Show Notes
Learn how to use philosophy to run your business more effectively. Reid Hoffman thinks a masters in philosophy will help you run your business better than an MBA. Reid is a founder, investor, podcaster, and author. But before he did any of these things, he studied philosophy—and it changed the way he thinks. Studying philosophy trains you to think deeply about truth, human nature, and the meaning of life. It helps you see the big picture and reason through complex problems—invaluable skills for founders grappling with existential questions about their business. I usually bring guests onto my podcast to discuss the actionable ways in which people have incorporated ChatGPT into their lives. But this episode is different. I sat down with Reid to tackle a deeper question: How is AI changing what it means to be human? It was honestly one of the most meaningful shows I’ve recorded yet. We dive into: - How philosophy prepares you to be a better founder - The importance of interdisciplinary thinking - Essentialism v. nominalism in the context of AI - How language models are evolving to be more “essentialist” - The co-evolution of humans and technology Reid also shares actionable uses of ChatGPT for people who want to think more clearly, like: - Input your argument and ask ChatGPT for alternative perspectives - Generate custom explanations of complex ideas - Leverage ChatGPT as an on-demand research assistant This episode is a must-watch for anyone curious about some of the bigger questions prompted by the rapid development 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 Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded—without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at framer.com, and use code DAN to get your first month of Pro on the house! Timestamps: 00:00:00 - START 00:04:35 - Why philosophy will make you a better founder 00:08:22 - The fundamental problem with “trolley problems” 00:14:27 - How AI is changing the essentialism v. nominalism debate 00:29:33 - Why embeddings align with nominalism 00:34:26 - How LLMs are being trained to reason better 00:44:52 - How technology changes the way we see ourselves and the world around us 00:46:24 - Why most psychology literature is wrong 00:52:46 - Why philosophers didn’t come up with AI 00:56:30 - How to use ChatGPT to be more philosophically inclined Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Reid Hoffman: https://twitter.com/reidhoffman The podcasts that Reid hosts: Possible (possible.fm) and Masters of Scale (https://mastersofscale.com/) Reid’s book: Impromptu https://www.impromptubook.com/ The book Reid recommends if you want to be more philosophically inclined: Gödel, Escher, Bach https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567 Reid’s article in the Atlantic: "Technology Makes Us More Human" https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/01/chatgpt-ai-technology-techo-humanism-reid-hoffman/672872/ The book about why psychology literature is wrong: The WEIRDest People in the World by Joseph Henrich https://www.amazon.com/WEIRDest-People-World-Psychologically-Particularly/dp/0374173222 The book about how culture is driving human evolution: The Secrets of Our Success by Joseph Henrich https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691178431/the-secret-of-our-success
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Check out Gemini Audio: https://goo.gle/Every-Gemini-Audio Every time a new AI model drops, companies face the same dilemma: Figure out what’s new and how to use it, or focus on getting work done. Every solves this dilemma with a frontier team: a small group that tests new models and turns useful experiments into tools and workflows for the rest of the company. On this week’s episode of The Every Podcast, Natalia Quintero sits down with all seven members of Every’s frontier team to ask what they’re building—from a tabless browser that helps protect your attention to a personal agent orchestrator called Minga—and what they want to try next. Subscribe to Every (free for 14 days): https://every.to/youtube-every-offer?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=companyagentepisode Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Follow Every: https://x.com/every Compound Writing plugin: https://every.to/guides/compound-writing Every’s vibe checks: https://every.to/vibe-check Follow Dan Shipper: https://x.com/danshipper Follow Natalia Quintero: https://x.com/NataliaZarina Follow Mike Taylor: https://x.com/hammer_mt Follow Jack Cheng: https://x.com/jackcheng Follow Arielle Shipper: https://x.com/ArielleShipper Follow Katie Parrott: https://x.com/kplikethebird Follow Jannik Jung: https://x.com/JannikJung 0:00 Introduction: Why every company needs a frontier team 2:42 Why the best frontier teams have pirates and architects 4:57 How Head of Evals Mike Taylor builds personal benchmarks 6:46 How Opus edited an explainer video using Slack messages and meeting notes 10:20 Working with AI means protecting other people’s attention 12:26 Why a frontier team needs a “wrangler” like Arielle Shipper 18:58 Why senior editor Jack Cheng built a tabless browser 24:37 How resident writer Katie Parrott teaches her AI writing plugin who the reader is 30:51 Inside engineer Jannik Jung’s personal AI orchestrator 35:41 Compound engineer Kieran Klaassen uses AI to build power tools
