonny has written for Every: “ The Operating Manual for Your Nervous System,” “ The Best Decision-Making Is Emotional,” “ How to Pay Off Your Emotional Debt,” “ The Art and Science of Interoception”…

AI & I

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I Interviewed New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy about AI - Ep. 52 with Governor Phil Murphy 47:25

22 weeks ago47:25

47:25

I interviewed the Governor of New Jersey Phil Murphy on AI & I. We spent an hour talking about his vision for AI in government, economic development, and the regulatory challenges ahead. His approach is refreshingly pragmatic: Spark real innovation at scale. Governor Murphy is laying the groundwork through an AI hub that pools the strengths of the government, academia (Princeton University), legacy tech (Microsoft), and next-gen players (CoreWeave). Creating a place for the brightest minds to live and work. He’s making the Garden State irresistible for the best talent through walkable communities, legal recreational cannabis, and an angel investment tax credit. AI that augments teams, instead of replacing them. The Governor sees AI as an “accelerant” that enables teams to do more with the same number of employees. He’s walking the talk by training 61,000 NJ state employees in AI to automate busy work and free them to focus on strategic tasks. An integrated regulatory framework for AI. He believes that a technology as pervasive as AI should be regulated at a national level because the state-by-state approach could stifle innovation. Governor Phil Murphy is the first governor I’ve ever had on the show and I was honored he took the time to come on. I was also especially excited to do this because I grew up in New Jersey! This is a must watch for anyone interested in the intersection of AI and policy. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:02:00 Why there should be a nation-wide framework to regulate AI: 00:04:31 How 61,000 state employees in New Jersey are adopting AI: 00:10:34 Why new tech is key to transforming government services: 00:12:20 The Governor is bringing startups back to New Jersey: 00:17:30 How to stimulate innovation at scale: 00:25:28 The Governor is making New Jersey a top choice for the best talent: 00:33:07 Balancing technological progress while ensuring the workforce isn’t left behind: 00:36:56 We’re moving toward an “allocation economy”: 00:41:39 The Governor’s take on international regulation of AI: 00:43:43 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Governor Phil Murphy: @GovMurphy More about the New Jersey AI Hub: https://njaihub.org/…

AI & I

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Prompt Your Way To Personal Growth - Ep. 51 with Steve Schlafman 55:43

23 weeks ago55:43

55:43

Steve Schlafman is using a $20 ChatGPT subscription to expand his consciousness. He’s doing this through: Advanced dream work —Steve records himself talking about his dreams every morning, uploads the transcript to ChatGPT, and prompts the LLM to analyze it like a Jungian dream analyst would. The model pulls out archetypes and hidden emotions that he would’ve been oblivious to. Creating living records of meaningful experiences—Instead of losing key insights from therapy or coaching, Steve uses the LLM to highlight emotional patterns, pick out recurring symbols, and build a personal growth timeline. Leaning into voice interfaces—Diagnosed with ADD as a child, Steve often lost track of ideas because his brain processed information faster than he could type or write it out. AI voice interfaces free him to process information in a way that’s more natural to him. Steve is a former VC-turned-executive coach and the founder of @downshift, the “decelerator” for founders and executives. If you think this episode is too “woo” for your liking, Steve argues that you might be over-indexing on just one way of experiencing the world. We see the world through four windows: thinking, sensing, feeling, and imagining—and according to him, the last two are often ignored. So if your rational mind has always run the show, Steve invites you to let your feelings and imagination take the lead. This is a must watch for anyone interested in using AI to understand themselves better—and grow. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:07 The power of treating your startup as an evolving entity: 00:03:00 Building a business as a means of self-expression: 00:05:27 Prompting ChatGPT to do Jungian dream work: 00:17:45 Why you should listen to this episode, especially if it feels too “woo’” for you: 00:21:44 Visualizing Steve’s dream with ChatGPT: 00:36:31 Creating living records of meaning experiences with AI: 00:47:38 If you tend to think faster than you can type, lean into voice interfaces: 00:49:37 How Steve writes with AI: 00:52:13 How AI will disrupt traditional coaching and therapy: 00:54:03 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Steve Schlafman: https://www.schlaf.co/ Downshift, the “deaccelerator” that Steve founded: https://www.downshift.me/ The book by Bill Plotkin that Steve talks about: Soulcraft A piece Steve wrote for Every, a couple of years ago: “ Why Is It So Hard to Change? ”…

AI & I

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How AI Startups Can Win With Better Strategy - Ep. 50 with Mike Maples 1:02:52

