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Creating with AI is fun. Turning it into a growing business is even more fun.
Dan Shipper third pass
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Dan Shipper: [00:00:00] Every new product we've built has always been like, Hey, I just kind of want this, whether that's me or someone else on the team. And the really cool thing about AI is you can like build that in a couple hours usually. Can
Andrew Warner: you tell [00:00:09] me how many people are using the different tools that you guys have created?
Dan Shipper: I can tell you we have about almost 7,000 paid subscribers. 1.3 million in a RR. We grew. They are 45% [00:00:18] this quarter.
Andrew Warner: How did you know that monologue
Dan Shipper: is something that's worth spending time on it? We started using it internally and then started to add data customers to it over a weekend and then [00:00:27] demoed it and everyone was like, oh, this is really cool.
We wanna try it.
Andrew Warner: I would like to see some of the way, some of the prompts. Will we be able to give that to listeners? Yeah, absolutely. How do you feel about me being a little [00:00:36] critical of the. I totally Are you sure? Dan Shipper is the founder of Every, they [00:00:45] make AI based software and write about the AI industry in their newsletter.
intro: Let's get it the next new thing.
Andrew Warner: Can you tell me how [00:00:54] many people are using the different, uh, tools that you guys have created?
Dan Shipper: You know, I, it's a little actually hard to track, and that's one of the things I've been working on is, um, how do we make the whole ecosystem that we [00:01:03] have, we have four AI apps that we run in-house.
How do we make that all more cohesive? Both so that, um, uh, it's a better experience for users. And so internally we can [00:01:12] understand how well is each thing doing. And I don't have all the numbers in front of me. I can tell you we have about. Almost 7,000 paid subscribers across all the, all the [00:01:21] apps in the media.
Um, and altogether we do about like, uh, 1.3 million in a RR, um, growing really fast. So we grew a RR [00:01:30] 45%, um, this quarter. Okay. Um, and, uh, yeah, that's the, that's the, the basic, you know, state of the business so far. [00:01:39]
Andrew Warner: If I'm looking at it, you've got Spiral, which allows me to turn my podcast into lots of different social media, uh, content [00:01:48] monologue, which allows me to talk into my computer and it does dictation for me.
Sparkle. It organizes all the files on my computer and Quora, which saved my ass. It's the AI system for email [00:01:57] because it goes through big email inboxes and then tells you what you need to pay attention to and you can go find the rest in an orderly way. Right. That's the business plus a [00:02:06] newsletter people pay for.
Yep. Okay. Um, I've heard a couple of things about you. Number one, you say we're mostly bootstrapped. [00:02:15] What does it mean that you're mostly bootstrapped?
Dan Shipper: Um, basically we've taken a little bit of money, so we raised 600 K in [00:02:24] 2020, which is when we started the business. Um, and then we just raised another round from Reid Hoffman.
And, [00:02:33] um. Starting line vc and that was a $2 million round. But, uh, we raised it as what I call a sip [00:02:42] seed round. So they have committed up to $2 million, but we can pull down the money whenever we want, in whatever amount we want. And we've not, we've pulled down like 500 K or [00:02:51] something like that. Um, so, uh, you know, a little bit over a million dollars raised over the last five and a half years and done in a [00:03:00] way that.
Um, you know, when I, when I, when we raised money originally, I told all of our investors, you should expect that this is the last money that we ever raise. [00:03:09] Um, mm-hmm. And I think, uh, the investors this in this round also are, are, um. Aware that we're probably not gonna [00:03:18] go raise, you know, 10 million, uh, $10 million series A from Sequoia or whatever.
I don't even know if 10 million, maybe 10 million is too small now for a series A, but [00:03:27] 30 million, 30 million Series A from Sequoia, you know, in 18 months. Um, we really try to run the business at breakeven, um, and [00:03:36] we're growing really fast. Uh, I feel very ambitious about what, what we, uh, what we are doing.
And also it's very important to me to [00:03:45] preserve, um. This spirit that we have, that we're a little bit of a creative playground. Mm-hmm. And we get to take risks and experiment and build new things and like kind of live in the [00:03:54] future together. And I think there's a trade off there when you are focusing on maximizing a particular opportunity versus, um, [00:04:03] playing and exploring new things.
And, uh, we try to do both.
Andrew Warner: Okay, so one of the things I wanna understand from this conversation is how you figure out what to create. [00:04:12] So I listened to the, uh, interview that you did with the entrepreneur in Residence who built Monologue, the dictation tool, and I wanted to understand how it was built [00:04:21] and the way it was built using AI and all these tools.
Fun to watch. But what I'm trying to understand is how do you know what to create? [00:04:30] Because there are tons of dictation apps now that are all using Whisper. How did you know that monologue is something that's worth spending time on and creating?
Dan Shipper: We [00:04:39] have a very non-pro oriented process for doing this.
That is, um, very much an outgrowth [00:04:48] of the way that we write and the way that we write is, you know, we write about what we're interested in. Like whatever, whatever I'm currently into is the thing that I'm writing about because I think that's [00:04:57] the best. That's the best kind of writing. Mm-hmm. And obviously, um, there's always you, there's always like a nexus between what I'm into and what I think other people will wanna [00:05:06] read.
And I think we, we do the same thing with, um, our, uh, the products that we build. You know, we, we have this place, we have this place inside of everywhere. We've [00:05:15] created this loop where everybody inside of every is AI code. We're all using AI to do everything from. Coding to [00:05:24] writing, to editing, to design, uh, to marketing, all that stuff.
And if you're not doing it with AI first, you're kind of weird. Uh, which I think is the reverse of how [00:05:33] things are in pretty much every other company. And it creates this like special thing where I feel like we're all figuring out how to make an AI first company [00:05:42] together, like a truly AI first company together.
Um, and then we write about it. And the really cool thing about writing is. Um, [00:05:51] it forces you to put words to your experience, and when you put words to your experience, you actually create a shared reality that allows you to, [00:06:00] um, uh, talk about what you're experiencing living in the future with the rest of the team and with the audience.