Check out Gemini Audio: https://goo.gle/Every-Gemini-Audio Bet on founders who understand the technology, because their first idea probably won’t be the one that sticks. That’s the view of Matt Hartman, founder and managing partner of Factorial Capital. In 2016, as a partner at Betaworks, Hartman was part of the team that wrote the first check into Hugging Face, which was then a chatbot app for teenagers. Today it’s the largest hub for open-source AI, and Nvidia has agreed to buy it for about $13 billion. On this week’s episode of The Every Podcast, Hartman tells Natalia Quintero how backing Hugging Face shaped his investment thesis, how Factorial grew into a “family tree” of technical founders who help him scout deals, and why vibe-coding his own app gave him a new respect for SaaS. Subscribe to Every (free for 14 days): https://every.to/podcast-every-offer?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=matthartmanepisode Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Factorial Capital: https://factorialcap.com Ghost Pepper, Matt's open-source voice-to-text app: https://github.com/matthartman/ghost-pepper Superpowers, Jesse Vincent's skill for Claude Code: https://github.com/obra/superpowers Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co Follow Every: https://x.com/every Follow Natalia Quintero: https://x.com/NataliaZarina Follow Matt Hartman: https://x.com/MattHartman 0:00 Introduction 5:06 How Hugging Face went from a teen chatbot to the home of open-source AI 9:52 The three decisions that set Hugging Face on its path 12:49 Hartman’s approach to finding the newly technically possible 18:10 Why Hartman backs technical founders 21:10 How Factorial’s portfolio founders source its next deals 27:09 Why faster iteration makes product insight the most valuable skill 34:28 What Hartman learned building Ghost Pepper, an open-source voice-to-text app 40:02 Hartman’s current theses, from non-language models to full-stack AI apps 44:14 Why the best founders right now are experimenting
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Two years ago, Katie Parrott was laid off from a crypto firm and couldn’t afford a career coach—so she turned to a $20-a-month ChatGPT subscription instead. The Every staff writer’s habit of feeding AI good context eventually became compound writing, a codified system for brainstorming, drafting, and editing with AI. Today, that system is a plugin any writer can use. On this week’s AI & I, Natalia Quintero talks with Katie about turning good ingredients into good writing, borrowing the taste of writers she admires, and why AI helped her fall back in love with the page. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! To hear more from Natalia Quintero: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow her on X: @NataliaZarina Go to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off your first year. Timestamps: 0:00 Start 0:49 Introduction 1:21 How Katie went from being laid off to using ChatGPT as a career coach 8:06 Turning AI into a “content agency of one” 10:59 Building the context files and style guides that make AI outputs useful 14:15 What makes a Claude project actually work 21:18 How AI helped with a mental health crisis and “computer errands” 27:03 Katie’s career coach, now a fully autonomous Codex project 32:27 What compounding means, and building the Compound Writing plugin 38:00 Borrowing Vonnegut, Hitchcock, and Sorkin as AI editing skills 44:49 Katie’s thesis: education and access will matter more than ever Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Katie Parrott on X: @kplikethebird Compound writing plugin: https://github.com/EveryInc/compound-writing Compound engineering plugin (Kieran Klassen): github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin Parrott’s companion piece on compound writing: https://every.to/guides/compound-writing Parrott, “I Hired ChatGPT as My Career Coach”: every.to/working-overtime/i-hired-chatgpt-as-my-career-coach Parrott, “AI Turned Me Into a Content Agency of One”: every.to/working-overtime/ai-turned-me-into-a-content-agency-of-one