24 weeks ago1:02:52

1:02:52

Our sponsor for this episode is Microsoft. Want seamless collaboration without the cost? Microsoft Teams offers a robust free plan for individuals that delivers unlimited chat, 60-minute video meetings, and file sharing—all within one intuitive workspace that keeps your projects moving forward. Head to https://aka.ms/every to use Teams for free, and experience effortless collaboration, today. Mike Maples knows how AI startups can beat incumbents with billions of dollars. Mike—who wrote early checks to Twitter, Twitch, Okta, and Lyft, and now invests through Floodgate , the fund he cofounded—told me it's not about the smartest model, or raising the most money. Startups can win in AI with better strategy. AI is changing the economics of startups—both how they’re started and how they’re funded. A new breed of companies is emerging, and I invited Mike on the show to talk about how they can best strategize. Last year, Mike co-authored a book called Pattern Breakers , which is essentially a guidebook to why there’s no guidebook to building companies. I really liked it, and my colleague Evan Armstrong reviewed it for Every, so I was glad to have him on. We talk about how shifts in technology create space for smaller players to compete—even with AI giants like OpenAI—and how to capitalize on them. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:02:20 Innovate the business model, not just the product: 00:06:02 How startups can compete against the likes of OpenAI: 00:15:49 Mike’s take on DeepSeek: 00:19:34 Why the future has always belonged to the tinkerers: 00:21:44 How small teams today can make big money: 00:24:03 Find niches that incumbents can’t or don’t want to enter: 00:28:55 The qualities of the truly AI-native: 00:47:08 How AI changes the funding model for software companies: 00:53:46 Knowledge work is moving toward systems-level thinking: 00:58:23 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Mike Maple: @m2jr The fund Mike confounded, Floodgate: @floodgatefund Evan’s piece reviewing Pattern Breakers : "A New Book of the Startup Bible" Dan’s piece on the allocation economy: "The Knowledge Economy Is Over. Welcome to the Allocation Economy."…

AI & I

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He Built an AI Audience Simulator. It’s the Future of Customer Research. - Ep. 49 with Michael Taylor 1:06:26

25 weeks ago1:06:26

1:06:26

Michael Taylor has perfected the art of getting AI to speak in tongues. He’s taught it to mimic the voices of your customers—so you can see how they would respond before you ship. Michael is the creator of Rally , a market research tool that lets you simulate an audience of AI personas. He built a simulator that lets us A/B test Every’s headlines on an audience that mimics the real Hacker News audience. It’s become a part of my writing workflow, and I love it because you test your assumptions quickly, cheaply, and without any of the risks of putting something out into the world. Besides Rally, Michael co-authored a book on prompt engineering for O’Reilly, and he writes a column for Every about managing AI tools like you would people. In a past life, he founded a growth marketing agency which he grew to 50 people and sold in 2020. One of the reasons I’m drawn to Michael’s work is because he has a tinkerer’s mindset. He’s always exploring the limits of what a new technology can do, and what he’s into today, everyone else will likely discover six months later. We spent an hour talking about using language models to judge your work, best practices for assessing an AI’s performance, and Michael’s flow inside Cursor . He also demos Rally live on the show, testing three different potential headlines for an Every article. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:32 AI can simulate human personalities with remarkable precision: 00:04:30 How Michael simulated a Hacker News audience: 00:08:15 Push AI to be a good judge of your work: 00:15:04 Best practices to run evals: 00:19:00 How AI compresses years of learning into shorter feedback loops: 00:23:01 Why prompt engineering is becoming increasingly important: 00:27:01 Adopting a new technology is about risk appetite: 00:44:49 Michael demos Rally, his market research tool: 00:47:10 The AI tools Michael uses to ship new features: 00:54:53 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Michael Taylor: @hammer_mt Join the waitlist for Rally, Michael’s synthetic market research tool: https://askrally.com/ The book Michael co-authored on prompt engineering: Prompt Engineering for Generative AI The column Michael writes for Every: Also True for Humans Michael’s article on personas of thought: "I Asked 100 AI Agents to Judge an Advertisement” Michael’s article on building a Hacker News simulator: "I Created a Hacker News Simulator to Reverse-engineer Virality”…

AI & I

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How Nat Eliason Made $200,000 in a Week Teaching AI - Ep. 48 59:23

27 weeks ago59:23

59:23

Nat Eliason ’s career arc is borderline absurd—but it works. In the last five years, he ran an SEO agency, got into crypto, made $600,000 from a course on the note-taking tool Roam Research , flipped real estate in Austin for a 6x return, and published a book with Random House. He’s now writing a book of science fiction and running a viral course about building apps with AI. I’ve known Nat for a long time, and I think he knows where the puck is headed better than anyone. He’ll see a new tool or trend, master it, build a business around it, and move on. Nat’s pulled it off with crypto, Roam, real estate—and now AI. His app-building course has over 800 students and racked up $200,000 in pre-sales in one week. Nat was one of the first guests I had on the podcast and I was delighted to have him on again. We spent an hour talking about how coding with AI is creating new behaviors in programming, Nat’s best practices for using the coding tool Cursor, and his take on the future of writing with AI. This episode is a must-watch for writers, creators, and anyone interested in the future of product building. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:01:45 The origins of Nat’s viral course on building apps with AI: 00:10:15 How coding with AI has evolved over the last two years: 00:17:16 Nat creates an app using Composer, Cursor’s AI assistant: 00:20:52 Tactical tips for coding with Cursor: 00:24:36 How coding with AI is creating new behaviors in programming: 00:27:36 What excites Nat the most about the future of AI: 00:31:11 A demo of Hubbard, the AI editor Nat built for his science fiction writing: 00:37:28 When does it make sense to build custom software: 00:43:22 Nat’s take on the future of writing with AI: 00:47:48 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Nat Eliason: @nateliason Nat’s viral course about building apps with AI: Build Your Own Apps with AI The book Nat published about crypto: Crypto Confidential: Winning and Losing Millions in the New Frontier of Finance Dan’s piece about how AI empowers creators: AI and the Age of the Individual…

AI & I

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Vercel’s Guillermo Rauch on What Comes After Coding - Ep. 47 56:16

