AI Founder Explains The FUTURE of Creativity

Instead of paying attention to how you feel and what you like, you're paying attention to the rules and whether or not you're following the rules. And that's a very poor recipe for success.

If you were willing to, like, put enough time, like, the level of understanding necessary has been lowered because ChatGPT, Cursor, Quad, you know, insert LLM here, you know, can be both your teacher and your assistant. And like the ability for creators now, if they're willing to like put in some sweat equity and some education of themselves, that even with a small, little to no understanding of How to code, if you're just comfortable learning how to learn, then like there's a whole new level of possibility that's open for you as, as a producer, as a creator.

Yeah, I think so. Um, I mean, the way that I think about it is you can build things with English now. Um, and the, the, your power to do that with just English is increasing every month. You could always build with English. You just needed money to do it. So, you know, you can hire, you could always hire people. But now the, like, the amount of money you need to do that is lower. And you could always do it for very little money. You just needed to have the skill. But now money and skill, at least skill with the, like, underlying technical workings of all this stuff is like less important than it used to be. It still is important, especially if you're doing like real production stuff and whatever. But like for a lot of my coding right now, like I'm literally just the conduit between like O1 or Sonnet and like my computer, you know, I'm just like copy pasting or I'm not even copy pasting at this point because like Cursor is doing all the like actual coding. I'm just like interacting with the file system to like install libraries or like push it to a server or whatever. Like it doesn't have access to my file system right now, which will be different soon. So yeah, I really think it's like, it's worth getting familiar with this stuff now because it's only going to get easier. And I think like one of the interesting things about being a creator is you always have to think about how am I going to monetize the stuff that I'm doing? And in, in general, having a diverse revenue stream is better. I mean, at the beginning it's, you know, you should probably focus, but like over time diversifying is gonna be better cuz like there are gonna be years where like ads are working great and that's amazing, but then there are gonna be years where like subscription is better and there's gonna be years when you need to sell courses and like it just, you just wanna have different options. Legs of the stool to make sure you can keep doing the thing you want to do. And I think software is just like a really, really good version of that. It's really good for us. And the bar is a lot lower. And because the bar is a lot lower, there's a lot more software in the world. But if you have an audience that trusts you and and you can reach them, you have an advantage in building that kind of software for those kind of people.

Yeah, and I think for creators, like software has always felt, especially if you're non-technical, software has always felt like something that was unattainable or you had to have maybe such a large following that you were just like, you could still use the English language, which you needed money to go along with it, or you needed enough clout to get people to sign up for it. Not that that always going to work either, as we saw with MKBHD's wallpaper app. There are like, but the possibilities of what you can do. And I think like the other interesting part about it, um, for someone like me and even like an example like this is the opportunity to create such, such niche little like products or services. Be like, hey, I just, now it may not fall within like the range of non-random outcomes for something like effective email score, but just thinking about like, hey, I could with an, with enough time and that amount of time isn't even a lot with enough time and application of like my own talents and understanding of the, of the tools, I could build something like this within like a a couple of months instead of like it taking a lot more time, a lot more money. And that, that's really, that's really interesting and exciting to me. Like if you were like even talking about like what you built with Hermes, like if you were a reading influencer or like a book influencer, which I know in some ways you are, but like, I think, do you know Alex and Books on, on Twitter? Yeah.

I had him on the podcast.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I missed that one. But for like, what would he, what would he do with something like that? Or what's something even, even similar that he could build that's just so, so unique to his audience and to what he does?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think it's also like I think one of the interesting things will be as it gets less expensive to build stuff, it'll become clear how important it is, not just like being able to build, but like knowing what to build and how to do it. Like, yeah, I, it's sort of similar to like, just writing in general, you know, like any, most people can write an essay or something. Very few people can like write a good one. And I think like almost no one can build products right now, but like in the next couple years everyone will be able to, but still only a few people, like it'll still be like hard to make a good one. There's a lot of that skill and I think learning how to One of the other like really hard things is figuring out how to balance the different creative endeavors you're doing, or balance, let's just say, the like making of content with like the business.

Yeah.

Because they really trade off with each other and it's really hard to like keep the business from taking over your life and not giving you enough room to like actually do stuff. So that's, that's also another, another interesting one. It's not just about Whether or not you can code, there's like a lot of other variables that make it hard.

