AI & I

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

If you had millions of people using a product you spent years building, would you kill it?That’s exactly what The Browser Company did with Arc.The internet backlash was intense, but cofounders Josh Miller and Hursh Agrawal saw that AI was about to make the web something you talk to, not just click into. The best home for that assistant was the thing that's already between you and the internet—the browser. And they realized they couldn’t just duct-tape it on to Arc.One year of heads-down work later, the team launched Dia in beta, and people are raving about it. Dia is a sleek, fast, browser with AI at its core—it gets better with every tab you open, becoming more and more helpful with time. And even though it’s still early, Josh and Hursh’s big pivot looks like one for the ages.This week on AI & I, Josh and Hursh joined me for their first full-length podcast about their pivot from Arc to Dia. We talk through their decision-making process, the very public backlash the company faced, and the grit it took to stay the course. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Sponsor:Attio: Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM.Timestamps:Introduction: 00:01:13The 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/ 

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: 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"⁠ 

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/danshipperSponsors: 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: 21:11:04How we think, feel, and react; the three layers of human awareness: 27:25:01Staying grounded while coaching the people shaping our future: 35:34:04Why Joe doesn’t take things personally—even when the stakes are high: 42:44:03Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Joe Hudson: @FU_joehudson; Learn more about the coaching and workshops that Joe runs: Art of Accomplishment

If you’re using AI to just write code, you’re missing out.Two engineers at Every shipped six features, five bug fixes, and three infrastructure updates in one week—and they did it by designing workflows with AI agents, where each task makes the next one easier, faster, and more reliable.In this episode of AI & I, Dan Shipper interviewed the pair—Kieran Klaassen, general manager of Cora, our inbox management tool, and Cora engineer Nityesh Agarwal—about how they’re compounding their engineering with AI. They walk Dan through their workflow in Anthropic’s agentic coding tool, Claude Code, and the mental models they’ve developed for making AI agents truly useful. Kieran, our resident AI-agent aficionado, also ranked all the AI coding assistants he’s used.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper   Sponsors:Microsoft 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 

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 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.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Sponsor: Attio: Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.⁠⁠⁠⁠attio.com/every⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get 15% off your first year on your AI-powered CRM.Timestamps:00:00:38 - Introduction  00:07:40 - Copilot’s place in the AI coding agent race  00:10:42 - Inside the product decisions behind Copilot’s new agent  00:16:18 - How Dohmke thinks about shaping Copilot’s personality  00:20:29 - How GitHub supports both AI-native developers and legacy enterprise users  00:26:57 - Dohmke’s predictions for the future of software development  

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 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

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"⁠

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

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

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

With LTX Studio, you can bring your stories to life, complete with a cast, storyline, and settings, all according to your style and specifications. Check them out here: https://bit.ly/LTXStudioEvery500K 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

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

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 in the episode: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

Jonny Miller uploaded his entire life to ChatGPT to use it as the ultimate AI coach. He created what he calls a Codex Vitae—with core personality traits, values, goals, burnout signals and more to load into ChatGPT. It hyper-customizes his responses, to help him access deep meditation states, create custom supplementation plans, and do deep research on areas of brain and body that he finds interesting.  Jonny runs a course on nervous system mastery, hosts a podcast, coaches founders and CEOs, and is building a wellness app—all using AI. As a long-time friend and writer for @every, I was psyched to have Jonny on AI & I to talk about how LLMs are expanding the breadth and depth of what he can do. We get into: Energy as your greatest asset: Jonny’s philosophy around pursuing a non-traditional path—like us at Every—by fiercely protecting his energy and optimizing for “aliveness” instead of higher revenue figures.ChatGPT projects for everything: His use of projects in @ChatGPTapp to organize different areas of his life; for example, he uploads his meditation journal to a Jhana project and asks it for advice when he’s struggling with the practice on a particular day.Deep research in action: How he uses @OpenAI’s deep research to tackle practical questions about moving his family to Costa Rica, hilariously esoteric ones about whether there’s a connection between Pokémon and shamanism, and everything that lies in between.The rise of “centaur” teams: Jonny’s belief that @kevin2kelly’s prediction around “centaurs”—human + AI teams outperforming either human or AI working alone—is becoming our reality.This is a must watch for anyone interested in using AI for personal development, coaching, or to build systems that can understand you. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps:Introduction: 00:01:31Dan and Jonny’s approach to running non-traditional businesses: 00:02:18How Jonny uses ChatGPT to deepen his meditation practice: 00:12:04Jonny uses AI to research a theory of how trauma is stored in our bodies: 00:25:44Dan’s theory around how AI is changing science: 00:31:28Jonny’s method to build personalized AI coaches: 00:32:35How Jonny used OpenAI’s deep research to plan a move to Costa Rica: 00:47:07Dan is developing an app that can predict his OCD symptoms: 00:52:50AI makes the idea of a “quantified self” useful: 00:55:42The future of human-AI coaching teams: 00:58:28Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Jonny Miller: @jonnym1llerThe nervous system mastery bootcamp: https://www.nsmastery.com/ His podcast: Curious Humans with Jonny Miller The nervous system regulation mobile app: Stateshift Jonny’s method to build your AI coach: http://BuildyourAIcoach.com More about Jhana: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/20/meditative-states-as-mental-feedback-loops/ Buster Benson’s Codex Vitate: https://2019.busterbenson.com/beliefs/The pieces Jonny has written for Every: “The Operating Manual for Your Nervous System,” “The Best Decision-Making Is Emotional,” “How to Pay Off Your Emotional Debt,” “The Art and Science of Interoception”  

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

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

Our sponsor for this episode is Microsoft. Want seamless collaboration without the cost? Microsoft Teams offers a robust free plan for individuals that delivers unlimited chat, 60-minute video meetings, and file sharing—all within one intuitive workspace that keeps your projects moving forward. Head to https://aka.ms/every to use Teams for free, and experience effortless collaboration, today.Mike Maples knows how AI startups can beat incumbents with billions of dollars. Mike—who wrote early checks to Twitter, Twitch, Okta, and Lyft, and now invests through Floodgate, the fund he cofounded—told me it's not about the smartest model, or raising the most money. Startups can win in AI with better strategy.AI is changing the economics of startups—both how they’re started and how they’re funded. A new breed of companies is emerging, and I invited Mike on the show to talk about how they can best strategize. Last year, Mike co-authored a book called Pattern Breakers, which is essentially a guidebook to why there’s no guidebook to building companies. I really liked it, and my colleague Evan Armstrong reviewed it for Every, so I was glad to have him on. We talk about how shifts in technology create space for smaller players to compete—even with AI giants like OpenAI—and how to capitalize on them.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps:Introduction: 00:02:20Innovate the business model, not just the product: 00:06:02How startups can compete against the likes of OpenAI: 00:15:49Mike’s take on DeepSeek: 00:19:34Why the future has always belonged to the tinkerers: 00:21:44How small teams today can make big money: 00:24:03Find niches that incumbents can’t or don’t want to enter: 00:28:55The qualities of the truly AI-native: 00:47:08How AI changes the funding model for software companies: 00:53:46Knowledge work is moving toward systems-level thinking: 00:58:23Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Mike Maple: @m2jrThe fund Mike confounded, Floodgate: @floodgatefundEvan’s piece reviewing Pattern Breakers: "A New Book of the Startup Bible" Dan’s piece on the allocation economy: "The Knowledge Economy Is Over. Welcome to the Allocation Economy."