
AI and I
TeknologiLearn how the smartest people in the world are using AI to think, create, and relate. Each week I interview founders, filmmakers, writers, investors, and others about how they use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Midjourney in their work and in their lives. We screen-share through their historical chats and then experiment with AI live on the show. Join us to discover how AI is changing how we think about our world—and ourselves. For more essays, interviews, and experiments at the forefront of AI: https://every.to/chain-of-thought?sort=newest.
Siste episoder av AI and I podcast
- MCP Servers: Teaching AI to Use the Internet Like Humans (00:51:39)
If your MCP server has dozens of tools, it’s probably built wrong.You need tools that are specific and clear for each use case—but you also can’t have too many. This creates an almost impossible tradeoff that most companies don’t know how to solve.That’s why we interviewed Alex Rattray, the founder and CEO of Stainless. Stainless builds APIs, SDKs, and MCP servers for companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Alex has spent years mastering how to make software talk to software, and he came on the show to share what he knows. We get into MCP and the future of the AI-native internet.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/danshipperReady to build a site that looks hand-coded—without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at Framer.com, and use code DAN to get your first month of Pro on the house.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Start00:01:14 - Introduction00:02:54 - Why Alex likes running barefoot00:05:09 - APIs and MCP, the connectors of the new internet00:10:53 - Why MCP servers are hard to get right00:20:07 - Design principles for reliable MCP servers00:23:50 - Scaling MCP servers for large APIs00:25:14 - Using MCP for business ops at Stainless00:28:12 - Building a company brain with Claude Code00:33:59 - Where MCP goes from here00:41:10 - Alex’s take on the security model for MCPLinks to resources mentioned in the episode:- Alex Rattray: Alex Rattray (@RattrayAlex), Alex Rattray - Stainless: https://www.stainless.com/
- Cognition’s CEO on What Comes After Code (00:53:21)
The future has a way of showing up early to some places. In software engineering, one of those places is Cognition—the startup that made headlines in early 2024 with Devin, the world’s first autonomous coding agent, and more recently with its acquisition of the AI code editor Windsurf.Scott Wu, Cognition’s cofounder and CEO, has a front-row seat to what comes next. In this episode of AI & I, we talk with Wu about why the fundamentals of computer science still matter in an AI-first world, the direction he sees for the short- and long-term future of programming, and why he believes we may already be living with AGI.Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Start00:02:02 – Introduction00:02:32 – Why Scott thinks AGI is here00:09:27 – Scott’s personal journey as a founder00:16:55 – Why the fundamentals of computer science still matter00:22:30 – How the future of programming will evolve00:26:50 – A new workflow for the AI-first software engineer00:29:33 – How Devin stacks up against Claude Code00:40:05 – Reinforcement learning to build better coding agents00:50:05 – What excites Scott about AI beyond CognitionIf 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 Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Scott Wu: Scott Wu (@ScottWu46) Learn more about Cognition: https://cognition.ai/ Try the world’s first autonomous coding agent: https://devin.ai/
- One Developer Got Thousands of Users Before His App Launched (00:57:24)
Naveen Naidu built an app that found product-market fit backwards.Most apps launch first and then try to find users. Monologue, Naveen’s AI voice dictation app that came out of beta yesterday, did the opposite. It built a following of thousands of users during its incubation period at Every—many of them switching over from venture capital-backed competitors—all while the app barely had a landing page.The growth has continued in the 24 hours since launch, with an average of 1 million words being transcribed weekly, and in this episode of AI & I, we sit down with Naveen to talk about his journey as the single engineer behind a viral app. We get into the false starts and side projects that taught Naveen how to ship fast, the brutal feedback that kept Monologue honest, why Every decided to build in a crowded category, and the AI coding tools that let one developer do the work of a team.Get free early access to Amazon's Alexa Plus: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCCNHWV5?ref_=aucc_us_dis_everyalexa_q3_25Timestamps:00:01:27 – Introduction00:03:51 – A live demo of Monologue00:06:27 – Hard lessons from Naveen’s years in the wilderness00:12:29 – Building a muscle to ship fast00:21:11 – The spark that became Monologue00:26:09 – Dogfooding your way to a killer feature00:29:45 – Why the harshest product feedback is the most valuable00:31:47 – Every’s strategy for launching an app in a crowded space00:40:08 – Giving Monologue the Every “smell”00:45:09 – Naveen’s one-person AI stack to build beautiful appsIf 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/subscribeFollow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipperLinks to resources mentioned in the episode:https://www.monologue.to/