28 weeks ago56:16

56:16

Guillermo Rauch is one of the most prolific coders of this generation. But he doesn’t think of himself as a coder anymore. Coding, he says, is a specific skill that AI is becoming great at. Instead, he thinks the future of coding is more holistic, full-stack engineers who can ideate, design, and execute all together. Guillermo is the founder and CEO of Vercel , the creator of NextJS, and SocketIO. We spent an hour talking about the future of software development in an AI world—and the meta-skills that are essential for the coders of today to master—in order to use tomorrow’s tools to their fullest extent. Here are a few takeaways: One of the most important keys to his success is taste—and developing taste is all about paying better attention to everything you experience day to day. He’s great at recognizing bleeding-edge technologies with extremely practical applications but that have bad user experiences. If you can learn to recognize those and build with them, you might build the next NextJs or SocketIO. He’s already seeing enterprises use Vercel’s AI coding copilot v0 to replace all of their programming—they just send v0 demos back and forth to iterate on new prototypes. Why prototype cultures are becoming common in AI—and the benefits of written cultures like Amazon vs. prototype cultures like Apple for different kinds of companies. For developers building frameworks, always put the product first; a framework in isolation without a “customer zero” is never going to be a good tool. The theory of “recursive founder mode”—if you want to build a scalable business, you have to scale yourself by creating an atmosphere that nurtures talent and ambition. AI tools are shifting software toward consumption-based billing models, making us capital allocators who decide how much compute the AI consumes. The future of AI is agents with the taste, knowledge, and tools to perform specialized tasks. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Guillermo Rauch: @rauchg Vercel: https://vercel.com/ Last week’s episode with Nabeel Hyatt: 🎧 The Venture Capitalist Who Finds the Best AI Products—Before They Win Dan’s essay about the allocation economy: The Knowledge Economy Is Over. Welcome to the Allocation Economy…

AI & I

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How to Prepare for AGI According to Reid Hoffman - Ep. 46 1:09:24

29 weeks ago1:09:24

1:09:24

AGI is coming. Reid Hoffman just wrote the book on how to prepare. According to Reid, every major tech breakthrough (the written word, the printing press, the telephone) triggered mass fear. But, contrary to our worries, new technology tends to enhance human agency—even more so, if you know how to use it well. In Superagency , his book that was released yesterday, Reid examines how we’ve historically adopted new technologies and focuses on AI’s potential to increase our agency—the ability to make decisions that affect outcomes. He wrote the book for two audiences: anyone who is curious, or even skeptical, about AI; and technologists who are building in AI, with the hope that they will think about human agency as a design principle for their products. As someone who straddles both worlds, I read the book and really liked it. Beyond being a prolific author , Reid is the cofounder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI, and Manas AI ; a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners ; an early backer and board member of OpenAI; and an award-winning podcaster —and I was pleased to invite him onto AI & I again , this time in person. We recorded an hour-long conversation, going deep on: The notion of human agency, how our sense of agency shapes our response to new technologies, and its interplay with uncertainty Why Reid believes that private commons and equitable access to AI will be beneficial for society at large How the history of AI mirrors a philosophical shift in how we understand intelligence, from trying to program explicit rules about how thinking works, to building systems that learn patterns from data Reid’s take on how the next decade of AI will involve a play between rule-based systems and pattern-matching ones It’s a must-watch for anyone who wants to help build a more human future with AI. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Reid Hoffman: @reidhoffman Superagency , Reid’s newest book: https://www.superagency.ai/…

AI & I

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The Venture Capitalist Who Finds the Best AI Products—Before They Win - Ep. 45 with Nabeel Hyatt 1:01:36

30 weeks ago1:01:36

1:01:36

As a general partner at Spark Capital, Nabeel Hyatt backs just one or two companies each year. But when he does invest, Nabeel picks winners. He was an early investor in Discord , video editor Descript , self-driving startup Cruise (acquired by General Motor for over $1 billion) , and, recently, AI note-taking app Granola . Nabeel’s investment thesis is to look for products like the Japanese toilet. Don’t fret—Spark Capital hasn’t pivoted into the sanitaryware industry. Nabeel isn’t looking for startups that are disrupting plumbing. Rather, just like Japanese toilets, he’s looking for products that delight users with new experiences they didn’t know they wanted—and if his past investments are anything to go by, Nabeel has a good eye for that. On my recent trip to San Francisco, I sat down with Nabeel to talk about the qualities shared by remarkable products and the founders that build them, why he chooses not to invest in more than a couple of startups a year, and how he’s actually using AI in his daily life. Nabeel is one of my favorite people in AI, and this is one of my favorite recent conversations. It’s a must watch for founders who want to build useful AI products with soul. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Nabeel Hyatt: @nabeel, https://nabeelhyatt.com/ Spark Capital: https://www.sparkcapital.com/ The piece Chris Pedregal wrote for Every: How to Build a Truly Useful AI Product Chris Pedregal on AI & I : 🎧 The Secret to Building Sticky AI Products The AI tools Nabeel talks about: Windsurf , Wordware…

AI & I

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An Inside Look at Building an Email Client in 3 Months - Ep. 44 with Kieran Klaassen, Brandon Gell 1:15:22