So we're kind of like bringing this reality into [00:06:09] existence by writing about it. Um, and then, um, when you're doing that, it actually becomes really clear what you want. It becomes really clear what's missing. [00:06:18] So everything that we've built, uh, like every new product we've built has always been like, Hey, I just kind of want this, uh, whether that's me or someone else on the team.[00:06:27]
And the really cool thing about AI is you can like build that in a couple hours, usually like a first version. Um. And, um, you just kind of want it, [00:06:36] you build it for yourself. If you use it, uh, and talk to the team about it, there's a whole group of, of early adopter type people inside of every who, if we see something good, we're gonna wanna [00:06:45] try it.
So, um, if it's, and then if it spreads to the rest of the team, there's a good bet that the audience is gonna like it. And so then we, you know, [00:06:54] release it to the audience. So the incubation strategy or process is very organic. It's very, I just want this. Then we see if the rest of the team likes it. And then we launch this to [00:07:03] the audience.
Andrew Warner: And so are you saying that you internally said we need a better dictation tool than all the
Dan Shipper: others
Andrew Warner: that are No. You did. No,
Dan Shipper: we
Andrew Warner: did
Dan Shipper: not. No, no, no. Naveen just [00:07:12] like Naveen, who's the G of monologue, just was like, I don't know, I, I like, I want, I want a dictation app. The ones that I, the ones that I've been using like aren't, [00:07:21] aren't quite right for me.
And he just like built it over a weekend and then demoed it and everyone was like, oh, this is really cool. We wanna try it.
Andrew Warner: And then do you sit and say, how do we differentiate this? How do we [00:07:30] make this more useful? Nothing like that. How do we take it to our audience or our customers and see if any of them has anything that they need added?
No,
Dan Shipper: not really. I mean, [00:07:39] I, we do think a lot about differentiation and, and, or, well, maybe not differentiation, but uh, we do think a lot about. What is [00:07:48] the idea behind the product and what is the concept and, and, and why do we like it and how does it connect? But that's also, again, like a more, a more organic [00:07:57] process.
: Mm-hmm.
Dan Shipper: When you're, when you're building software this way, when you're writing this way, um, and you're making something that you want, you are a very [00:08:06] special and unique person. Everybody is. And if you're making something that you actually want, it is going to be different because it's, it's yours. And you may not [00:08:15] know at the beginning exactly why it's different, but like by, by putting yourself and your taste into it, it becomes yours.
And so what [00:08:24] we do is, for example, Naveen built it and um, when we started using it internally and then started to, [00:08:33] you know, add beta customers to it, 'cause we have a list and we said, Hey, we have this new thing. We don't know if it's good, but like you wanna try it? What we started to realize is certain people [00:08:42] loved it and um, some people on the team loved it.
And some, some people on the, um, some people on the, uh, [00:08:51] uh, in the, in the beta list, on the beta list really loved it. And, um, at that point we were, that, that then it becomes like an interesting, um. [00:09:00] Psychological, sociological like investigation exercise where you're like, why? And we realized that a lot of the people that really loved it [00:09:09] either spoke multiple languages.
So like they spoke English and Spanish or they were, um. Switching between different contexts where they were speaking [00:09:18] different versions of, for example, English. Um, they're, they're speaking product manager speak, and then they're speaking gamer, speak at home when they're on Discord. And so I looked at that and [00:09:27] I was like, okay, it's the, the thing that makes it different is that it really speaks your language and everybody has their own language.
They speak. And the people that [00:09:36] love this, um, and the Venus like this too, like he's, he lives in India, um, but he's bilingual and he's constantly switching back and forth between his native language [00:09:45] and English. And it just so happened that because of that, he made something really great and different. Um, and, uh, but I [00:09:54] think that's a thing that you do after you, after the moment of creation.
To understand in retrospect, what is the what, what makes this different, versus [00:10:03] I'm gonna go out and do a bunch of research and like figure out all the problems with, you know, dictation software and then I'm gonna fix them. Which is another way to do it, but I think is just [00:10:12] not our way.
Andrew Warner: You know, I've been reading Rick Rubin's book, have you read it?
Mm-hmm. He makes that case very strongly. He says, first [00:10:21] inspiration, then you, then your audience. And that's been a hard thing for me to accept because I always felt like. W as, [00:10:30] as business people, our, our reason for being is to service an audience, to almost put our customers ahead of us, right? To not be the [00:10:39] grocery store that's selling celery because you like celery, but to say, all right, I'm even a vegetarian, but everyone eats meat.
I'm gonna have to go beyond. But that's not, that's not [00:10:48] necessarily true anymore.
Dan Shipper: I think it, it also depends on when and how you're doing it. Like, I think that we serve [00:10:57] our audience by thinking about what we want and by giving ourselves what we want because we're, um, uh, in this [00:11:06] interesting way, living a little bit ahead of the people who are reading our stuff and using our products.
Yeah. And so by really being in [00:11:15] touch with who we are and what we care about. Uh, we're doing the work for our users who don't have to think about that so much. They just get the end result of that process. [00:11:24]
: Mm-hmm.
Dan Shipper: Um, there is a point at which, you know, you have a product in market and you're like, you know, you just get a ton of complaints.
People being like, I need, I need Cora, [00:11:33] which does email. I need to like, use Outlook. And you're like, okay, like obviously we don't use Outlook, but like obviously we should do that. You know, that's a service to people. But I think the. Um, [00:11:42] and the earlier part of the product building phase, when it's a little bit more of this like, kind of creative alchemy, it's, it has to be, or maybe it doesn't have to be, but I, I think it's best.
I [00:11:51] like it best. Um, when it becomes, um, the creative alchemy is about what, who you are and what you want.
Andrew Warner: I have heard you say several [00:12:00] times that. You live in the future, you see what you need and you build it for when other people come there. I'm wondering, like, how do you live in the [00:12:09] future beyond the programming tools, which I've seen you talk to other people about.