- Claude Code Can Be Your Second Brain (01:11:52)
Noah Brier uses Claude Code as his second brain—it’s the coolest notetaking setup we’ve ever seen.He has Claude running on a server in his basement hooked up to a VPN. It stores, reads, and writes to thousands of notes in his Obsidian vault. He does it all from his phone.We had him on the show to tell us exactly how he’s pulling this off. Dan and Noah get into:The nuts and bolts of the Claude Code-Obsidian setup: Noah set up Claude Code on top of his Obsidian root directory, and he walked me through how he uses it to prep for an upcoming speech—creating a project folder, pulling in relevant research from his notes, saving transcripts from chats with other LLMs, and generating daily progress updates.The “thinking partner” that lives inside Noah’s second brain: Noah points out that in the hype around AI’s ability to write, the fact that it can read is overlooked. That’s why he has an agent inside Claude Code with strict guardrails to stay in “thinking mode.” It logs his questions, tracks insights, and catches him up on research if he returns to a project after a few days away.How Noah does deep work on his phone: Noah rigged a home server in his basement, put his Obsidian vault in it—and then runs Claude Code on top. Noah says that being able to think, write, research, and ship code from his phone has fundamentally changed the way he works.This episode is a must-watch for anyone curious about who wants to learn how to use Claude Code to build a true second brain.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Start building in Google AI Studio at ai.dev. Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded—without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at Framer.com, and use code DAN to get your first month of Pro on the house. 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: 00:01:19 - Introduction00:04:28 - How you can do deep work on your phone00:06:14 - Why Noah thinks Grok has the best voice AI00:11:39 - The nuts and bolts of Noah’s Claude Code-Obsidian setup00:23:59 - Using an agent in Claude Code as a “thinking partner”00:35:07 - Noah’s Thomas’ English Muffin theory of AI00:44:04 - The white space still left to explore in AI00:50:41 - How Noah is preparing his kids for AI01:01:54 - How he brought his Claude Code setup to mobileLinks to resources mentioned in the episode:Noah Brier: https://www.noahbrier.com/, Noah Brier (@heyitsnoah) / XAlephic, his AI strategy consultancy: alephic.com The conference he leads about marketing and AI: http://BRXND.AI A newsletter he writes about AI: newsletter.brxnd.ai The declassified relic from World War II they talk about: Simple Sabotage Field Manual The apps Noah used to set up Claude Code on his phone: Termius, Tailscale
- This AI Makes a Video Game World in 40 Milliseconds (01:05:28)
We had Dean Leitersdorf on the pod and he did something no guest had ever done.Mid-sentence, he transformed from a startup founder in a black t-shirt to a wizard with light shooting from his hands. Then, he was in a white-walled game universe, and when he picked up the tissue box on his table, it morphed into a gun which he could shoot by moving his arm.He did it with one of his products, Mirage: It takes any live video feed (like Dean on the pod) and instantly renders each frame into a new style of your choosing—40 milliseconds from input to output.Dean is the co-founder and CEO of the creators of Decart which makes Mirage. They recently raised $100 million at a $3.1 billion valuation to build a new era of real-time generative AI experiences like this.Realtime generative video models are going to change video games forever, and Dean is on the forefront: imagine creating endless variations on existing titles, like GTA-V with a frigid winter filter, or taking a bare-bones vibe-coded prototype and using Mirage to texture it. But games are just the beginning, Dean sees Mirage as opening the door to a new medium, a new experience created by AI. In this episode, we take a look at how Mirage works under the hood, and what the Decart team learned about the future of software while wrestling with its toughest research problems. We also debate AGI—how close it really is, what counts as progress, and what kind of society it might create. This episode is a must watch for anyone interested in the future of gaming, creativity, or if you just want your mind blown by what’s already possible. 