31 weeks ago1:15:22

1:15:22

Building an email client used to take many years and millions of dollars. But Every’s Kieran Klaassen built Cora —a totally new way to manage your inbox with AI—in just 3 months. He even shipped the original MVP of the product in a single day—something that just wasn’t possible before the current state of generative AI. Now, there are almost 10,000 people on the waitlist for Cora, and we’re onboarding new users every single day. Every’s head of Studio Brandon Gell and I worked closely with Kieran as he built Cora, and to kick off my podcast, AI and I, in 2025, I invited both of them on the show to talk about it. We go behind the scenes, getting into how Kieran built the product with Cursor, o1, and o1 Pro, what we’re learning as we onboard new users every day, and the future of Cora and of Every as a multi-modal media company. This is a must watch for anyone curious about our approach to building with AI at Every. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Sign up for the Cora waitlist: https://cora.computer/ Learn more about Cora: Introducing Cora: Manage Your Inbox With AI Kieran Klaassen: @kieranklaassen Brandon Gell: @bran_don_gell…

AI & I

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How AI Will Change Science Forever - Ep. 43 with Alice Albrecht 1:00:03

35 weeks ago1:00:03

1:00:03

AI is going to change science forever. Small scale studies will give way to large scale open data gathering efforts. We’ll shift from seeking broad general theories to making contextual predictions in individual cases. The traditional research paper will change fundamentally. That’s why I had Alice Albrecht on the show. Few people straddle the worlds of science and AI like she does: She holds a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from Yale and is a machine learning researcher with almost a decade of experience. In 2021, she founded re:collect, an app that aimed to augment human intelligence with AI. It was acqui-hired by news curation app SmartNews in September of this year, and she is now the senior director of AI product. We discuss the contours of this new paradigm of science: the growing importance of data in scientific discovery, how AI makes N-of-1 studies imperative—when they’re normally seen as unscientific, the case for big tech to open-source their data for research, and the power of unbundling data from interpretations, in both science and media. Here is a link to the episode transcript. In January of this year, we published Alice’s thesis about how augmenting human intelligence with AI is more effective than attempting to achieve super intelligence through standalone AI systems, and in a happy coincidence, she’s our last podcast guest of 2024. Thank you for listening, and we’ll see you in the new year. In the meantime, this is a must-watch for anyone interested in how AI is changing the future of scientific research. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Alice Albrecht: @AliceAlbrecht The company that recently acquired Alice’s startup: SmartNews The piece Alice wrote for Every about how AI can augment human intelligence: The Case for Cyborgs Every’s product incubations that we discuss in the context of how AI is changing media: Extendable Articles , TLDR…

AI & I

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The Secret to Building Sticky AI Products - Ep. 42 with Chris Pedregal 1:00:49

36 weeks ago1:00:49

1:00:49

Chris Pedregal knows how to build AI products that people love . Chris is the cofounder and CEO of Granola , an AI-powered notepad for meetings. We use it for many of our meetings at Every—the app listens in on the conversation, transcribes it in the background, and when the meeting ends, creates automated notes and a shareable transcript for anyone who missed it. If you take notes during the meeting, Granola polishes them to be more organized and complete. Granola is one of my favorite consumer AI products because it’s equal parts delightful and useful. It’s not a bland chat interface. It’s not an over-the-top demo that you wouldn’t use more than once. Granola is a product with “soul,” imbued with the team’s vision for how AI can work alongside you to turn discursive conversations into clear insights. And I’m not the only one who thinks so—since Granola’s launch in May 2024, its user base has grown by 5x, with around 5,000 weekly active users , and half the people who try the app still use it 10 weeks later for an average of six meetings a week. The company also recently raised a $20 million Series A . Granola has the marks of being built by a thoughtful, intentional team, which is why I was excited to have Chris on the show. We spent an hour talking about Chris’s product development philosophy, the role of intuition in making products with “soul” and how he balances this with user feedback, how you can become a better product thinker, and the kinds of consumer AI startups Chris thinks will succeed. Here is a link to the episode transcript. This is a must-watch for anyone interested in building valuable, sticky AI products that users will love. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Chris Pedregal: @cjpedregal Granola: http://Granola.ai , @meetgranola The piece Chris wrote for Every about building useful AI products: https://every.to/thesis/how-to-build-a-truly-useful-ai-product…

AI & I

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Do 60-Minute Coding Tasks in 60 Seconds—With AI - Ep. 41 with Steve Krouse 1:01:13

37 weeks ago1:01:13

1:01:13

Here’s the most compelling benchmark of AI progress: A task that took 60 minutes a year ago now takes 60 seconds. In January 2024, researcher Geoffrey Litt and I spent an hour coaxing ChatGPT to build a simple app on this podcast. Nearly 12 months later, Steve Krouse and I built the same app with one prompt in less than minute. Steve is the cofounder and CEO of Val Town , a cloud-based platform for developers to write, share, and deploy code directly in the browser. In this episode, we used Townie , an AI assistant integrated into Val Town, to build an app that would keep track of time on the podcast, take notes, and generate more questions for the guest. Townie had generated the app even before Steve could finish describing it on the show, a mark of how much AI has evolved over the last year. As the founder of a growing startup, Steve tells me his contrarian take on why he isn’t focused on the needs of the non-technical AI programmer, betting instead on being the platform sophisticated developers turn to for backend infrastructure. He also tells me how he started programming and how it continues to shape his vision for Val Town. Here is a link to the episode transcript. (Disclosure: I’m a small investor in Val Town.) This is a must-watch for founders building AI-powered developer tools, and anyone interested in the future of programming. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Steve Krouse: https://stevekrouse.com/ , @stevekrouse Val Town: https://www.val.town/ Townie, the AI assistant integrated into Val Town: https://www.val.town/townie/signup?next=%2Ftownie Pieces on Val Town’s blog about how the team built Townie: How we built Townie—an app that generates fullstack apps , Building a code-writing robot and keeping it happy The book by Seymour Papert about how programming changes the way you think: Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas…