Um, what are the things that you do personally with AI that [00:12:18] people in the future will all take naturally as part of life?
Dan Shipper: Every part of my life has been, you know, I, I don't know if AI thought is the right word, but it is [00:12:27] involved in every part of my life. So, um. Really simple. Quick example. Um, I was in the, in a coffee shop [00:12:36] today and I was journaling and just sort of like thinking about you passed some cool milestones.
Like yesterday I was at dev day opening I dev day and I got this like [00:12:45] cool plaque that was like, you've processed 10 billion tokens through, through open ai, which is, it was so cool. Yeah, I saw it and it [00:12:54] just, I like to just spend some time like soaking in moments like that because it's. If you don't enjoy it, what's the point?
Um, and I was thinking a bit about how [00:13:03] that felt and what it meant to me. And um, there's some positives to that. And then there's some negatives. 'cause like I immediately am like. You know, I hope XY, Z person saw [00:13:12] this. 'cause like, I have a chip on my shoulder about, you know, whatever, uh, people who maybe underestimating estimated me or whatever, who, like, who, and so I, [00:13:21] I, I mean, I don't wanna, I don't wanna get into, don't the name, but gimme like the, all
Andrew Warner: the personal, was it an investor or what type?
Gimme the, the, there's plenty,
Dan Shipper: there's plenty of people. There's like, there's, uh, there's. [00:13:30] Sort of investor people who are like, oh, you know, you're like running a newsletter. When are you gonna do something real with your life? Um, or there's like, you know, people I've worked with in the past, um, [00:13:39] just pe there's just a lot of people who like, sort of underestimated me.
Um, or maybe not me exactly, but I think we're judgmental of you're running a [00:13:48] newsletter, why you're not ambitious enough and whatever. And so I have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder about that.
: Mm-hmm.
Dan Shipper: And I was thinking about that, like, [00:13:57] why. Why is that? My, one of my first reactions is to like be like, fuck you, you know?
Uh, [00:14:06] and there's some good things about that, you know? Um, there's like that, that expression that's like chips on shoulders, like put dollars in pockets or whatever. I don't know. There's something like [00:14:15] that. Um, uh, but also it says something about me that, that. That [00:14:24] I go there. And one of the things I love about writing is it becomes an exploration of self where you understand yourself in a new way.[00:14:33]
Um, so I was writing about that, took a picture of it, threw it into GBT 5G. BT five is an incredible handwriting. Um, [00:14:42] recognize our OCR, you know, character recognition expert. Um. 'cause I have like this serial killer chicken [00:14:51] stretch handwriting I write in like red flare pins. So it's like a, it's like a magic marker and it just looks like I'm, it's a ransom note.
And um, [00:15:00] it, yeah, it just pulled out some patterns and I was thinking about, okay, how does this relate to my family life and how does it relate to just like who I am as a person? And it was a [00:15:09] very good sparring partner for me to. Pull out those, pull out those reflections, and, and then, and connect it to other things that we've talked about, for example.
'cause [00:15:18] it has a memory. Um, so that, like, that's a stupid, like very simple example. Another, another simple example is, um, I [00:15:27] read a lot. I love reading. I'm reading, um, this, uh, one of the things I'm reading is Ki Guards, uh, the sickness Unto Death. Who, I mean ki [00:15:36] Guard is like such a funny guy 'cause he's so.
He's obviously so depressed. Um, but he's also super, super smart. And the sickness under death [00:15:45] is an examination of, um, the state of des despair and, and the, um, actually the good things that can [00:15:54] come out of, um, about, of the, of the possibility of despair as, uh, as human beings. And it's also just [00:16:03] impossible to fucking read.
It's so bad. Um. I got kind of interested in it because one of my favorite writers, this guy David [00:16:12] Milch, was like really into it. So I was like, I'm gonna read some ki guard. And then I just, you know, I take a picture of the first page of Touchy Key and it kind of helps you, [00:16:21] helps me to understand, okay, what is he actually saying here and why is he saying it?
Why is this important? And once I have that, like [00:16:30] handhold on it, I can just sort of read it. But, um, you know, it's like we, if you, if you read sci-fi. Um, the first three [00:16:39] pages, it's like a whole totally new language of all these characters in all these places. Yeah. And you're like, what the fuck is going on?
And I think Chad Bt does a really good job of translating, again, the different forms of English [00:16:48] translating from Ki Guard's. Um, he calls it dialectical algebra, ki guard's, dialectical algebra to like normal, normal people speak. [00:16:57] And that helps me get much more out of the stuff I'm reading.
Andrew Warner: No, I saw you do a video on that where you have chat PTs, voice, uh, system set up [00:17:06] while you're reading a book so that you can just ask it questions.
Doesn't it piss you off that you can't do that with Siri? Like that's what it's built for, that you can't just say, Hey, or even that I should [00:17:15] be able to press a button on my Apple watch and talk even to chat pt and I have not found anyone who can set that up except for one guy who's punking people on YouTube.[00:17:24]
It's so irritating.
Dan Shipper: It's very silly. Yeah. I hope ALBUM gets it together.
Andrew Warner: And still you are not switching over to Android, it seems. [00:17:33] No, it would take
Dan Shipper: a lot, it would take a lot to get, to get me to switch.
Andrew Warner: It's not enough that they have Gemini built in everywhere.
Dan Shipper: No, because I can use chat GBT on my [00:17:42] phone, you know.
Um, I think, I think there's a, there's a big status tax with the green bubbles, you know? Uh, for [00:17:51] sure. And
Andrew Warner: do you know how many people I get to interview because I take their email address, I put it in the iMessage box and I send them a message and they're like. All right. I guess I assumed that [00:18:00] Andrew and I are text friends from a long time ago and they start the conversation with me and boom, we're off the, I didn't get that with, without it, you know, when I, when I [00:18:09] asked you how you were doing and I was looking at your face and you looked at me like so weird for why I was asking that way and looking at you in scrutinizing so much, it's because you read such depressing [00:18:18] books.