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: 00:00:47A demo of Mirage, the first real-time video-to-video model in the world: 00:02:38How Mirage can take your vibe-coded game to the next level: 00:06:22The new architecture of modern software: 00:08:45How Mirage works so blazingly fast: 00:16:34Inside Decart’s invention of a new “live stream diffusion” model: 00:20:33Solving the error accumulation problem for real-time video: 00:21:17How Dean thinks about inventing a new creative medium: 00:29:55Dean’s take on the post-AGI world: 00:39:43Why AI brings back the age of the generalist: 00:51:15Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Dean Leitersdorf: https://x.com/dleitersdorf?lang=enDecart: https://about.decart.ai/ Try Mirage and Delulu: https://mirage.decart.ai/, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ai.decart.delulu, https://apps.apple.com/il/app/delulu-by-decart/id6749955738 More about Yan LeCun’s error accumulation problem: https://x.com/ylecun/status/1640123182983045120
- Best of the Pod: How to Prepare for AGI According to Reid Hoffman (01:10:06)
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.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 podcasterWe spent an hour talking about how to develop a compass for navigating AGI. Here are a few takeaways:Our sense of human agency is not just about external control but an internal stance—how we approach uncertainty & new tech is crucialIn new technology waves, NO blueprint or plan will have the right answers. Instead, adapting to new technology requires broad access, an experimental mindset, and flexibilityIn an AGI world most jobs will transform, not disappear—and how you can prepare with hands-on trial and errorHow certain social norms and ethics should change as AGI changes the landscape—like individual access to personal dataWhy now may be finally be the era where quantified self tools become valuable…and more, including everything in his new book Superagency, out this week.It was a pleasure to have him on the show for a second time. This is 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 here: https://every-2.kit.com/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgptIt’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: / danshipperSponsor: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.Timestamps:00:00:00 — Episode Start00:01:29 — Introduction00:02:50 — Patterns in how we've historically adopted technology00:07:02 — Why humans have typically been fearful of new technologies00:13:25 — How Reid developed his own sense of agency00:20:08 — The way Reid thinks about making investment decisions00:22:00 — Attio: Go to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM.00:29:40 — AI as a "techno-humanist" compass00:35:30 — How to prepare yourself for the way AI will change knowledge work00:41:39 — Why equitable access to AI is important00:45:15 — Reid's take on why private commons will be beneficial for society00:47:23 — How AI is making Silicon Valley's conception of the "quantified self" a reality00:52:14 — The shift from symbolic to sub-symbolic AI mirrors how we understand intelligence01:03:29 — Reid's new book, SuperagencyLinks to resources mentioned in the episode:Reid Hoffman: @reidhoffmanSuperagency, Reid’s newest book: https://www.superagency.ai/
- Best of the Pod: She Built an AI Product Manager Bringing in Six Figures—As A Side Hustle (01:06:29)
**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 parentThis 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/danshipperLinks 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
- Best of the Pod: Vercel's Guillermo Rauch on AI and the Future of Coding (00:58:09)
Read Dan Shipper's essay on the allocation economy: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/the-knowledge-economy-is-over-welcome-to-the-allocation-economyGuillermo 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/2d5nx3utAttio 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-sleepTry Cora to manage your email with AI: https://cora.computerTry Spiral to repurpose content with AI: https://spiral.computerTry Sparkle to organize your files with AI: https://makeitsparkle.coSign 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 freeTo 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: @rauchgVercel: https://vercel.com/ Last week’s episode with Nabeel Hyatt: https://every.to/podcast/the-venture-capitalist-who-only-makes-two-bets-a-yearDan’s essay about the allocation economy: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/the-knowledge-economy-is-over-welcome-to-the-allocation-economy
- Best of the Pod: Dwarkesh Patel’s Quest to Learn Everything (00:50:07)