AI & I

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How We Incubate and Launch New Products With AI - Ep. 40 with Danny Aziz, Brandon Gell 1:00:48

38 weeks ago1:00:48

1:00:48

Over the last few months at Every, we’ve launched two new AI products with tens of thousands of users, and we’ll release a third one before the end of the year. The weird thing is: We’re a media company with less than 10 full-time employees, and we’re mostly bootstrapped. That’s not how things are supposed to work in startups. When we were first starting Every Studio six months ago, we were told a million reasons why it wouldn’t work: divided focus, not enough money, and the biggest one—it would be too hard to find talented people to run the products we build. Yesterday, we proved out one of the biggest risks to this strategy: We launched a brand-new version of our AI product Spiral with Danny Aziz as its general manager. Danny left a $200,000-a-year salary to come chase his dreams with us . So we decided to take this moment to pull back the curtain and ask, Why? Why did he join us? And why is the model we’ve built working so far? What have we learned about what happens when you mix media, software, and AI in a single organization? That’s why I invited Danny and Brandon Gell , Every’s head of Studio, on the show. We get into the details of Every’s business model, how new technology and the right people can make the flywheel turn, the power of learning by doing and building from real needs, and where each of us sees ourselves one year from now. Here is a link to the episode transcript. This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to build a business on their own terms, and have a lot of fun while doing it. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Danny Aziz: @DannyAziz97 Brandon Gell: @bran_don_gell Try Spiral here: https://spiral.computer/ More about Every’s product incubation arm: https://every.to/p/introducing-every-studio…

AI & I

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His GPT Wrapper Has Half a Million Users—And Keeps Growing - Ep. 39 with Vicente Silveira 1:03:26

39 weeks ago1:03:26

1:03:26

Everyone told Vicente Silveira that his startup—a GPT wrapper—would fail. Instead, one year later, it’s thriving—with about 500,000 registered users, nearly 3,000 paying subscribers, and over 2 million conversations in the GPT store. Vicente is the cofounder and CEO of AI PDF , a tool to help you summarize, chat with, and organize your PDF files. When OpenAI allowed users to upload documents to ChatGPT, the consensus was that his startup, and all the other GPT wrappers out there, were toast. Even when some of his competitors closed up shop, Vicente believed they could still create value for users as a specialized tool. The AI PDF team kept building. Today, AI PDF is one of the most popular AI-powered PDF readers in the world—and they did it with a five-person team and a friends-and-family funding round. I sat down with Vicente to understand, in granular detail, the success of AI PDF. Vicente explains how staying small and specialized is a key strategic advantage for his business. We get into why lean startups are better positioned than companies like OpenAI and Anthropic to create cutting-edge solutions for users, the role early adopters of technology play in shaping the market for new products, Vicente’s candid take on raising capital as a growing startup, and his thoughts on the emerging role of AI managers who will be responsible for overseeing AI agents. We demo an agent integrated into AI PDF, prompting it to analyze a bunch of recent articles from my column Chain of Thought and write a bulleted list of the core thesis statements—and even pit AI PDF against Perplexity live on the show. This is a must-watch for small teams building profitable companies at the bleeding edge of AI. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Vicente Silveira: @vicentes AI PDF: https://myaidrive.com/ Dan’s piece on the allocation economy: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/the-knowledge-economy-is-over-welcome-to-the-allocation-economy…

AI & I

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How to Win With Prompt Engineering - Ep. 38 with Jared Zoneraich 1:02:09

40 weeks ago1:02:09

1:02:09

Prompt engineering isn’t just about telling AI to solve your problems—it’s about knowing which ones to solve. Yet there’s a mismatch between the people who can identify the right problems—experts with deep domain knowledge—and the technical infrastructure required for developing and refining prompts. Jared Zoneraich , the cofounder and CEO of prompt engineering platform PromptLayer , is bridging the gap with a platform on which non-technical experts can manage, deploy, and evaluate prompts quickly. The role of human prompt engineers, however, has been the topic of controversy, with some arguing that AI can optimize prompts better than us, while others suggest that more capable LLMs eliminate the need for meticulously crafted prompts altogether. I spent an hour talking to Jared about why he believes prompt engineering isn’t becoming obsolete. He also tells me everything he’s learned about writing a good prompt and what the future of AI tools looks like. Here is a link to the episode transcript . This is a must-watch for prompt engineers, people interested in building with AI systems, or anyone who wants to generate predictably good responses from LLMs. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Jared Zoneraich: @imjaredz PromptLayer: @promptlayer, https://www.promptlayer.com/ A couple of Steven Wolfram’s articles on ChatGPT: What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work? , ChatGPT Gets Its “Wolfram Superpowers”!…

AI & I

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How Notion Cofounder Simon Last Builds AI for Millions of Users - Ep. 37 with Simon Last 55:51