You read the kinds of books that either lead someone to kill themselves or discover a whole new way of thinking, and maybe, maybe we're on the right side of that. [00:18:27]
Dan Shipper: Yeah, I think I, I definitely a for sure. I've gone through periods in my life where like shit was pretty dark right now. Things are great. I love [00:18:36] what I love my life and looking deeply at the hard things in life or looking deeply at the range of human experience is a [00:18:45] really important thing for me to figure out how to live and figure out how to understand my own life.
And
Andrew Warner: I've tried using AI as a therapist. [00:18:54] It's like it's a two outta 10. Have you gotten to the place where you can go to AI as a therapist?
Dan Shipper: Yeah, and not in a way that replaces my therapist. Like I, [00:19:03] I go to a therapist every week, but, uh, I use it all the time for stuff just like this, like kind of trying to figure out, yeah, I'm journaling about [00:19:12] my, you know, emotional reaction to this thing, which is something that.
I would definitely talk to my therapist about, but I see him once a week on Friday, so I've got like four days until, [00:19:21] until my therapist is gonna be there. So at least I get a little bit of stuff from GBT and I, I think it, um, it depends on how you do it and how you prompt [00:19:30] it. So in a lot of ways, you get out what you put in.
Um, I don't think it's, it's, it's not a, it's not a clean or clear replacement, but. As [00:19:39] a, either for certain people, like a gateway into therapy or for people who are in therapy. Um, a therapist that is always around 24 7 [00:19:48] who. Can read all your texts or all your emails or your meeting transcripts. It's really good.
Um, you feed it
Andrew Warner: all your emails and all your texts. How
Dan Shipper: I do [00:19:57] sometimes feed it texts. You can export your, your iMessages. Um, they're like some GitHub's GitHub libraries where you just, um, use the GitHub library [00:20:06] to export your texts and then you can just throw it into che Bt or whatever. Um, discord transcripts too.
We use Discord as our internal, um, uh, [00:20:15] internal messaging service. And then, uh, granola is actually quite good for this. Granola just introduced this feature that, um, you can ask it [00:20:24] questions about all of your notes, uh, all of your meeting transcripts. Uh, and I, they have this like, it's like they have this recipes thing and, um, it's [00:20:33] reusable prompts from different people.
And I, I have a recipe on there that I, that I made that I, I really liked. I thought it was really cool, which is. Go through all of my [00:20:42] internal meetings and write our company handbook from what you see. And I want you to capture all of the un [00:20:51] unspoken ways that every works as a company, both good and bad, and pull a read between the lines to tell me like.
What are the different personalities? How do we, how do [00:21:00] we end up working together? All that kind of stuff. So that, um, it's the kind of stuff that you want a new employee to, to know, but uh, it would never end up in an [00:21:09] onboarding, uh, document because no one's gonna take the time to write it down and like, maybe some of it's embarrassing or whatever.
It was pretty good. It was cool. Um, I highly recommend doing that. [00:21:18] There's also lots of stuff you can do with like, where was I avoiding conflict or. What questions could I, could I have asked in this meeting to, uh, get a better [00:21:27] result or to, you know, learn more or whatever. It's really good.
Andrew Warner: See, and this is where you're a much better marketer than granola.
So they posted about that. What do they even post? It was [00:21:36] like, we have these new recipes, and then they had a screenshot of you and a cultural handbook, and I'm. Where it's, I click it, it just opens up the image in a bigger [00:21:45] thing. Where do I even go to get this thing? And you. Yeah. And the fact that you would think ahead also tells me another thing about you, Dan, that you really [00:21:54] are a very introspective person.
Like I've heard you say that you'll go into granola or other tools and say, show me where I'm avoiding conflict. You created a culture handbook [00:22:03] that lets it read between the lines and identify the ways that you guys communicate that most people would not, um, would, would not even notice. That's such an [00:22:12] interesting aspect of your personality, and I wonder, does that come through in your software?
I don't see that,
Dan Shipper: that's a good question. [00:22:21] I think that, um, a lot of, uh, like all the software that we built is geared around, it's like essentially productivity [00:22:30] software. Um, it's, it's, it's software that is designed to help you do better work and live a better life with ai. And I [00:22:39] think that comes out of, to some degree the introspection, a certain kind of introspection, which is, um, what are the problems [00:22:48] I have with, you know, my email and like, how do I wish it worked?
Um, and a desire to make [00:22:57] the, the friction in my own experience or our own experiences, um, feel better maybe. Is that part, is one thing. That part I see
Andrew Warner: you definitely have. [00:23:06] Like the opposite of schlep blindness for other people. You see the schlep and you see it and you and you feel it and you find a way to do it.
And that [00:23:15] that Tim Ferriss version 1.0 where he was looking to find a way to like get you to not spend so much time doing busy work by Fig. You got that all your [00:23:24] software has it. I feel like the heart maybe is what's missing. Monologue has it like even when you were talking with, what's his name again?
Na uh. Na na. Naveen. Mm-hmm. You were [00:23:33] talking to Naveen. There was this sense of, I know that sometimes people say things, then they backtrack and then they change midway through the sentence and they [00:23:42] complete it. Right. I'm gonna feel them and I'm gonna get it, but take a look at Spiral. That's the one that I was, I had the most hope for.
Because you are so good at, [00:23:51] actually, Lex, is Lex still part of the company?
Dan Shipper: It is not, no, it's a separate company.
Andrew Warner: Yeah. Okay. So Nathan took that and he's, he's spun it off. Okay. Yeah. So Spiral is the one that is the [00:24:00] most your, like your company in the sense that you are such great creators. Mm-hmm. Spiral takes a transcript and spits out a [00:24:09] very generic feel of a, of a post.