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. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:- Subscribe to Every- Follow him on XLinks to resources mentioned in the episode:- Dwarkesh Patel- Dwarkesh’s podcast and newsletter- Dwarkesh’s interview with researcher Andy Matuschak on spaced repetition- The book about technology and society that both Dan and Dwarkesh are reading: Medieval Technology and Social Change- Dan’s interview with Reid Hoffman- The book by Will Durant that inspires Dwarkesh: Fallen Leaves- One of the most interesting books Dwarkesh has read: The Great Divide - Upcoming guests on Dwarkesh’s podcast: David Reich and Daniel Yergin
- Intentional Tech: Designing AI for Human Flourishing | Alex Komoroske, Cofounder and CEO of Common Tools (01:11:32)
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: 00:01:45Why chatbots are a feature not a paradigm: 00:04:25Toward AI that’s aligned with our intentions: 00:06:50The four pillars of “intentional technology”: 00:11:54The type of structures in which intentional technology can thrive: 00:14:16Why ChatGPT is the AOL of the AI era: 00:18:26Why AI needs to break out of the silos of the early internet: 00:25:55Alex’s personal journey into systems-thinking: 00:41:53How LLMs can encode what we know but can’t explain: 00:48:15Can LLMs solve the coordination problem inside organizations: 00:54:35The under-discussed risk of prompt injection: 01:01:39Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Alex Komoroske: @komoramaCommon Tools: https://common.tools/ The public Google document with Alex’s raw ideas and thoughts: Bits and BobsA couple of Alex’s favorite books: Why Information Grows by Cesar Hidalgo and The Origin of Wealth by Eric Beinhocker
- Arc Had Millions of Users. Why They Left It Behind for Dia. | Josh Miller and Hursh Agrawal, cofounders of The Browser Company (01:24:52)
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 for Spotify:Introduction: 00:01:13The story of how Dan might’ve been the CEO of The Browser Company: 00:02:47The moment Josh and Hursh knew they had to walk away from Arc: 00:09:42How to handle the weight of the unknown in a pivot: 00:17:08The prototype-driven culture that kept The Browser Company alive: 00:23:31Why having a product loved by millions of users isn’t enough :00:25:42The architectural decisions underlying how Dia was built: 00:33:29How Dia almost shipped without its best feature: 00:47:12The best ways people are using Dia in the wild: 00:51:18How Josh and Hursh think about competing with incumbents: 01:07:55How romanticism informs the product decisions behind Dia: 01:17:04Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Hursh Agrawal: @hurshJosh Miller: @joshmMore 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/
- How We Built Our AI Email Assistant: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Cora (00:46:21)
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: 00:01:40Three ways Cora transforms your inbox (and your day): 00:04:21A live walkthrough of Cora’s features: 00:05:09The inside story of the first time Kieran, Brandon, and Dan used Cora: 00:12:13Train Cora like you would a trusted chief of staff: 00:16:30The AI tools that blew our minds while building Cora: 00:27:25How we build workflows that compound with AI at Every: 00:30:34The dream features that we’d like to put on Cora’s roadmap: 00:42:36Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Try Cora now with a 7-day free trial: https://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"
- Inside OpenAI: Coaching the People Creating AGI | Joe Hudson, Founder of The Art of Accomplishment (00:53:56)
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: 00:01:49What it feels like inside the room where AGI is being built: 00:03:14The most important question to ask yourself as AGI approaches: 00:08:15The importance of sitting with uncertainty: 00:17:49How Joe is preparing his daughters for a post-AGI world: 00:21:11How we think, feel, and react; the three layers of human awareness: 00:27:25Staying grounded while coaching the people shaping our future: 00:35:34Why Joe doesn’t take things personally—even when the stakes are high: 00:42:44Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Joe Hudson: @FU_joehudson; Learn more about the coaching and workshops that Joe runs: Art of Accomplishment
- How Two Engineers Ship Like a Team of 15 With AI Agents | Kieran Klaassen, Nityesh Agarwal (00:54:02)
