Learn 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.
The podcast AI and I is created by Dan Shipper. The podcast and the artwork on this page are embedded on this page using the public podcast feed (RSS).
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. Her startup re:collect built an app to augment human intelligence with AI and was acqui-hired by SmartNews earlier this year. She now heads up AI product there. We get into the contours of this new paradigm in science: - Whether research papers are still the best format to “release” science in - The increasing importance of data in scientific discovery - Why AI is making N-of-1 studies imperative—when they’re normally seen as unscientific - The case for big tech to open-source their data for scientific research - The power of unbundling data and interpretations, in science and media 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 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)
Everything Alice learned about growing an AI startup: (00:04:50)
Alice’s thesis about how AI can augment human intelligence: (00:09:08)
Whether chat is the best way for humans to interface with AI: (00:12:47)
Ideas to build an AI model that predicts OCD symptoms: (00:23:55)
Why Alice thinks LLMs aren’t the right models to do predictive work: (00:37:12)
How AI is broadening the horizons of science: (00:38:39)
The new format in which science will be released: (00:40:14)
Why AI makes N-of-1 studies more relevant: (00:45:39)
The power of separating data from interpretations: (00:50:42)
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
Chris Pedregal knows how to build AI products that people love.
Chris is the cofounder and CEO of Granola, an AI notepad for meetings. We use it all the time at Every—Granola listens in on a meeting and, when it ends, generates notes and a shareable transcript for anyone who missed it.
Granola is one of my favorite consumer AI products because it’s equal parts delightful and useful. So my question for Chris was:
How do you do it? How do you make an excellent product in AI?
We spent an hour talking about:
How Chris uses intuition while making product decisions
The importance of building products with “soul”
How to develop your product thinking muscles
When Chris trusts his gut over listening to user feedback
How fewer users gives startups a leg up over big tech
Why Chris is bullish on founders building specialized AI tools for professionals
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 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 for Spotify:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Chris Pedregal: @cjpedregal
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, Geoffrey Litt and I spent an hour coaxing ChatGPT and Replit to build an app live on my podcast.12 months later, Steve Krouse and I built the same app with one prompt in less than a 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. We used Townie, Val Town’s AI assistant, to build an app to keep track of time on the podcast, take notes, and generate questions for the guest.
Townie generated the app even before Steve could finish describing it on the show. As we demo Townie, we get into:
Why Steve believes programming can rewire the way you think
The rise of the non-technical AI developer and what that means for the future of coding
How Townie works under the hood, including the details of the system prompt
How Steve is evolving ValTown’s strategy as AI progress continues to unfold
The power of small, dense engineering teams
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 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:
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
Over the last few months at Every, we’ve:
Launched two AI products
Acquired tens of thousands of users
Released a new incubation in private alpha
The weird thing is: We’re a media company with < 10 full-time employees, and we’re mostly bootstrapped.
That’s not how things are supposed to work in startups.
When we started our product incubation arm six months ago, many people told us 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 our strategy: We launched a brand-new version of our AI product Spiral (https://spiral.computer) with Danny Aziz as GM—who left a $200K salary to join us.
The question is: Why? Why did he join us, and why is the model working when it “shouldn’t” be?
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, what makes our flywheel turn, where each of us sees ourselves one year from now, and what happens when you mix media, software, and AI under one roof.
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 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: 00:01:08
All about Spiral, the tool we recently launched: 00:02:15
Why Danny left a $200,000 salary to work at a bootstrapped media company: 00:04:06
How we do a lot of things well at Every: 00:10:33
What makes Every’s flywheel turn: 00:14:44
The kind of people who fit right in at Every: 00:17:11
How Every is differentiated from a standard VC-backed startup: 00:23:25
How Danny found his way into the world of startups: 00:36:11
The tech industry’s affinity for potential over experience: 00:46:43
Where each of us sees ourselves in the next one year: 00:52:38
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
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 that can help you summarize, chat with, and organize your PDF files. When OpenAI allowed users to upload PDFs to ChatGPT, the consensus was that his startup, and all the other GPT wrappers out there, were toast.
Some of his competitors even shut shop, but Vicente believed they could still create value for users as a specialized tool. The AI PDF team kept building.
A year later, AI PDF is one of the most popular AI-powered PDF readers in the world—and they did it all with a five-person team, and a friends and family round.
I sat down with Vicente to understand, in granular detail, the success of AI PDF. We get into:
Why staying small and specialized is a bigger advantage than you think
The power of building with your early adopters
Why lean startups are better positioned than frontier AI companies to create radical solutions
When a growing startup should think about raising venture capital
The emerging role of ‘AI managers’ who will be responsible for overseeing AI agents
We even demo an agent integrated into AI PDF, prompting it to analyze recent articles from my column Chain of Thought and write a bulleted list of the core thesis statements.
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 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:
Prompt engineering matters more than ever. But it’s evolving into something totally new:
A way for non-technical domain experts to solve complex problems with AI.
I spent an hour talking to prompt wizard Jared Zoneraich, cofounder and CEO of PromptLayer, about why the death of prompt engineering is greatly exaggerated. And why the future of prompting is equipping non-technical experts with the tools to manage, deploy, and evaluate prompts quickly.