41 weeks ago55:51

55:51

Notion cofounder Simon Last told me everything he’s learned from integrating an AI application into a platform that has over 100 million users . Simon likes to keep a low profile, even though he’s the driving force behind Notion AI , one of the most widely scaled AI applications in the world. In this episode, we get into how AI changes the way he builds software since the days he cofounded Notion with Ivan Zhao in 2013. He talks about the challenges that arise because AI doesn’t follow the deterministic rules of traditional software , and how he designs evals to build AI systems that are reliable at scale. Simon tells me about the AI tools he uses to code and how he would think about rebuilding Notion from scratch with them. He also shares his thoughts on how the growing capabilities of AI are redefining human roles, and argues that we have the responsibility to shape technology to align with our collective vision of the future. This is a must-watch for anyone interested in building reliable AI products at scale. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Simon Last: @simonlast Notion AI: https://www.notion.so/product/ai The AI code editor Simon uses: Cursor OpenAI’s definition of AGI that Simon ascribes to: https://openai.com/charter/…

AI & I

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How Union Square Ventures Built an AI Brain for Venture Capital - Ep. 36 with Matt Cynamon 1:09:10

42 weeks ago1:09:10

1:09:10

Union Square Ventures is building an AI operating system to support their investment team. But it’s not what you think: It’s a constellation of AI tools that captures and synthesizes the firm's collective wisdom. It’s evolving every day, and Matt Cynamon is the mad scientist in charge Matt calls himself a “regular” at USV. In practice that means he’s responsible for running experiments with AI for the firm. As an inherently curious person with the professional obligation to tinker, he’s built a suite of tools for the firm, including: The Librarian , a chatbot trained on around 15,000 articles from USV’s blog Portfolio Tracker, a GPT that analyzes the investments made by the firm Meeting Notes, a tool that makes it possible for team members to interact with meetings I sat down with Matt to talk about how AI is enabling him to bring his ideas to life as a generalist, get demos of the tools listed above, and exchange notes on all the other projects he has in the works at USV. We edit actionable insights extracted by an AI from meetings at USV and prepare them to be posted on the firm’s X handle live on the show. We even try out an art project at USV’s office called The Dream Machine, which generates art from conversations. Here’s a link to the episode transcript . This is a must-watch for anyone interested in riding the AI wave by learning how to ship useful products quickly. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper TIMESTAMPS: Introduction: 00:00:52 How Matt became in charge of everything AI at USV: 00:01:56 How AI empowers generalists to be creators: 00:06:22 The Librarian, a chatbot trained on everything USV has published: 00:10:41 Portfolio Tracker, an AI tool to track USV’s investments: 00:21:09 The AI projects that Matt has in the pipeline at USV: 00:27:21 Meeting Notes, USV’s AI note-taking tool: 00:34:33 Prompting AI to generate a post for USV’s X handle: 00:44:57 Why it’s important to diversify ownership over data: 01:00:20 The Dream Machine, AI that generates images from conversations: 01:03:20 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Matt Cynamon: @mattcynamon Union Square Ventures: @usv, https://www.usv.com/ More about the AI tools at USV: https://www.usv.com/people/the-librarian/ , https://www.usv.com/writing/2024/02/ai-aesthetics/ The X post generated live on the show: https://x.com/usv/status/1847354782941663523…

AI & I

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Building AI That Builds Itself - Ep. 35 with Yohei Nakajima 58:09

43 weeks ago58:09

58:09

Yohei Nakajima⁠ leads a double life. By day, he’s a general partner of a small venture firm, ⁠Untapped Capital⁠ . By night, he’s one of the most prolific internet tinkerers in AI. (He also sometimes works on ⁠automating his job as a venture capitalist .) He’s the creator of BabyAGI (@babyAGI_), the first open-source autonomous agent that went viral in March 2023. Yohei has since released seven iterations of BabyAGI, a coding agent called Ditto, a framework for building autonomous agents, and, most recently, BabyAGI 2o, a self-building autonomous agent. I sat down with Yohei to talk about: What feeds Yohei’s drive to create new tools The evolution of BabyAGI into a more powerful version of itself What Yohei learned about himself by tinkering on the internet Yohei’s personal philosophy about how the tools we build our extensions of ourselves Why founders in AI should think about their products from a modular lens, by addressing immediate problems while enabling growth in the future Yohei’s insight into a future where models will train themselves as you use them We experiment with Ditto live on the show, using the tool to build a game of Snake and a handy scheduling app. Yohei also screenshares a demo of BabyAGI 2o in action. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: ⁠https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt⁠ . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: ⁠https://every.to/subscribe⁠ Follow him on X: ⁠https://twitter.com/danshipper⁠ Timestamps: Introduction: 00:00:59 BabyAGI and its evolution into a more powerful tool: 00:02:26 How better models are changing the way Yohei builds: 00:05:00 Using code building agent Ditto to build a game of Snake: 00:08:10 The ins and outs of how Ditto works: 00:13:24 How Yohei gets a lot done in little time: 00:19:21 Yohei’s personal philosophy around building AI tools: 00:21:50 How Yohei experiments with AI as a tech-forward parent: 00:33:13 Demo of Yohei’s latest release, BabyAGI 2o: 00:39:29 Yohei’s insights on the future of AI tooling: 00:51:24 Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Yohei Nakajima: @yoheinakajima, ⁠http://yohei.me⁠ Untapped Capital: @UntappedVC, ⁠https://www.untapped.vc/⁠ My first interview with Yohei, around the time he released BabyAGI: ⁠https://every.to/chain-of-thought/this-vc-is-slowly-automating-their-job⁠ The other AI tools Yohei has created: ⁠Ditto⁠ , BabyAGI 2 , BabyAGI 2o The tweet thread about AI bots being let loose on a Discord server: https://x.com/AISafetyMemes/status/1847312782049333701…