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/danshipperSponsors:Microsoft TeamsWant 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: 00:01:16Why Kieran believes agents are turning a corner: 00:03:18Why Claude Code stands out from other agents: 00:06:36What makes agentic coding different from using tools like Cursor: 00:11:58The Cora team’s workflow to turn tasks into momentum: 00:15:20How to build a prompt that turns ideas into plans: 00:23:07The new mental models for this age of software engineering: 00:34:00Why traditional tests and evals still matter: 00:39:13Kieran ranks all the AI coding agents he’s used: 00:42:00Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Try Cora, our AI email assistant: https://cora.computer/ Kieran Klaassen: @kieranklaassenNityesh Agarwal: @nityeshagaThe book that helps Nityesh form mental models to work with AI agents: High Output ManagementA guide to Anthropic’s prompt improver: https://www.anthropic.com/news/prompt-improver
- The Future of AI in Medicine: From Rules to Intuition | Awais Aftab, Psychiatrist and writer (00:53:02)
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 TeamsWant 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: 00:01:20The case Awais makes for pluralistic thinking in psychiatry: 00:03:38A pragmatic approach to mental healthcare: 00:15:30Awais’s take on why my OCD diagnosis took 10 years: 00:19:04Why psychiatry is stuck where machine learning was decades ago: 00:24:19Why psychiatry’s focus should shift from explanations to predictions: 00:31:05How Awais thinks AI is already changing the psychiatric profession: 00:39:19Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Awais Aftab: @awaisaftab, awais aftab Awais’s Substack: Psychiatry at the MarginsThe book Awais edited: Conversations in Critical Psychiatry
- GitHub CEO on the AI Coding Arms Race: One Agent, 150M+ Devs (00:30:30)
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 outIf 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:Attio: Go to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps:Introduction (00:00:38)Copilot’s place in the AI coding agent race (00:07:40)Inside the product decisions behind Copilot’s new agent (00:10:42)How Dohmke thinks about shaping Copilot’s personality (00:16:18)How GitHub supports both AI-native developers and legacy enterprise users (00:20:29)Dohmke’s predictions for the future of software development (00:26:57)
- Kevin Scott on The Future of Programming, AI Agents, and Microsoft’s Big Bet on the Agentic Web (00:28:02)
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: 00:01:44The race to close the “capability overhang”: 00:02:49How agents will evolve into practical, useful tools: 00:04:31The role Kevin sees Microsoft playing in the agent ecosystem: 00:06:48How robust security measures can coexist with open ecosystems: 00:12:05Kevin's philosophy on being a craftsman in the age of agents: 00:15:39How the landscape of software development agents will evolve: 00:20:52The future of agentic workflows: 00:25:33
- OpenAI Launches Codex: An Autonomous Programming Agent (00:42:39)
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: 00:00:52The product decisions behind Codex’s interface: 00:01:40How Codex works under the hood: 00:06:20Why you need an abundance mindset to work well with agents: 00:14:06Setting Codex to work on a real task in “Ask” mode: 00:16:28How OpenAI is thinking about designing agents: 00:18:54The future of programming is social: 00:31:16Reviewing Codex’s work live: 00:37:21How the landscape of agents will evolve: 00:39:41
- The $10B Hedge Fund CEO Who’s Betting Big on AI | Will England, Walleye Capital (01:07:27)
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: 00:00:51What pushed Will to go all in on AI: 00:03:25Inside the ‘AI-first’ memo Will shared at Walleye: 00:14:08Why you shouldn’t be afraid of using AI for work: 00:15:56How Will uses LLMs to sharpen his thinking: 00:31:01Walleye’s approach to using AI to reduce risk: 00:35:32What history can teach us about leading through change: 00:39:10Will’s first principles to making better decisions: 00:56:45Why 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"
- Jhana Meditation Silenced Her Mind—And Changed Her View On AI | Nadia Asparouhova, Author and researcher (00:53:37)
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 in 2020. 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.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: 00:01:15The beginning of Nadia’s journey with Jhana: 00:02:34How Jhana is different from other meditation practices: 00:05:51 Jhana reframed the way Nadia thinks about being human: 00:09:52How Nadia integrates her experience with Jhana into her life: 00:14:16Nadia describes her experience of the final stage of Jhana: 00:16:44Why our modern sense of self isn’t as timeless as you might assume: 00:19:11How new technologies can be a mirror to ourselves: 00:23:53Nadia embraces the feeling of not knowing how AI precisely works: 00:33:55How Nadia uses ChatGPT to make writing less isolating: 00:38:03Links mentioned:Nadia Asparouhova: https://nadia.xyz/ Her deep dive on Jhana meditation: https://nadia.xyz/jhanas Nadia’s book: Working in Public, AntimemeticsBooks about how new technology can change our sense of self: The WEIRDest People in the World, Listening to Prozac