We get into:
His theory around why the “irreducible” nature of problems will keep prompt engineering relevant
Prompt engineering best practices around prompts, evals, and datasets
Why it’s important to align your prompts with the language the model speaks
How to run evals when you don’t have ground truth
Why he believes that the companies who have domain experts to scope out the right problems will win in the age of gen AI
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 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: 00:01:08
Jared’s hot AGI take: 00:09:54
An inside look at how PromptLayer works: 00:11:49
How AI startups can build defensibility by working with domain experts: 00:15:44
Everything Jared has learned about prompt engineering: 00:25:39
Best practices for evals: 00:29:46
Jared’s take on o-1: 00:32:42
How AI is enabling custom software just for you: 00:39:07
The gnarliest prompt Jared has ever run into: 00:42:02
Who the next generation of non-technical prompt engineers are: 00:46:39
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
This episode is sponsored by Notion. I’ve been using Notion to manage my professional and personal life for almost 10 years. As a company, they pay attention to the craft and ideas underlying the software they build, and that comes through in the experience of using Notion every day. If you’re a startup, get up to 6 months of Notion Plus with unlimited AI—worth up to $6,000—for free by going to https://ntn.so/every, selecting Every in the drop-down partner list, and using the code EveryXNotion.
Notion cofounder Simon Last told me everything he’s learned from integrating AI 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 his first-ever podcast interview, we get into:
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 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:
Timestamps:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
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:
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 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:
Timestamps:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
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 (each one named after a different animal), a coding agent called Ditto, a framework for building autonomous agents, and, most recently, BabyAGI 2o, a self-building autonomous agent (that follows OpenAI’s unfortunate naming convention).
Even more incredible, Yohei isn’t a professional developer. His day job is as the general partner of Untapped Capital (@UntappedVC).
I sat down with Yohei to talk about:
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.
This is a must-watch for anyone curious about autonomous agents, building cool AI tools on the internet, and the future of AI tooling.
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:
Timestamps:
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
This episode is sponsored by Reflect. It’s the ultra-fast note-taking app that’s about to change the way you take notes. To boost your productivity with advanced features like custom prompts and voice transcripts, give Reflect a try by clicking on this link: https://reflect.app/?utm_source=every&utm_medium=sponsorship&utm_campaign=september2024
Simon Eskildsen is a learning machine.
I first interviewed him in 2020 about how he leveled up from an intern at Shopify to 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. LLMs have made it possible to contextualize information like never before—and in this episode, I sat down with Simon to 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 easy and affordable to run at scale.
We get into:
How Simon’s learning rituals have evolved over time, as the cofounder of a growing startup and a new parent
The ways Simon has integrated ChatGPT, Claude, and Notion AI to do everything from writing legal documents to maintaining his rural cabin in Quebec
The custom AI commands in productivity tool Raycast that Simon uses to learn new words and cook creative dishes
Simon’s take on how language models will reshape the future of learning, especially skills like language acquisition, for the next generation
As we talk, we screenshare through his Anki setup, including the flashcard template he finds most useful, and try out his custom AI commands in Raycast to understand the meaning of two of my favorite obscure words, “lambent” and “eigengrau.”
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 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: 00:01:06
How entrepreneurship and parenthood changed Simon’s learning rituals: 00:02:51
How Simon accelerates his learning by using LLMs to find associations: 00:12:59
Simon’s Anki setup and the flashcard template he swears by: 00:18:24
The custom AI commands that Simon uses most often: 00:26:02
How Simon uses LLMs for DIY home projects: 00:37:45
Leveraging LLMs as intuitive translators: 00:40:48
Simon’s take on how AI is reshaping the future of learning: 00:51:38
How to use Notion AI to write: 00:59:10
The AI tools that Simon uses to write, read, and code: 01:08:53
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
How do two professional writers use AI to do the best work of their lives?
In today’s show, Every’s lead writer Evan Armstrong and I conduct an expert workshop on how we use ChatGPT, Claude, AI-powered word processor Lex, and the prompt builder that Every launched, Spiral, to feed our obsession with words—and help us write for more than 78,000 readers every day.
We talk about how AI helps us:
Understand our taste—understanding what good is
Pick a topic—knowing what to write about
Craft our words—everything from sketching out an outline to writing and editing
Build an audience—learn how to reach people
We get into:
How I used Claude and ChatGPT to help me identify the kind of writing I like—and why that’s critically important for mastery
How Evan uses ChatGPT to explore his taste across books, movies, and paintings
The way I use Claude Projects to help me turn a vast amount of research into a clear thesis statement for major projects
The routine Evan swears by to publish two pieces every week
How Evan and I use Lex to push through writer’s block and catch common writing mistakes like passive voice
My workflow inside Claude to craft emphatic metaphors
How we use Spiral to write viral tweets
Evan is the lead writer at Every who writes the column Napkin Math twice a week. He’s smart, funny, curious—and has the rare combination of business acumen, way with words, and crazy required to be a professional writer.
This is a must-watch for aspiring writers, or anyone whose job involves writing more than six sentences in a row.
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: 00:01:04
How to develop good taste: 00:04:28
Dan uses Claude to articulate his taste in books: 00:13:34
How to use LLMs to explore art cross different mediums: 00:21:06
The way Evan chooses his next essay topic: 00:33:45
Go from research notes to clear thesis in Claude Projects: 00:38:20
How Evan uses AI to master new topics quickly: 00:46:51
Evan leverages AI to power through writer’s block: 00:59:21
How to use Claude to find good metaphors: 01:04:28
The role of AI in building an audience: 01:11:44
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
The Browser Company isn’t just building a browser, they’re building a formidable brand—and they’re doing it with AI.