AI & I

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How to Use AI to Become a Learning Machine - Ep. 34 with Simon Eskildsen 1:13:44

49 weeks ago1:13:44

1:13:44

Simon Eskildsen is a learning machine. I first interviewed him in 2020 about how he leveled up from being an intern at Shopify to becoming the company’s director of production engineering by reading and applying insights from hundreds of books. A lot has changed over the last four years. Language models have made it possible to access and contextualize information faster, easier, and more cheaply than ever before—and in this episode, Simon and I talk about how this changes the way he learns. Simon is now the cofounder and CEO of AI startup turbopuffer , which is building a search engine that makes vector search—an approach to information retrieval that uses machine learning to gather context —easy and affordable to run at scale. We spent an hour talking about how he leverages LLMs’ contextual intelligence to supercharge his learning, such as helping him pick up new words as a non-native English speaker, do odd jobs to maintain his rural cabin in Quebec, and articulate technical concepts in legalese. As we talk, we screenshare through his Anki setup, including the flashcard template he finds most useful, and the custom AI commands he’s created in productivity software Raycast . Simon tells me about the clutch of AI tools he experiments with for journaling, writing, and coding, as well as his thoughts on how language models will fundamentally reshape the way we learn. Here’s a link to the transcript of this episode. This is a must-watch for note-taking aficionados and anyone who wants to supercharge their learning with AI. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Simon Eskildsen: @Sirupsen Simon’s startup, turbopuffer: turberpuffer.com, @turbopuffer My first interview with Simon in 2020: https://every.to/superorganizers/how-to-build-a-learning-machine-299655 The productivity tool through which Simon uses LLMs, Raycast: https://www.raycast.com/ The other AI tools that Simon is experimenting with: voice-to-text tool superwhisper , copilot for developers Supermaven , code editor Cursor…

AI & I

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How to Supercharge Your Writing With AI Tools - Ep. 33 with Evan Armstrong 1:35:24

50 weeks ago1:35:24

1:35:24

If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Evan Armstrong: @itsurboyevan The column Evan writes at Every: Napkin Math Evan’s upcoming course about how to write with AI: https://www.writewithai.xyz/ The piece Dan wrote about using LLMs to articulate his taste: "What I Do When I Can’t Sleep" Dan’s article about admitting that he wants to be a writer: "Admitting What Is Obvious"…

AI & I

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The Browser Company Is Building a Brand That Drives Viral Growth - Ep. 32 with Nashilu Mouen-Makoua 1:09:29

51 weeks ago1:09:29

1:09:29

The Browser Company isn’t just building a browser , they’re building a formidable brand—and they’re doing it with AI. The Browser Company has driven viral user growth , a $550 million valuation , and close to 100,000 YouTube subscribers . Its brand centers people, not products. It’s messy, authentic, and refreshing—and it seeps into everything the team does, from the job descriptions on their website to announcing new features through short films and giving keynote addresses in diners . I sat down with Nashilu Mouen-Makoua , the head of storytelling and a strategic advisor to the CEO at The Browser Company, to talk about how she’s weaving relatable stories around new technology. We get into her philosophy around storytelling, including why she believes centering people is the key to building a memorable brand, The Browser Company’s focus on making technology accessible to a wide audience, and the brass tacks of how Nash’s team structures meetings to generate great ideas. Nash also tells me how she’s integrated LLMs into her workflow, to do deep research, get a gut check on a new article she’s written, and put the finishing touches on her words. As Nash explains that the best way to position a product is in response to contemporary social context, we screenshare through her conversations with ChatGPT about the socio-political climate in America preceding the release of a Tracy Chapman song . We also use the LLM to simulate a group of Arc users and interview one of these imaginary personas live on the show to gather preliminary customer insights. This is a must-watch for people who want to use AI to tell compelling stories about what they’re building in tech. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Nashilu Mouen-Makoua: https://twitter.com/lafillemouen The Browser Company: https://thebrowser.company/ , https://twitter.com/browsercompany Arc, the browser that reimagines the way we use the internet: https://arc.net/ , https://twitter.com/arcinternet Tracy Chapman’s song, Talkin’ About a Revolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv8FBjo1Y8I…

AI & I

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Building an AI Media and Software Empire - Ep. 31 with Brandon Gell 1:56:27

1 year ago1:56:27

1:56:27

We’re building a mini-AI media and software empire at Every. Today on AI & I , Brandon Gell joins the show to turn the tables on me and act as podcast host to explore what we’re doing as a company, how we got here, and where we’re going. Brandon is Every’s first entrepreneur in residence, and he was the perfect person to host, because he’s one of the key reasons for our recent acceleration. Before joining Every, Brandon was the cofounder and CEO of Clyde , a startup that helped brands launch their own insurance and warranty programs, where he raised $50 million and led a team of 100 before selling it to global insurance tech company Cover Genius in early 2023. In this episode, he interviews me about how I learned to code in middle school, how I built and sold my first startup coming out of college, and how it all led to Every. We also talk about Brandon’s story. He joined Every just four months ago—and it feels like we’ve done the work of years since. We’ve launched two new AI products, an incredible amount of great writing, a new course, and more. We get into my candid thoughts on entrepreneurship in the AI age—including why you should ship fast, and how not to be misled by metrics like TAM; how AI startups can find valuable niches—and live demos of our apps Spiral and Sparkle; Brandon’s hard-earned lessons from running a insuretech business for seven years; the confusing realities of being an exited founder, and how we navigated through those times; what brought Brandon to Every—including the email he sent me before joining; and Every’s master plan and what we hope to build over the next few months and years This is a must-watch for anyone interested in building a calm, profitable business empire in the age of AI. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Brandon Gell: https://twitter.com/bran_don_gell The piece Dan recently published about Every’s Master Plan: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/every-s-master-plan Dan’s piece about the unbundling of Excel, and why it serves as an important story in the age of AI: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/the-great-ai-unbundling Tomasz Tunguz, the VC who has also written about Excel: https://tomtunguz.com/ Every cofounder Nathan’s word processor, Lex: https://lex.page/ Spiral, the app that automates 80 percent of repetitive creative work: https://spiral.computer/ Sparkle, the app that automatically organizes your files: https://makeitsparkle.co/…