You're nodding along and I, I appreciate that. The part where I think it could go a little bit deeper is, I remember [00:24:18] talking to Scott Olford. Where he was going from like internet marketer to this guy who's crying on the internet, heartfelt and then [00:24:27] telling you what he was doing great was when he saw a therapist for the like, maybe not the first time, a good therapist who said, tell the world what you're telling me.
Let you want them to see you. [00:24:36] Tell, right? Like I would love it if it did some kind of introspection and it made me realize that I have a chip on my shoulder and that it's good or bad. And ask me those [00:24:45] probing questions and then create the thing
Dan Shipper: That's, uh, that is great to hear because that's exactly what we built.
Um, it is coming outta [00:24:54] beta
Andrew Warner: timeout. This is Andrew breaking into the interview. I'm looking at the edit and I've gotta tell you that there's a new version of spiral out. [00:25:03] And I'll let you decide what you think of it, but I will point out one thing that they said immediately in their launch post. It's an AI writing partner with [00:25:12] taste.
And so the point that I'd made about it not having his taste, his sensibility, his style, well the new version should, let's get back to the interview. [00:25:21]
Dan Shipper: It's essentially that, um. Basically what what we realized is, you know, spiral comes from that same kind of [00:25:30] insight, um, where I realized that I was writing a lot of posts and then, or doing a lot of podcasts and I needed to tweet and like [00:25:39] there's a specific format that I do that like, seems to work pretty well and I wanna spend more time like.
I wanna spend less time [00:25:48] just doing the rote translation and more time either making the thing better or doing something else and something new. And AI is really good at taking something from one channel and turning it into a format [00:25:57] and whatever for another channel. That's where, that's where it came from.
Same sort of like introspection about schlep, um, and, uh, [00:26:06] what we realized. Is there's a lot, there's a lot more part, there's there's many d more parts of the creative processes and just that [00:26:15] like narrow translation layer or translation step and to make spiral selling that we all, we wanted to use all the time every day, and therefore other people we [00:26:24] needed something else.
And over the summer I started using cloud code and I was like, wow, this is the future of [00:26:33] programming. And they did something really special here, which is. They just eliminated the text editor. You don't need the, you don't need the code editor, you just need to talk to Claude and, and CLI. [00:26:42] And so I started talking to Danny about this and, and, um, for the new version of Spiral, it's like, it's an [00:26:51] age agentic ghostwriter for your short form content.
And so the question is, so, so it helps you, it still helps you do the same thing, but um. [00:27:00] It's more of a ghost writer and less of a, uh, sort of like translation machine, less of like a Zapier type thing.
: Mm-hmm.
Dan Shipper: And one of the core insights [00:27:09] there is, okay, how, how do you write well for someone else? How do you, how, how do you be, how do you be a good ghost writer?
And. Good [00:27:18] ghost writers, uh, when you say, Hey, I want you to tweet about this, or blog post about this ghost, good ghost writers don't go ahead and say, great, I did it. Here it is. Um, what they do is they say, [00:27:27] okay, well what was interesting to you about this article? What was, what did you like about this podcast?
Was it this or this? Um, and then you can be like, ah, it was kind of like, I liked this, but like, there's [00:27:36] also this other thing that you missed and you can kind of go back and forth and put your, put your finger on. Put your, yeah, put your finger on like. What is it personally to you? [00:27:45] Why to why do you like this?
Not just generically,
: right?
Dan Shipper: For example, in the new spiral we have this, uh, interviewer agent [00:27:54] that when you, uh, ask it to write something for you, if you haven't given enough context, the interviewer agent kicks in and is [00:28:03] like, okay Andrew, I wanna understand you and why you care about this. And, um. That helps it when it, when we get to the right [00:28:12] step, it helps it write something that's more for you than someone else because like someone else would've said something totally different.
And that's the, um, that's like [00:28:21] basically I agree with you. And the, the new version is imbuing a lot of that sense into the product.
Andrew Warner: So Dan, part of what gets me [00:28:30] interested is in the process to go from zero to version one and then from version one to version two. And I'm wondering how you had that realization [00:28:39] that you need to do the interview after you, after you get the, uh, the original content.
How do you get to that?
Dan Shipper: I was just thinking about [00:28:48] how I do a lot. I've done a lot of ghost writing in my life. Um, how would I do that? And how does that differ from the way AI [00:28:57] currently works? And not just that, but like what makes a great ghost writer? Like how do I do something that ideally puts my finger on who someone [00:29:06] is and how they talk and what they actually think inwards?
And the first step to that is to make someone feel seen because you're actually seeing them. [00:29:15] And once you're grounded in who that person actually is. Then you can do something that feels more organically like them. And I think [00:29:24] no AI tool really is doing that. 'cause they're very focused on just gimme an answer right now.
Andrew Warner: I, I do see that. And so people used to dismiss this [00:29:33] type of app as just a wrapper because essentially I could go into chat, GPT, create my own GPT, that's like Ghost rider, GPT, and I could do all this. I always thought [00:29:42] that was ridiculous because you still need the interface. You still need someone to think through the process.
You don't have to do it yourself. Is that, is is my analysis of [00:29:51] like the way people would've dismissed it. Fair. And where we, where we're gonna end up. Also something you share.
Dan Shipper: Yeah. I'm, I'm very pro wrappers. [00:30:00] Um, I think of AI as a technology that's a little bit like Excel, [00:30:09] where, um, Excel is this very general purpose tool.
That is very simple to start with, but has like endless complexity. [00:30:18] Mm-hmm. And was the first killer app for computers. Like most people learned how to use computers because of Excel.
: Yeah.
Dan Shipper: And what happened [00:30:27] is it starts with like, you know, people doing financial modeling and stuff like that, or accounting and then it started to like grow out into, you know, pretty much any function of a business or [00:30:36] any part of your life, you could like turn into a spreadsheet and people created these very.
Um, complex workflows inside of Excel. [00:30:45]
: Mm-hmm.