I sat down with Nashilu Mouen-Makoua, the head of storytelling at The Browser Company, to talk about how they tell stories that capture the cultural zeitgeist and connect authentically with their users—and how she integrates AI into her process for both.
We get into:
We also screen share through Nash’s conversation with ChatGPT as she conducted research for an exercise in how to position Arc, and use the LLM to simulate a typical Arc user and interview them 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 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: 00:00:47
Nash’s philosophy around storytelling: 00:04:03
The Browser Company’s strategy to come up with creative ideas: 00:09:07
Why Nash thinks building brands people can relate to is important: 00:15:00
How to avoid the tired narrative around AI products: 00:18:47
The ways Nash has integrated ChatGPT into her workflow: 00:22:21
Why understanding social context is important to position your product: 00:33:35
How Nash uses ChatGPT to get a gut check on her writing: 00:41:10
What Nash thinks is the gestalt of the current age: 00:49:50
Nash and Dan use ChatGPT to simulate and interview a typical Arc user: 00:52:01
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
The journey to a calm, profitable business in the AI age
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:
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 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: 00:00:56
Dan’s childhood dream—to build a Microsoft competitor: 00:03:36
The first app Dan built in middle school: 00:07:07
The story of Dan’s first company that he sold in college: 00:18:52
How Every came to be: 00:33:56
The start of Brandon’s journey as a builder: 00:49:15
Brandon’s first software app—and why you should launch first, and iterate later: 00:57:05
Everything Brandon learned from running a B2B business for seven years: 01:08:49
What brought Brandon to Every—and the email he sent Dan before joining: 01:18:00
Every’s master plan to be a successful creator-run business: 01:29:15
Live demo of Spiral, the app that automates 80 percent of repetitive creative work: 01:38:11
Brandon and Dan’s take on how AI startups can find a valuable niche: 01:44:00
Live demo of Sparkle, the app that organizes your files for you: 01:50:52
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
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:
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 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:
Timestamps:
Introduction: 00:00:34
Choose physical books over e-readers to boost your memory: 00:01:36
Alex’s take on how long books will stay relevant: 00:02:54
Prompt ChatGPT to find your next read: 00:07:40
Articulating Dan’s taste in books with AI: 00:13:50
Use AI to find books tailored to solve your problems: 00:15:46
How to use AI as a personal study buddy: 00:33:32
Prompt LLMs to turn insights from books into actionable strategies: 00:41:19
What Alex’s rule around buying a new book is: 01:02:10
Alex’s advice for anyone who feels like they don’t have time to read: 01:16:36
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
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:
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!
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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
Keeping up with AI is Nathaniel Whittemore’s full-time job—and I spent an hour with him to understand how he does it.
Nathaniel is the host of a top-ranked AI podcast on the technology charts, The AI Daily Brief, which breaks down the most important news in AI every day. He is also the founder and CEO of Superintelligent, a platform that teaches you how to use AI for work and fun through interactive video tutorials.
We talked about how he curates information with X bookmarks, Google News, news aggregator Feedly, and research tool Perplexity; the workflow that helps him record and produce two daily podcasts; and why he thinks optimizing your processes with AI remains one of its most underrated applications.
Here’s what you’ll learn if you listen to or watch this episode:
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
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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:
Timestamps:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
This episode is sponsored by Command Bar, an embedded AI copilot designed to improve user experience on your web or mobile site. Find them here: https://www.commandbar.com/copilot/ 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! 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 X 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’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
Steph Smith is the ultimate internet explorer. I spent an hour talking to her about the future of creating on the internet in the age of AI. She’s our first-ever repeat guest, and if you watch the episode you’ll see why: It’s a curious, fun, experimental romp through the best of the digital world. We try out four underrated AI products, go through a list of Steph’s favorite niche internet creators, and follow her creative process in Midjourney in granular detail. We had a wide-ranging discussion about:
If you don’t know her, Steph is the host of the @a16z podcast and the creator behind Internet Pipes, a toolkit to surface useful insights on the internet, and many other cool internet projects. This is a must-watch if you make things on the internet and are interested in how AI is changing what it means to be a creator—and how creator businesses work. 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:
Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Teaser 00:00:46 - Introduction 00:09:08 - How Steph uses Midjourney to find her aesthetic 00:20:45 - Steph predicts how creating on the internet will evolve with AI 00:32:51 - Rapid-fire rundown of Steph's favorite niche creators 00:42:58 - How Steph trains her brain on better data 00:48:19 - The AI research tool Steph uses for health information 00:56:25 - The future of AI tools—and one of Steph's top picks 01:01:20 - Dan and Steph use AI to create a simulation of the internet 01:05:09 - How LLM hallucinations can be useful 01:12:06 - Dan and Steph make a song about what they learned on the show Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Steph Smith: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio Internet Pipes: https://internetpipes.com/ Doing Content Right: https://doingcontentright.com/#features A few of Steph’s favorite niche creators: India Rose Crawford, Blackforager, David Zinn, David Bird, WatchMaggiePaint The podcast episode Dan did with filmmaker Dave Clark: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/how-a-hollywood-director-uses-ai-to-make-movies The AI tools Dan and Steph use on the show: Consensus, Globe Explorer, websim.ai, Granola, Suno
Dr. Bradley Love is building a tool that can predict the future.
Dr. Bradley Love is transforming neuroscience research with AI.
He's the creator of BrainGPT, a large language model that can predict the results of neuroscience studies—before they’re conducted. And it performs better than human experts.
We spent 90 minutes exploring how AI is reshaping scientific research and our understanding of the brain.