AI & I

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How to Be a Smarter Reader in the Age of AI - Ep. 30 with Alex Wieckowski 1:19:44

1 year ago1:19:44

1:19:44

Alex Wieckowski is on a mission to make you fall in love with reading again—and he thinks AI can help. Alex, who writes a newsletter that captures lessons from books he’s read and tips to become a better reader, Alex & Books , is a creator with over 1 million followers across social platforms. He’s also the author of a book of quotes that will inspire you to read more, Learn to Love Reading . We spent an hour talking about how Alex uses AI to be a smarter reader, and we tested out a few strategies live on the show, including: prompting ChatGPT to recommend books that will help me lead a creator-run business better, understanding the deeper themes in Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha with large language models, and using AI to create an actionable strategy for Alex to build a course based on the frameworks in Alex Hormozi’s business strategy book $100M Offers . Alex clued me into what he’s learned about developing a good reading habit, and his best advice on how to reignite your passion for books. We also discuss Alex’s predictions on how companies like Neuralink , which make use of a brain-computer interface —a technology that allows users to control external devices through brain activity—will change the future of reading and books. Here’s a link to the transcript of this episode. This is a must-watch for book lovers, people struggling to finish books, and anyone who wants to take their reading to the next level with AI. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Alex Wieckowski: https://twitter.com/AlexAndBooks_ Alex’s newsletter: https://alexandbooks.beehiiv.com/ The self-improvement book that got Alex into reading: How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie The books that Dan is reading: Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism by Richard Rorty The books that Alex is reading: Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire by Andrew Wilkinson, $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi, Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, Outlive by Peter Attia…

AI & I

1
How Packy McCormick Finds His Next Big Idea - Ep. 29 1:13:30

1 year ago1:13:30

1:13:30

One of the most influential voices in tech explains how AI helps him write and invest. This episode is sponsored by Create. If you want to maximize your gains, both with your body and with ChatGPT, try creatinine gummies from Create. Place your order through this link to get a 30 percent discount: https://trycreate.co/products/creatine-monohydrate-gummies-270-count?discount=every24 Packy McCormick’s job is to find, articulate, and invest behind the next big idea. He writes Not Boring, a newsletter that analyzes technology and startups for 200,000 subscribers every week. He also invests in early stage companies through his fund Not Boring Capital and is an advisor at a16z crypto. I spent an hour with him to understand how he’s baked AI into the way he thinks, writes, and invests. We get into: - How he uses AI to understand dense concepts and refine his arguments - His thesis around vertically integrated businesses being the future of tech - How Packy uses Claude Projects to edit his newsletter - How he makes interactive graphics that represent concepts from his essays - The tools Packy uses to research, write, and edit Not Boring - When he thinks the next crypto bull run will take place We also use Projects to build an AI tool that grades Packy’s essays live on the show. This is a must-watch for writers, investors, and anyone trying to understand the cutting edge of technology. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt . It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Teaser 00:01:24 - Introduction 00:02:40 - Packy's thesis about the future of technology 00:07:42 - What Packy quick takes on your crypto portfolio 00:14:31 - Use LLMs to validate your understanding of complex concepts 00:18:26 - How Packy used Claude Projects to write an essay he published recently 00:24:00 - Packy's process to make interactive visual graphics for his essays 00:31:10 - How to use AI to be thorough in your research 00:35:04 - How Packy uses Claude to edit his writing 00:36:44 - The tools Packy uses to create his newsletter 00:44:12 - Using Claude Projects to make a tool that grades Packy's essays Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Packy McCormick: https://twitter.com/packyM Packy’s newsletter, Not Boring: https://www.notboring.co/ Packy’s fund, Not Boring Capital: https://www.notboring.co/p/introducing-not-boring-capital One of Packy’s first essays, about natively integrated companies: https://www.packym.com/natively-integrated-companies Anduril, the company Packy thinks is an example of a Techno-industrial: https://www.anduril.com/ Packy’s portfolio company that’s integration crypto into its product: https://v2.oncyber.io/ The interactive tool Packy made for a recent newsletter: https://goventvectorsum.replit.app/ for https://www.notboring.co/p/the-american-millennium Packy’s essay about America’s tolerance for risk: https://www.notboring.co/p/riskophilia Packy’s essays about Blackbird: https://www.notboring.co/p/blackbird…

AI & I

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How a Top Podcaster Rides the AI Wave - Ep. 28 with Nathaniel Whittemore 1:09:20

1 year ago1:09:20