Dan Shipper: That became how they were running their business and that became the entire opportunity for B2B SaaS. Like of course you can do it in Excel, but it's not purpose built for that. [00:30:54] Um, and I think there's something very similar happening and going to happen with AI as people have to use chat bt and like realize that this new sort of [00:31:03] workflow is possible and then there will be a big opportunity to unbundle those workflows into purpose-built apps.
Andrew Warner: I'm just sitting there for a second [00:31:12] because I think you're a hundred percent right. I'm, I'm flashing back to an interview I did with Susan Patel years ago. He was working on, uh. Aplo. It's [00:31:21] basically time tracking for teams. I think that's the one. Or it was something that was essentially, he said, look, companies I see are using spreadsheets to keep track of their people's time.
I'm [00:31:30] going to create software that does it. And then what he did too was he recognized that people were looking for Excel templates and Google Sheets templates for it. He goes. [00:31:39] That's the best way to get customers, to give them the thing they want. Mm-hmm. And say, by the way, do you want a better version of this?
And that get them in. And then once he turned me onto that, I realized a lot of the people I was [00:31:48] interviewing were essentially creating alternatives to Excel that did all that. Yeah. Uh, alright. Here's the thing I admire, in addition to your writing. [00:31:57] You are so good with your team, like when you just get on a Zoom with them, I see the rapport, I see the mind meld, and I know that I [00:32:06] feel like when I asked you before we got started, if you would share with me some of the prompts that you all share, that I feel like maybe I was.
Picking something that seemed too small for you. It's like, Andrew, you just [00:32:15] wanna see how we keep notes. That's not a big enough con conversation idea, but I still feel like there's a shared empathy and shared awareness that [00:32:24] comes from the way you all share ideas like that. I would like to see some of the way, some of the prompts.
Will we be able to give that to listeners?
Dan Shipper: Yeah, absolutely. [00:32:33] So, uh, you know, one of the things that we do is we have a lot of things that we do around, uh, prompt sharing specifically for editorial. Mm-hmm. [00:32:42] So like copy edits, um, because, you know, we have a daily newsletter. We also have like four different apps where we pub, we're publishing stuff [00:32:51] all the time and we need, um, we have a pretty high bar for quality and we need to make sure that everything that we, uh, publish, like has gone through that filter.
[00:33:00] We have really cool copy editing. Um, but basically we have a cloud project with all of this stuff in it, um, uh, that can do copy editing, can do [00:33:09] developmental editing, so like helping you figure out like which ideas are interesting and why, or where's the hook for the article, that, that kind of stuff. Um, and I'm happy to [00:33:18] share that, uh, after this or, uh, for, for your audience.
Andrew Warner: And so that's how you do it. You share it. I thought maybe you had a notion doc or something, but No, you do it in a [00:33:27] clawed project. Yes. And then in, you know what? I haven't used cloud projects. I use chat GPT for things like this and my, my frustration with it is that [00:33:36] I still have to have somebody go in and upload the doc with the new instructions, remove the old one.
There's no, like, I wish I could just point it at a Notion Doc and say, Hey, everyone [00:33:45] on the team you can go add to this. And hey, AI tool that we're using. Just read it and you can't do that. But with projects, can anyone on the team [00:33:54] edit them and change them and add to understanding? No,
Dan Shipper: and that's a problem.
I do think that we're getting to a place where Claude, Claude is very, very good right now at, [00:34:03] you know, longer horizon, age agentic tasks. And so I would, and it, it now also has file use, so I [00:34:12] would bet that. We're getting close to, if not currently, at, at a place where if you, if you pointed it at a notion page [00:34:21] and said, read the notion page for all of our copy editing rules, and then I think it might be able to do it, but it's like it just got there.
Andrew Warner: I was, you know, because I spent so much [00:34:30] time in Dan Shipper world this morning and I was thinking, I bet that's possible. I have to do it. And then I said, no, I have to stay focused on this. I will try that afterwards and see if that [00:34:39] works.
Dan Shipper: Um, I love it. Follow your impulse.
Andrew Warner: Speaking of, uh, people. I the reason that Naveen was [00:34:48] so connected to you is he'd read your stuff.
He was, if, I don't know that a fan is a way to do it, is, is a way to really explain it. But in the same way that [00:34:57] the, that the Reddit guys were, were reading Paul Graham and they said, okay, I like the way he thinks we are aligned and I want more of this thinking. He was the same way [00:35:06] with you. And you had time with him, you told me something that surprised me that you are now hiring people that you don't really know that well [00:35:15] or are working on the company.
And in addition to hearing, we are the almost bootstrap company. I've also kept hearing over and over again, we are the fewer than 10 people company. [00:35:24] And so are you more than 10 people? How is this working now and how are you keeping closer going? Yes,
Dan Shipper: we are more than 10 people. Um, we are about 15, between [00:35:33] 15 and 20 ish.
It's a little hard to tell full time. Um, we have sticks, business lines now, so, um, yeah, it's a lot. [00:35:42] Uh, how am I keeping the culture? Well, one of the really cool things is, well, you know, one is if you have a really solid first 10 [00:35:51] people, the culture starts to self perpetuate.
: Mm-hmm.
Dan Shipper: Um, but I think we also have another really cool advantage, um, which [00:36:00] you, you can tell from that Naveen story, which is everybody who works at every, essentially starts out as a reader.
And if you're [00:36:09] reading us or watching your videos or anything like that, you probably have, we call it every smell. You probably have like an every smell. Um, you're probably, [00:36:18] uh, pretty curious. You probably love ai. You're probably, uh, in some way multidimensional. So everyone at every, like, you know, Brandon, who's our COO, he was [00:36:27] like, uh, an architect, but then.
He was a [00:36:36] baker before this. Okay. Um, but he's, he also was like, you know, CTO of a startup. Uh, so like, he just, or he, he was also a composer, so, you know, that sort of [00:36:45] multidimensional quality.
: Mm-hmm.
Dan Shipper: Um, and so yeah, we're starting, like I, I was telling you, I just had a meeting with a designer on our team who's super [00:36:54] talented, who just joined that, uh, he's been working as a contractor for a while, but he started full time and I just, um.
I just met him for the first time, and that's like a [00:37:03] new experience for me. And so, um, I am actually currently working through okay, like how do I, how do I run an organization of [00:37:12] this size? How do I keep it feeling the way that it feels and, and, and keep it feeling like a playground? And also [00:37:21] really understand like what's working and what's not and, and who's involved and, and how are they working, even if I'm not working with 'em every day.
So, [00:37:30] uh, like TBD I'm sort of, I'm in process on that, but, uh, we, we definitely have reached a, a new stage of company building that I'm learning how to [00:37:39] do on the fly.
Andrew Warner: I see. I, it seems like the, the way the, the way the people are gonna progress in your world is they read you on Twitter, some of your free [00:37:48] stuff.
They then say, okay, I want to read another article. I want to try this software. And you could read the article and just subscribe [00:37:57] to the one thing, or just the software or, but maybe you subscribe to the whole thing and you're very likely then to end up on Discord, which your dad even loves. How'd you get your [00:38:06] dad to love Discord?
Impressive. And then from there, you're really in the world of other people who are thinking the same way. Do you, do you have like a, you're nodding for people who are listening. Do you [00:38:15] have a way of articulating what it is that you stand for? What the smell is like?
Dan Shipper: I mean, definitely I use a lot of the words that I just, I just said [00:38:24] sort of, um, curious, earnest, multidimensional, um, ai, but you haven't yet
Andrew Warner: written it down.
I wonder actually, that would be interesting to have.
Dan Shipper: [00:38:33] Uh, to a certain extent though, I think it is maybe not, um, an explicit thing, but it is implicitly in everything that we make, and that's [00:38:42] almost more important.
Andrew Warner: I once saw a biography of, uh, Hugh Hefner back when everyone admired Hugh Hefner Hefner. And the interesting thing is [00:38:51] early on he decided that he would write down the, the Playboy culture.
So that [00:39:00] everything would come out from that. And so when he would have someone write an article about speakers and there was a sense of elevation about it, it didn't come because the person happened to love [00:39:09] speakers and, and just wrote it. It's because they were encouraged to feel this way to care about the finer things in life like that.
Mm-hmm. Um, anyway, that's why I was [00:39:18] asking about that. Yeah. Let's talk about smuggled intelligence. Um, you're, you're still thinking about this post that you put up. [00:39:27] What is smuggled intelligence?
Dan Shipper: I think that there's a, there's a lot of conversation right now about, uh, is AI gonna take our jobs? [00:39:36] And the way that we, one of the reasons for that is we're starting to do benchmarks, which is important, but, um, we're just starting to do benchmarks.
Like there's a, [00:39:45] there's a, um, benchmark from OpenAI called, um, G-D-P-G-D-P eval, or G-D-G-D-G-D-P-V, which is, um, [00:39:54] basically they took. Tasks across a bunch of different industries. And then, um, had experts, uh, [00:40:03] uh, judge humans versus AI on how well they did those tasks.
Andrew Warner: Like a wholesale sales analyst, you is the example.
[00:40:12] Yeah. Wholesale sales analyst
Dan Shipper: or, yeah, there's a couple. There's a, there's a bunch of them across a bunch of, or like a, you know. Investment banker doing a presentation on an acquisition, like that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. They [00:40:21] found that GPT five is better than experts, like blindly judged better than experts at completing these tasks like 40% of the time.
And I think Claude [00:40:30] Opus is at 40, at 49%. And so, and that triggers like a bunch of headlines about, okay, it's like ai AI's gonna take all of our jobs. It's already better [00:40:39] than 40% experts, 40 or 50% of the time, and. I actually think that, um, these benchmarks show [00:40:48] in a lot of ways the opposite, that uh, it will, it will certainly change our jobs, but it may actually create more jobs than [00:40:57] it, um, than it takes 'em away.
And the reason for that is jobs don't. When you think about the way these benchmarks work, um, [00:41:06] a human being had to be like. We're gonna measure, we're gonna, first, we wanna measure this. We wanna see how, how well, how good AI is at doing real world tasks, which in itself is like a [00:41:15] hard thing to just come up with on, on, on any given day.
Um, and then humans had to design the tests. The tests. [00:41:24] So they had to really understand. Okay. How does a, how does a the day go for a particular expert in your particular domain? And like, what's a [00:41:33] representative task, which is also like very hard to do. And then they had to like prompt it. They had to, these prompts are like long and big and give it the right [00:41:42] context, and then they had to judge it afterwards.
: Okay.
Dan Shipper: And so it's extremely impressive that AI [00:41:51] is, um. Doing all this stuff and it will be like a, it's a massive benefit to the economy and humanity and all that kind of stuff. And, [00:42:00] uh, to do all of the things you need to do in order to set up the eval is a job. And, um, and so [00:42:09] the eval is. What I'm saying is smuggling a lot of human intelligence into it because in order to take a like complex and dynamic activity, like doing a job [00:42:18] and turn it into a test, it requires a lot of hu, still a lot of human intelligence.
Andrew Warner: But Dan, I remember going through San Francisco and seeing Waymo cars with [00:42:27] people in it, and you would say, okay, it's a lot of human intelligence that goes into teaching these cars how to drive. And I see the others like cruise and so on. And now I'm in Austin and these [00:42:36] cars are driving, not cruise anymore, but uh, Waymo without any humans in it.
And so we train them to do our job and then that's it. They don't need us [00:42:45] anymore.
Dan Shipper: That's a good question. I think, um, I actually think that self-driving cars is one of the, one of the areas where it is, it is actually like I love going in [00:42:54] Lemos and the, those are for real. Um, and I do think that there's, there, there will be a significant impact, um, on how many people are like [00:43:03] Uber drivers.
Hundred percent. That's definitely coming and we're gonna have to figure out how to deal with that. Um, I'm specifically talking here about knowledge work.
Andrew Warner: I guess no, what I'm saying is the same thing will [00:43:12] happen in knowledge work. You're gonna teach 'em how to be a ghost writer. A ghost writer. I get it.
You, yeah.
Dan Shipper: Um, I think the, the, the difference is that, um, [00:43:21] the roads, even though things are complex and dynamic and all that kind of stuff on the road, the roads are the same. Like that's the same roads. Um, you're [00:43:30] getting it from point A to point B and the, the way that that works, like you, there's a zillion different ways you can do it.
But like, generally, once you gather enough training data, like it's gonna be what it's. [00:43:39] Um, and work is not like that. Um, work changes dynamically according [00:43:48] to like all the different conditions of the market, including, right, what tools are available. And so for example, if you, if you had a [00:43:57] hypothetical city where, um, every single day the roads like regrew and were new, and you were constantly discovering new roads, [00:44:06] um, and every time you went down a road, it actually changed the road.
Um, you would find that Waymo's would not work in that city. [00:44:15]
Andrew Warner: I don't agree. I get your point. I mean, I'm, I'm driving in a self-driving Tesla and the fricking two 90 here in Austin. They're expanding it and expanding it, and every [00:44:24] day it's a different road. It sometimes gets confused, but it'll, it's figuring it out and it'll, it's getting better at recognizing the, the randomness.[00:44:33]
Dan Shipper: It, it is able to deal with change in randomness within a certain distribution. And the, uh, the [00:44:42] difference that I'm talking about or the, the changes in, in the things that are required in a day-to-day job, um, over a period of months or years, [00:44:51] uh, the, those changes are way, way, way different than. The amount of change that happens in a road over the course of some [00:45:00] road work.
It's just, it's just a different
Andrew Warner: thing. I'll, I'll add to your hypothetical and then I'll give you a real one. The hypothetical I think would be if the roads turned into, if the cars had to turn into [00:45:09] flying cars, because suddenly the world evolves so much that you have to fly and then Yeah. The road is now lava, you know?
Right. Yeah. We're all expecting both. The, [00:45:18] the, the real world example I think about is when I was graduating from college, they told us that the world is going to need more, um. What is it? The, the [00:45:27] people who plan vacations, what are they called? Um, travel agents. Yeah, I didn't even know what it's called.
They said, you're gonna need travel agents. And [00:45:36] the reason they were saying that is because they noticed that more people were gonna be traveling, but they completely failed to evaluate the, uh, to understand that the internet was coming and it was gonna make it easy. [00:45:45] And still, even though not only did we not need more travel agents, but the ones that existed pretty much almost all went away.
And the people who went into that ended up going into other [00:45:54] jobs that we didn't anticipate. Maybe it's web design, maybe it's graphic design. Maybe it's something else. All right. I'm gonna close with two things. One business, one personal, [00:46:03] and you can say no to the personal, but I'm curious about it for the businesses.
Imagine Naveen didn't become an entrepreneur in residence, didn't come and build with you, had this seed [00:46:12] of an idea that was good. And in fact, I love the, I love the idea that he had on his computer. It was something like if you highlight some text on your screen and then you [00:46:21] speak to your computer about what you wanna do with it, it will do it with it, right?
He said, I had it on my computer, never went anywhere. I love working with you guys 'cause now my ideas go places. But imagine he was a guy [00:46:30] listening to you and he was looking for direction from you about how to get actual users for it. What would you tell him to do? What would you tell others in [00:46:39] your community to do when they have an idea like that and they built it?
Dan Shipper: I think that software is now content. It's like so cheap to make that. It's sort of like [00:46:48] building an app is sort of like writing an essay or tweeting. And so if you're someone that likes to make things, just make a lot of stuff and share it widely. And, and the way that you do that is gonna [00:46:57] depend on who you are.
So maybe it's, um, maybe you're on rept and like you just develop a community on rep with people sharing their projects. Or maybe you're. Just putting it on Twitter. Maybe you're putting on a [00:47:06] hacker news, um, or maybe you're making videos about it and putting it on TikTok, or maybe you're making SOA videos or whatever.
Just like make stuff and share it. And, um, the first time you [00:47:15] do that, probably very few people are going to, uh, to look at it. But if you do that long enough and well enough, you are guaranteed to like, attract people to, [00:47:24] um, to engage with what you're doing. And that's sort of the first step.
Andrew Warner: You know what would be interesting to have a Twitter or YouTube [00:47:33] or Instagram for AI created products.
You wanna be able to show them off and have people go play with it. I know Product Hunt is supposed to do that, but Product Hunt is not that [00:47:42] ethos. It's a big product. You're getting feedback and pat's on the back. No, this is like feedback. Alright, here's, here's the, I feel like you've got something else coming up.
I'm looking at your eyes. Here's the [00:47:51] thing that I'm curious about. You. Feel free not to answer it. I'm wondering on a personal level, are you in love? Do you have someone [00:48:00] that is like occupying your head and heart when you're not thinking about Kier guard?
Dan Shipper: No, I'm not. I have been. Uh, [00:48:09] but current, currently single.
So any, uh, any ladies in New York listening who, uh, wanna hang out with a Kiir guardian, uh, AI [00:48:18] lover, like, let me know.
Andrew Warner: That is the best part of New York, that there will be lots of both women and men who love that and will wanna hang out with you and they will be [00:48:27] interesting to, to be around with. Alright.
I love, uh, I love watching you develop. I told you, I interviewed you years ago. I did not connect the Dan [00:48:36] shipper, who I interviewed years ago to the Dan Shipper of today, because in my mind, what you've become is like. You've become an intellectual. I think it might be the [00:48:45] beard, the books you read, the way that you're shaping, the way we're thinking about ai and that you're not somebody who's just like half-assing things.
If anything, you're over asing it like you're [00:48:54] spending a lot of time thinking it, but at least you're doing our work for us. Thanks, Dan. I appreciate it. Thank you. Great to chat. Thanks. Bye everyone.