Bradley argues that as scientific knowledge grows exponentially, we need new tools to make sense of it all. BrainGPT isn't just summarizing existing research—it's predicting future discoveries.
We get into: • How BrainGPT outperforms neuroscience professors • Why clean scientific explanations may be a thing of the past • The challenges of interpreting complex biological systems • How AI could change the way we approach scientific research • The limitations of our intuitive understanding of the brain
This is a must-watch for anyone interested in the future of science, AI, and how we understand the human mind.
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. 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 00:01:00 - Introduction 00:01:58 - The motivations behind building a LLM that can predict the future 00:11:14 - How studying the brain can solve the AI revolution’s energy problem 00:13:32 - Dr. Love and his team have developed a new way to prompt AI 00:18:27 - Dan’s take on how AI is changing science 00:22:54 - Why clean scientific explanations are a thing of the past 00:29:49 - How our understanding of explanations will evolve 00:37:31 - Why Dr. Love thinks the way we do scientific research is flawed 00:40:42 - Why humans are drawn to simple explanations 00:45:03 - How Dr. Love would rebuild the field of science
Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Dr. Bradley Love: https://bradlove.org/; https://twitter.com/ProfData BrainGPT: https://braingpt.org/ Thomas Nagel’s book on the philosophy of science that Dr. Love recommends: The View From Nowhere The essay that Thomas Nagel is famous for: What is it like to be a bat?
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:
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!
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:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
An interview with best-selling sci-fi novelist Robin Sloan
One of my favorite fiction writers, New York Times best-selling author Robin Sloan, just wrote the first novel I’ve seen that’s inspired by LLMs.
The book is called Moonbound, and Robin originally wanted to write it with language models. He tried doing this in 2016 with a rudimentary model he built himself, and more recently with commercially available LLMs. Both times Robin found himself unsatisfied with the creative output generated by the models. AI couldn’t quite generate the fiction he was looking for—the kind that pushes the boundaries of literature.
He did, however, find himself fascinated by the inner workings of LLMs
Robin was particularly interested in how LLMs map language into math—the notion that each letter is represented by a unique series of numbers, allowing the model to understand human language in a computational way. He thinks LLMs are language personified, given its first heady dose of autonomy.
Robin’s body of work reflects his deep understanding of technology, language, and storytelling. He’s the author of the novels Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore and Sourdough, and has also written for publications like the New York Times, the Atlantic, and MIT Technology Review. Before going full-time on fiction writing, he worked at Twitter and in traditional media institutions.
In Moonbound, Robin puts LLMs into perspective as part of a broader human story. I sat down with Robin to unpack his fascination with LLMs, their nearly sentient nature, and what they reveal about language and our own selves. It was a wide-ranging discussion about technology, philosophy, ethics, and biology—and I came away more excited than ever about the possibilities that the future holds.
This is a must-watch for science-fiction enthusiasts, and anyone interested in the deep philosophical questions raised by LLMs and the way they function.
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:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
We use it to find bestselling author Steven Berlin Johnson’s next project.
I sat down with bestselling author Steven Johnson to see if we could come up with a concept for his next project—using AI. The results were amazing.
We loaded 200,000 words of NASA transcripts and all of Steven’s reading notes since 1999 into NotebookLM, Google’s personalized research assistant. We wanted to see if it could help us explore the Apollo 1 fire and find relevant and surprising ideas from history that could work to explain it.
If you’re a fan of Steven Johnson’s work or you’re interested in AI as a creative tool, you need to watch this episode.
All of this happens as a live exploration of NotebookLM, and it’s a seriously wild ride.
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 Follow him on X
Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Follow Steven JohnsonNotebookLM Steven’s newsletter, Adjacent Possible Steven’s latest book about the rise of the modern detective: The Infernal Machine A few of Steven’s other books: How We Got to NowWhere Good Ideas Come FromThe Ghost MapEmergenceThe Invention of Air
Learn 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
The NYT’s Kevin Roose has 18 new friends—none of whom are human.
His new friends are AI personas that he made with Noma, Kindroid, and other AI companion apps. There’s fitness guru Jared, therapist Peter, trial lawyer Anna, and over a dozen more.
Kevin talked to them every day for a month, sharing his feelings, asking for parenting advice, and even using them for “fit” checks.
This isn’t the first time Kevin has had an…unusual interaction with an AI persona. A year ago, he was the target of Bing’s chatbot Sydney’s unhinged romantic affections.
Kevin has gone deeper into the world of AI companions than anyone I know. He is a tech columnist at the New York Times, cohost of the Hard Fork podcast, and the author of three books. In this episode, I sat down with Kevin to learn more about his interactions with AI. We dive into:
This is a must-watch for anyone curious about how AI is changing the way we form 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. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Nick Dobos, maker of the #1 programming GPT, on prompt-gramming with AI
Nick Dobos showed me how to ship a website with two words and a single click.
He’s the creator of Grimoire, the #1 custom GPT for programming that has been used for over 1 million chats.
All he gave Grimoire was two words: “coffee website.” Just a minute later, Grimoire built the website and pushed it live to the internet. It was wild.
Grimoire can do a lot more than create websites—it’s a coding assistant with 75+ built-in hotkey commands and sample projects, a guide to learning how to code from scratch, and a tool for programmers to find answers to their questions in real-time.
Before he created Grimoire, Nick was an iOS developer at Twitter. When ChatGPT came out, Nick started experimenting with it—and ended up building Grimoire. Today, he’s at the leading edge of experimenting and building with AI.