- The Next AI Wave Will Be Social, Not Solo | Sarah Tavel, Benchmark and ex-Pinterest (00:49:22)
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-listen 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: 00:01:10Why the future of consumer AI belongs to founders with product intuition: 00:02:26What Sarah sees as ChatGPT’s biggest weakness: 00:11:09How Sarah would design a consumer AI app with social DNA: 00:18:45The kind of founders Sarah invests in: 00:25:04How to know if your startup’s network-effects are real: 00:29:26What’s catching Sarah’s eye beyond AI: 00:36:33How AI will change the way top venture capitalists invest: 00:41:35Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Sarah Tavel: @sarahtavelSarah’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
- How to Predict the Future With Kevin Kelly, WIRED's Cofounder (00:53:41)
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 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! To hear more from Dan:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper SponsorsVanta: Get $1,000 off of 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: 00:00:50Why Kevin and I love Annie Dillard: 00:01:10Learn how to predict the future like Kevin: 00:12:50What the history of electricity can teach us about AI: 00:16:08How Kevin thinks about the nature of intelligence: 00:20:11Kevin’s advice on discovering your competitive advantage: 00:27:21The story of how Kevin assembled a bench of star writers for Wired: 00:31:07How Kevin used ChatGPT to co-create a book: 00:36:17Using AI as a mirror for your mind: 00:40:45What Kevin learned from betting on VR in the 1980s: 00:45:16Links to resources mentioned:Kevin Kelly: @kevin2kellyKelly’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 LifeDillard’s account of the total eclipse: "Total Eclipse"
- This AI Alien Will Bring In $4 Million This Year in Revenue - Ep. 56 with Quinten Farmer and Eliot Peper (01:22:40)
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: 00:01:30Talking to the Portola CEO’s Tolan, Clarence: 00:04:07How Portola went from building software for kids to AI companions: 00:09:11Why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces: 00:23:40Tolans don’t use scripted prompts—they’re taught to improvise: 00:29:54How to know which AI personalities your users will click with: 00:37:23Developing the character traits of an AI companion: 00:42:27What does it mean to build technology that makes us flourish: 00:49:48How Portola evaluates whether Tolans are resonating with users: 01:01:10Inside Portola’s viral growth strategy: 01:11:01Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Quinten Farmer: @quintendfEliot Peper: @eliotpeperMake your own Tolan: https://www.tolans.com/ Keith Johnston’s book about improvisation: ImproStephen King’s book about writing: On Writing
- An Inside Look at Every’s Design Philosophy - Ep. 55 with Lucas Crespo (01:03:19)
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.Lucas Crespo is the mastermind behind Every's visual vibe—and he does it one prompt at a time.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.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: 00:01:41How AI changed the course of Lucas’s career: 00:04:02Why Every’s aesthetic feels both familiar and fresh: 00:08:00Why Lucas thinks minimalism is overrated: 00:14:53Art direction matters more than ever in the age of AI: 00:20:38 How to reimagine what a website can be with AI: 00:23:42Lucas’s process in Midjourney to generate cover images: 00:33:08Midjourney v. image generation in ChatGPT: 00:42:30Behind the scenes of Cora’s design language: 00:49:07How AI is rewriting the role of a designer: 00:59:18Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Lucas Crespo: @lucas__crespoThe 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”
- Being Human in the Age of Intelligent Machines - Ep. 54 with Dr. Alan Lightman (00:56:01)
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.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 intelligenceAI 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: 00:01:18Science can deepen your sense of the spiritual: 00:02:36The nature of consciousness: 00:11:31AI might appear to be conscious, but it isn’t: 00:13:11Why AI can be considered to be “natural”: 00:19:50AI shifts the focus of science from explanations to predictions: 00:30:40How modern neural networks simulate thinking: 00:33:48Lightman’s vision for how humans and machines will merge: 00:39:38 Does AI know more about love than you?: 00:43:11How technology is accelerating the pace of our lives: 00:49:18Links to resources mentioned:Alan Lightman: https://cmsw.mit.edu/alan-lightman/ Lightman’s books: The Miraculous From the Material, Einstein's DreamsHis documentary: Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of ScienceWalt Whitman’s poem: When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer