Build in Public Daily

Summary

Build in Public Daily is back, and the shape of it is changing. Jethro talks through a full day of building Optimization Doc, using OpenClaw and Hermes agents to log and execute work, and the strange shift from hiring a virtual assistant to having AI assistants generate hundreds of lines of daily work history.

This first revived episode covers the Ryan Ray AI brain conversation, a Thinkering Collective partnership opportunity, updates to jethrojones.com, the new What I Built Today process, faceless TikTok automation ideas, and the early positioning for GrantMemory and Scholar Second Brain.

Chapters

  • 0:00 - Restarting Build in Public Daily
  • 0:32 - Daily logging, AI agents, and 646 lines of work
  • 1:40 - Virtual assistants vs. AI assistants
  • 2:14 - Ryan Ray and an AI brain vault prompt
  • 2:59 - Thinkering Collective and podcast network opportunities
  • 3:23 - AI disclosure and the What I Built Today process
  • 4:09 - TikTok automation, GrantMemory, and Scholar Second Brain
  • 4:55 - A full day of building and token usage

Show Notes

  • Optimization Doc is Jethro's new business focused on helping companies improve operations with AI automation.
  • OpenClaw and Hermes are doing meaningful background work: scripts, jobs, logging, and task execution.
  • Jethro reflects on the difference between hiring a virtual assistant and building AI assistants that can actually keep up with his operating system.
  • The Ryan Ray conversation led to a custom AI brain vault prompt based on how Jethro is using his own vault.
  • The Thinkering Collective may bring fellows into shows on the BE Podcast Network.
  • Jethro is rebuilding jethrojones.com with explicit AI disclosure and a What I Built Today feed.
  • GrantMemory and Scholar Second Brain are being positioned as second-brain setup services for academics.

Added/created/modified by OpenClaw on 2026.07.27 20:15 on ombee.

What is Build in Public Daily?

In this show, we share the struggles and challenges of growing and building stuff.

Okay, here we are.
We got to start it up again.
Build in public is going to look a little bit different now because what I've been working
on is building optimization doc, which is my new business that focuses on helping people,
making businesses bring AI automation, improve operations in their business.
So, what I'm going to do is go through my daily task list and, well, not task list.
I'm going to go over what I did today and I'm just going to go through and talk about
a couple things.
I'm not going to share everything, a lot of it is super boring.
Today's list has 646 lines in it, so that's a lot.
And you know, maybe I'm over logging in this a little bit, but that's where I'm at.
So there's a lot that's happening and a lot of it is happening automatically with my,
my open claw and Hermes agents that do stuff for me on their own.
They have their own scripts and jobs that they go through and do stuff with, so that is
just part of this.
Today, interesting things started with me texting my friend, Aaron, something.
And I said, hey, it's crazy that I hired a virtual assistant a couple years ago and thought
that that would solve some of my problems and it turns out that it did not.
And now I have these AI assistants that do so much for me.
It's crazy.
Like I said, over 600 lines of entries in my daily note.
So I sent that to him.
And he said, oh, I was just going to mention someone and reached out to Ryan Ray on X and
said, hey, here's a, here's what Jethro thinks about AI and virtual assistants.
And then we had a little conversation on X.
I offered to help him get his AI brain set up and I wrote a custom AI brain vault prompt
for him that would make it work nicely.
What I think will work nicely because it's how I'm using mine.
And had a good conversation there.
And so we'll see what's happening there.
I ended the day with a conversation with the thinkering collective, which you can check
out online.
And they're doing some really cool stuff.
And we're going to bring some of their fellows into our podcast.
They do a fellowship.
And so some of those fellows are going to start on some podcasts on the B podcast network,
which I'm pretty excited about.
I also worked on my jethrojones.com website.
And some people are like, I'm never going to put any AI on my website.
I am not one of those people.
I am going to try to tell you when I'm using AI.
And most of the things that I care about won't be AI, but I do have a, what I built today
process.
And that is all AI generated and that's on my website.
Part of this whole building public thing is like, I want to be able to talk about what
I'm building because it's pretty cool.
And that's why I'm resurrecting this podcast because I think there's some opportunity there.
So there's that.
Let's see what else did I do.
Oh, yeah, I did some work on pondering about how to automate some TikTok videos that
I want to make because I want, I have a faceless TikTok page.
I want to not be the star of the star of the show.
And then I've been working on a thing called grant memory and scholar second brain for
academics to set up a second brain for them so that it works how my second brain is working
and think that'll be valuable.
So okay, those are, you know, that's pretty much what I did today.
Busy day, full day.
I took a brief break for lunch and that was it, but I've been grinding all day long using
tokens just for the fun of it codex to say and I spent 6.2 million tokens today.
Cloud say and I spent 12 million tokens today.
And Grock isn't saying how many, but anyway, I don't know what
this thing is going to look like, but there it is, there's, there's number one in the
can.
Hope you enjoy it.