I sat down with Nick to explore how people are using Grimoire and what it tells us about the age of programming by prompting. We dive into:
How AI is massively lowering the barriers to code
Why it’s important to solve the “blank canvas problem” that people experience while creating with AI
How AI tools can streamline your creative process
Why Grimoire has an edge over ordinary ChatGPT
The best ways to use Grimoire to code smarter and faster
This is a must-watch for coders, creative people, and anyone curious about how AI is changing the way we interact with computers.
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: 00:00:31
How Nick built Grimoire, the top-ranked GPT for programming: 00:05:20
Ship a website with two words and a single click: 00:10:25
How Grimoire is solving the “blank canvas problem” in AI creation: 00:14:57
The coding curriculum that can take you from zero to full programmer: 00:16:30
Why Grimoire has an edge over ordinary ChatGPT: 00:23:29
Nick’s thoughts on building the system prompt for a GPT: 00:34:10
The utility of AI as a new layer on top of existing apps: 00:40:04
How Nick uses a custom GPT to unpack his emotions: 00:43:11
How to use AI to break down tasks—from programming to daily to-do lists: 00:50:35
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Nick Dobos: @NickADobos
Nick’s website for his experiments with AI: https://mindgoblinstudios.com/
AI-first code editor Cursor: https://cursor.sh/
Open Interpreter: https://www.openinterpreter.com/
Lisa Feldman Barrett’s book: How Emotions Are Made
Demo Hume, the empathetic AI voice: https://demo.hume.ai/
This AI can read emotions better than you can.
It was created by Alan Cowen, the cofounder and CEO of Hume, an AI research lab developing models that can read your face and your voice with uncanny accuracy. Before starting Hume, Alan helped set up Google’s research into affective computing and has a Ph.D. in computational psychology from Berkely.
Hume’s ultimate goal is to build AI models that can optimize for human well-being, and in this episode I sat down with Alan to understand how that might be possible.
We get into:
What an emotion actually is
Why traditional psychological theories of emotion are inadequate
How Hume is able to model human emotions
How Hume's API enables developers to build empathetic voice interfaces
Applications of the model in customer service, gaming, and therapy
Why Hume is designed to optimize for human well-being instead of engagement
The ethical concerns around creating an AI that can interpret human emotions
The future of psychology as a science
This is a must-watch for anyone interested in the science of emotion and the future of human-AI interactions.
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:
Dan tells Hume’s empathetic AI model a secret: 00:00:00
Introduction: 00:01:13
What traditional psychology tells us about emotions: 00:10:17
Alan’s radical approach to studying human emotion: 00:13:46
Methods that Hume’s AI model uses to understand emotion: 00:16:46
How the model accounts for individual differences: 00:21:08
Dan’s pet theory on why it’s been hard to make progress in psychology: 00:27:19
The ways in which Alan thinks Hume can be used: 00:38:12
How Alan is thinking about the API v. consumer product question: 00:41:22
Ethical concerns around developing AI that can interpret human emotion: 00:44:42
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Learn how to use philosophy to run your business more effectively.
Reid Hoffman thinks a masters in philosophy will help you run your business better than an MBA.
Reid is a founder, investor, podcaster, and author. But before he did any of these things, he studied philosophy—and it changed the way he thinks.
Studying philosophy trains you to think deeply about truth, human nature, and the meaning of life. It helps you see the big picture and reason through complex problems—invaluable skills for founders grappling with existential questions about their business.
I usually bring guests onto my podcast to discuss the actionable ways in which people have incorporated ChatGPT into their lives. But this episode is different.
I sat down with Reid to tackle a deeper question: How is AI changing what it means to be human?
It was honestly one of the most meaningful shows I’ve recorded yet. We dive into:
Reid also shares actionable uses of ChatGPT for people who want to think more clearly, like:
This episode is a must-watch for anyone curious about some of the bigger questions prompted by the rapid development of AI.
Thanks again to our sponsor CommandBar, the first AI user assistance platform, for helping make this video possible. https://www.commandbar.com/copilot/
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:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Reid Hoffman: @reidhoffman
The podcasts that Reid hosts: Possible (possible.fm) and Masters of Scale (https://mastersofscale.com/)
Reid’s book: Impromptu
The book Reid recommends if you want to be more philosophically inclined: Gödel, Escher, Bach
Reid’s article in the Atlantic: "Technology Makes Us More Human"
The book about why psychology literature is wrong: The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich
The book about how culture is driving human evolution: The Secrets of Our Success by Joseph Henrich
Seth-Stephens Davidowitz wrote a book in 30 days—and he did it with ChatGPT.
Seth is a data scientist, economist, and author who challenged himself to write a book—Who Makes the NBA?—in less than 1 month after realizing how fast he could work by using ChatGPT plugin Advanced Data Analysis.
But along the way he discovered something else: Writing with AI wasn’t just faster, it was also way more fun.
Seth outsourced the boring parts of data analysis—like cleaning data, merging files, and looking up code snippets—to AI. This left him to focus on what he loves: thinking up questions to ask the dataset.
In a world where AI can answer any question humans know the answer to, asking the right questions is becoming increasingly important—a skill Seth isn’t just really good at, but also finds joy in.
In this episode, Seth walks me through how he used AI to analyze data and write a book in 30 days. We get into:
We also use ChatGPT to analyze a dataset of Olympic athletes live on the show—in pursuit of finding out which sport I’m best suited for!
This episode is a must-watch for anyone curious about data science and how AI is transforming the future of creativity (or who is just a fan of the NBA).
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:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz: https://twitter.com/SethS_D http://sethsd.com
Seth’s books: Who Makes the NBA? , Everybody Lies and Don’t Trust Your Gut
Nicholas Thorne is building Squarespace for the AI age. It’s called Audos, and it’s an AI chatbot to help any entrepreneur go from idea to:
- Pitch deck
- Working website
- Custom GPT
- User interviews with real customers
All in just a few minutes. And he did it using ChatGPTapp. It’s AI all the way down—and it’s one of the most impressive AI businesses I’ve ever seen.
Nicholas is a general partner at Prehype, an incubator that launched Barkbox and Ro Health. It’s also where I started Every, so it was great to come full circle.
Nicholas’s job at Prehype is to launch new companies. He’s taken everything he’s learned running an incubator and used it to help entrepreneurs start businesses at scale—with AI.
As we talk, Nicholas walks me through the interactions of Audos’s chatbot with a user live on the show.
Nicholas tells me that he used ChatGPT to prototype most of Audos’s features—despite being non-technical himself. He shares exactly how he did this by showing me how he’s using AI to create a new feature for the product. We get into: - Ways AI can make you a more effective founder - How to use ChatGPT to build your prototype - Strategies to refine problem statements with AI - Using GPTs to gather and synthesize customer feedback This episode is a must-watch for anyone who has ever toyed with the idea of starting a business—and wants to do it 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: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt 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 00:00:48 - Introduction 00:12:10 - How AI can make you a more effective founder 00:17:03 - Live demo of Audos! 00:24:07 - Why Nicholas built an AI tool to enable entrepreneurs 00:25:35 - How Audos puts you in “edit mode” instead of “create mode” 00:28:12 - Tools to gather customer feedback, generated by Audos 00:32:58 - How Audos actually works 00:35:07 - Nicholas uses ChatGPT to prototype a new feature 00:42:37 - How to establish checks and balances while using ChatGPT 00:57:20 - AI as a force for pushing entrepreneurship to new heights Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Nicholas Thorne: @thorneny; [email protected] Audos: https://www.audos.com/ Nicholas’s book, Me, My Customer, and AI, is slated to publish next month. Follow him on X for updates: https://mmcai.super.site/
Antidepressants changed my life.
I have OCD and antidepressants did what nearly a decade of therapy, meditation, and supplements couldn’t: they allowed me to live my life without being in a 24/7 spiral. (Bonus: they actually made therapy and meditation far more helpful once they started to work.)
I think antidepressants are seriously misunderstood. Yes, they blunt negative emotions. But they also operate on personality and sense of self: they can make you bolder, less sensitive to failure, and less risk-averse.
In short: they are a technology that changes how we see ourselves and the world.
That’s why I invited Dr. Peter D. Kramer on my show. Dr. Kramer is a psychiatrist and the author of eight books, including Listening to Prozac, which is an international bestseller. He has practiced psychiatry and taught psychotherapy at Brown University for nearly four decades.
Listening To Prozac is one of my favorite books, and it documents Dr. Kramer’s experiences as a psychiatrist seeing how antidepressants like Prozac changed his patients’ sense of self and personality.
Now, you might be wondering why have him on a show about ChatGPT? Well, technology can change who we are even if it comes as a software product rather than a pill. It’s undoubtedly true that as generations of humans learn to live with AI, it will change what it means to be human—and how we see ourselves and the world. I think that can be a good thing, but it could also be scary.
I wanted to talk to Dr. Kramer about his book, and see if we could apply some of his insights in Prozac to ChatGPT. It was an incredible conversation, and I was honored to talk to him.
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:
To learn more about the topics in this episode:
Timestamps:
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
You can build and run a one-person internet business that earns half a million in annual revenue—with AI.
Ben Tossell showed me exactly how in this episode. Ben is the founder of Ben’s Bites—one of the best daily AI newsletters out there, which I love reading every day—and an investor in a number of promising early-stage AI startups. Ben is also an experienced founder whose no-code platform Makerpad was acquired by Zapier.
I think Ben is really good at starting profitable internet businesses that are sneakily big, but don’t require too many resources. Over the last couple of years, he’s assembled a war chest of AI tools including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Lex, and Supernormal to help him do this. In this episode, we get into the weeds of how Ben has integrated AI into his workflow to find new business opportunities, run them well, and evaluate their performance.
We get into:
This episode is a must-watch for anyone who is curious about using AI to bootstrap a profitable internet business.
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Ben Tossell: https://twitter.com/bentossell
I made the greatest trade of my life with Jesse Beyroutey in 2019. We bought Nvidia shares when they were trading at $33. They’re worth nearly $800 today.
I sat down with Jesse to top that trade in 90 minutes using Gemini Pro 1.5’s incredible 1 million token context window—and make a $1,000 trade live on the show.
Jesse is a managing partner at IA Ventures, a $600 million venture fund with seed investments in companies like Wise and Digital Ocean. He’s also a very close friend and one of the smartest people I know.
We unpack our investment thesis for our Nvidia trade and leverage the power of Gemini Pro 1.5 and ChatGPT to orchestrate what we hope will be the best trade of our lives. We put our money where our mouth is and make a $1,000 trade while the cameras are still rolling.
There’s a plot twist at the end of this episode—so stick around to see the epilogue Jesse and I recorded just days after we made our investment.
We get into:
This is not investment advice, but it’s a must-watch for anyone who wants to leverage the power of AI to make smarter financial decisions.
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You can break into Hollywood with a movie you made alone in your room.
Dave Clark can show you exactly how in < 60 minutes. He’s a film director with a body of work that includes both feature films and commercials for brands like Google. His latest achievement is a stunning sci-fi short that got Hollywood’s attention, one that Dave made exclusively using AI.
Dave and I make a movie live on this episode, iterating from rough ideas to a real motion picture in < 1 hour. It’s a noir short featuring Nicolas Cage using a haunted roulette ball to resurrect his dead movie career that you don’t want to miss.
We dive deep into the world of AI tools for image and video generation, specifically exploring their implications on lowering the barriers to enter the traditional movie industry. This episode is also packed with Dave’s wisdom on how to use these tools to create mind-bending movies.
We get into:
This episode is a must-watch for creative people interested in bringing their stories to life, movie buffs, and anyone curious about the future of creativity.
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Borrowing Time, Dave’s viral sci-fi short
Forbes article that mentions Borrowing Time
Are you a curious person with a lot of ideas and little time?
Anne-Laure Le Cunff can show you how to do it all. Anne-Laure is the founder of one of my favorite internet communities for curious minds, Ness Labs, a prolific writer, and a neuroscience PhD candidate. She’s also writing a book, Liminal Minds, that’ll be out later this year.
And she said that the reason she can run a business, write a book, and do a PhD all at the same time is ChatGPT.
Anne-Laure is one of the busiest people I know, and in this episode we dive into how she uses ChatGPT to get everything done.
We get into:
This is a must-watch for curious, creative people who want to get more done.
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Anne-Laure following ChatGPT’s recipe to make an obscure Algerian cheese
Steph Smith is the host of the a16z podcast and a prolific online creator.
Steph sees the internet through a high-definition lens that gives her a deep understanding of what people want.
She can isolate a clear signal from the noise, which she uses to build wonderfully creative, useful things.
In this episode, I dive deep with Steph on how she uses the internet and AI to unearth emerging trends and validate business ideas.
I pitch Steph two potential companies on the show, and we use an arsenal of tools and strategies to vet them live.
We get into:
This is a must-watch for anyone who spends time online and wants to discover the next big idea hiding on the internet.
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You can build a video game without writing a single line of code.
Logan Kilpatrick and I use ChatGPT and GPT Builder to make our own video game in less than 60 minutes—live on this show.
Logan is OpenAI’s first dev relations and advocacy hire and is committed to empowering more people to build using AI.
It’s only fitting that we explore the depths of our own creativity by making a video game with GPT Builder—we start with a rough idea and iterate all the way up to a functional video game in < 1 hour.
This episode is full of Logan’s actionable insights on leveraging GPT Builder and ChatGPT to build any custom GPT that you’d like.
We get into:
This is a must-watch for anyone who wants to bring their creative ideas to life.
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Our video game, Allocator: https://chat.openai.com/g/g-oooxUbOkj-allocator
Dr. Gena Gorlin is a clinical psychologist at UT Austin whose goal is to raise the ceiling on human potential.
I sat down with her to discuss how @ChatGPTapp has become a key tool in her quest for radical self-betterment.
In this episode, she feeds ChatGPT a list of her old journal entries, and it conducts the most thorough and insightful annual review and goal-setting session you’ve ever seen:
Ultimately, it acts as both a mirror and mentor for her—one that’s always on, responds instantly, and can take on any personality or psychological modality that she needs.
It’s a mind-bending example of how ChatGPT can unlock your potential.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
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Dan is running a course with Dr. Gorlin called Maximize Your Mind With ChatGPT. It’s a four-week cohort-based course marrying the cutting edge of AI with the best of what psychology knows about how to reach your potential.
Learn more: https://maxyourmind.xyz
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In Defense of Radical Self-Betterment
Tyler Cowen is an economist who has been thinking about the impact of technology on life, work, and the economy for the past decade.
He is a prolific writer behind the leading economic blog Marginal Revolution, a professor of economics at George Mason University, and the author of 17 books.
In this episode, I dive deep with him on how ChatGPT will change the economy, and how he uses it in his own life. We get into:
This is a must-watch for anyone who wants insights on adapting to the future of work.
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David Perell is one of the best known internet writers of his generation.
He’s amassed almost a half million followers on X, hosts the popular podcast How I Write, and founded Write of Passage, which has taught thousands of students how to be digital writers.
We go deep on using ChatGPT to:
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This show might be a first in the history of podcasts:
Researcher Geoffrey Litt and I built an app together using ChatGPTapp and Replit in under 60 minutes—while we talked.
We wanted to show how AI and ChatGPT change who gets to build software and how they usher in a world where everyone can modify and remix the apps they use every day.
So we did it live, and ChatGPT delivered a working prototype at the end of the episode.
It was a tiny glimpse of the future—and it pushes the boundaries of what a show can be. It honestly left me speechless and it'll change the way you think about software. If it does, make sure to subscribe, share, and leave us a review!
I spent an hour and a half with Nathan Labenz, who went deep with me on using ChatGPT to:
Save days of time on programming projects
Boost his creativity
Provide access to limitless expertise
We covered both the practical and philosophical, including:
Using AI in copilot versus delegation mode
How ChatGPT relieves the hidden drudgery of creative work
Prompting techniques to maximize your thought partnership with ChatGPT
How he believes AI will do for cognitive labor what the Industrial Revolution did for manual labor
Nathan is an expert and one of the most interesting thinkers in AI today. I’m excited to share his thinking with you—like, comment, subscribe, and share if you liked this episode.
TL;DR: Today we’re releasing a new episode of our podcast How Do You Use ChatGPT? I go in-depth with Notion research engineer Linus Lee on how he uses ChatGPT and Notion AI to maximize creative control. Watch on X, YouTube, or Spotify.
You might think that being an AI researcher would mostly involve solving complicated programming problems and thinking through mathematical equations. Instead, a big part of the job is rewriting parts of your prompts in ALL CAPS in order to make sure the AI model you’re working with follows your directions. “All caps works!” Linus Lee told me in this interview. “If you look at OpenAI's system prompts for a lot of their tools, all caps works.”
Linus is a research engineer at Notion who works on its AI team, prototyping new experiences, like a Q&A chatbot. He is a deep thinker who is obsessed with building AI that enables human creativity and agency. He came on the show to talk about how AI might augment our thinking, how he thinks about prompting to get the best results, and how he uses ChatGPT and Notion AI in his work and life.
I first interviewed him a year ago, when he showed off dozens of AI prototypes he’d been building to try to understand the future of this technology. Our latest interview is a mixture of theory and practice. Linus talks about how the tools we use shape the work we can create and what the future of AI-driven interfaces might be. We watch him demo personal tools he’s built, like an AI chatbot that he communicates with over iMessage. And we peek over his shoulder to see his chats with ChatGPT to understand how he talks to it to get the best results.
Here’s a taste of what we talk about. Read on for more analysis from me at the bottom.
What do you use ChatGPT for? Have you found any interesting or surprising use cases? We want to hear from you—and we might even interview you. Reply here to talk to me!
Miss an episode? Catch up on my recent conversations with writer Nat Eliason and Gumroad CEO Sahil Lavingia and learn how they use ChatGPT.
How Nat Eliason uses ChatGPT to write books: Nat Eliason is a shape-shifter. He’s a writer with a book deal from Random House, a crypto trader, a Roam Research aficionado, a marketer, a book podcaster, a parent, and a seed oil iconoclast. He's amassed thousands of newsletter subscribers, 70,000 followers on X, and 110,000 on TikTok. His secret weapon for all of his exploring? ChatGPT. Nat took me through why he uses it every day for his work and his life. In this interview we talk about using ChatGPT for: Identifying his taste in writing. He uses ChatGPT to help him identify the kind of writing he likes, so that he can produce more of it. Finding new books to read for inspiration. ChatGPT helps him find writers and books that he never would've encountered through Googling or in his daily life. Generating story outlines and character descriptions. He uses ChatGPT to help him outline the sci-fi novel he's writing and learn how to create vivid descriptions. Settling bar bets. Air in the atmosphere contains carbon—which can technically be converted into diamond. So, how much air would be required to make a diamond? It's the kind of thing you might argue about over drinks with a friend—and exactly the kind of question ChatGPT is built to answer. Reading the news. Nat doesn't read the news. But every once in a while he wants to know what's going on about a particular topic. ChatGPT is the perfect news summarizer. Generating recipes. Nat is a frequent chef. ChatGPT is his recipe companion: surfacing ideas, and easily modifying them based on what he has at hand and his family's dietary preferences.
About the show
I believe that ChatGPT is the most important creative tool of the decade. I think it can help us write better, create art, efficiently ship products, build great businesses, make smart decisions, and even learn something about ourselves,.
But it’s still so early. Most of us don’t even really know how to use ChatGPT. We have a feeling that it’s powerful, interesting, and important—but we haven’t figured out how to incorporate it into our lives.
There are a few people, though, who are living in the future. They have the time and curiousity to use ChatGPT in their everyday lives, taking the opportunity to make the technology work for them. In this way, they light the way for everyone else.
That’s what this interview series, How I Use ChatGPT, is all about. We go in-depth with the most interesting people in the world to learn concrete ways they are already using ChatGPT. It won’t be theoretical—or limited to audio: we’ll screen-share and see their actual prompts and responses, so you can see how ChatGPT helps them perform better at work and improve their lives—one conversation at a time.
About this episode
My first guest is Sahil Lavingia, the co-founder and CEO of Gumroad, one of the largest platforms for creators to sell their work online. He shared how he uses ChatGPT for:
Buying a building. He wants to buy a New York City hangout for Gumroad employees and customers, so he asked ChatGPT to research the history of real estate in NYC, suggest which neighborhoods might be best to target, generate questions for brokers, and even detail what the design of a particular property might look like.
Writing tweets. Sahil is a prolific Twitter/X user. He often uses ChatGPT to help him flesh out an idea. He says, “I [start] with a tweet, which is like a thesis, and then I just say, ‘Add three to four paragraphs to make the point compelling—also suggest more examples.’” We explore his precise process for using ChatGPT to help him brainstorm short tweets and longer essays in this episode.
Pressure-testing ideas. For Sahil, ChatGPT is like upgrading his peripheral vision. It lets him see around the corners, ask better questions of himself and other people, and avoid poor decisions. He told me, “I think a lot of people sort of delude themselves into thinking they have [good ideas]… I think that one of the most useful things about [ChatGPT] is it focuses your research on what actually matters.” It’s the ultimate tool to help him think better.
Also in this episode: how ChatGPT could have helped Sahil save $70 million, how he thinks it will improve the most-talented creatives, and why he thinks—in the age of AI—people have no excuse for not knowing the answer to something anymore.
Timestamps:
En liten tjänst av I'm With Friends. Finns även på engelska.