Yeah. Is that something that you, you've like, it seems to me like that's that last question you talked about of like the balance of business and content is something that you have really taken, is something that you've really taken head on in the past year. Is it was about a year ago that you wrote the article? Admitting what, what is obvious, which I told you pre-show, something like has been an article over the past year that's really stood out to me as well, because I also have had like this struggle over the past year and a half of letting the business take over my creative life and feeling some of the feeling, some of the burnout around that. And also like, What am I, you know, what do I want to do? Like what's obvious, what's obvious to me? So is that like, how has, how has that kind of like impacted the way that you have been building over the past year?

Totally.

Yeah.

I mean, so the article you're referring to is something I wrote, like you said, about a year ago, and it was about a decision that I made to like prioritize writing and being a writer over the other things in my life. Like, you know, running a business, for example. And I think for a long time it was really hard for me to admit that I wanted to write, even though I was like writing all the time and, you know, doing all this stuff. But like when I started Every, like it was started as a company, as like a, right. Hopefully like a, I mean media, but like media and tech. And so like I get, I got to call myself a founder and like, we raised a little bit of money for it, like not very much, but still some money. And so I got to, and it was sort of like incidental to it that I was also writing, or it was, I mean, it was very important at the beginning, but like the idea was, you know, me and Nathan, who was my co-founder, like we would stop writing when it started working. And A, like I learned a lot over the last like 4 or 5 years about the difference between software and media. And like in media, if you like, get product market fit with a writer and then the writer moves on to like run the company, you lose product market fit, you have to find it again. So like I was the first writer for Everly and we were growing really fast. And then as soon as I stopped writing and got other writers, like the growth plateaued because we, you know, it was a different product, product's new every day. And so anyway, so I had to learn a lot of those kinds of lessons, but about, yeah, about a year ago I was like, What do I really wanna do with this business? And what would I do if I wasn't like afraid of all the things that might come with like just being like, I kind of just wanna write. And I realized that that's probably what I would do if I was not, if I wasn't afraid. And what was interesting is the minute I like said that to myself and I was like, yeah, I think that's what I would do. It, it turned from something that was like kind of in the back of my mind, but like ignored because it was a little bit scary to a pretty practical problem to solve. Like, okay, I wanna do this, but it brings up all these issues. Like I really also like running a business. So like how is it possible for me to balance that? And, but once it's a practical problem, the first thing I did honestly is I was like, I just asked ChatGPT, I was like, who else does this?

Yeah.

Um, like I wanna be a writer, but like I also wanna make products. I don't wanna do stuff, I wanna build stuff. Like how do you do that? Um, and ChatGPT was like, well actually there's a lot of people that do that. Um, they don't necessarily fit the like Silicon Valley startup model. Um, which is totally fine with me, but, uh, but, uh, they're, they are quite successful. So an example is Sam Harris who, He's got his books, he's got a podcast, he's got a newsletter, and he also has the Waking Up app, which is like, I think, gigantic. Like, I think it's a really big business. Another example is, um, Bill Simmons, who's, um, a really, really famous sportswriter. Uh, he ran Grantland, he ran, um, The Ringer, um, and sold it to Spotify for a couple hundred million bucks. Um, and so once again, those fans—

big fans of The Ringer.

And yeah, they're great.

The BS Podcast here though.

Yeah, yeah, he's awesome. Um, I honestly, like, I think this is a sort of slight tangent, but like, I do a lot of coverage of new products when they come out, like new models and whatever. And whenever I'm writing one of those, I always go read some Bill Simmons columns because like there's something, there's something about that, like, that's sort of like sports writing, like as a fan, you know?

Yeah. Um, and Ben Thompson does this super well.

Yeah, yeah, he's good.

He treats, treats tech media like a sport. Now he's also a big sports fan and has been on Bill's show and vice versa a few, a few times. Um, those are, those are great episodes and super interesting.

Totally. Um, so anyway, so ChatGPT was like, there's people that do this, like Sam Harris and Bill Simmons. And, and then I realized there are like certain patterns that they follow. Um, and a pattern is, um, you have people around you who you really trust, who are super talented, who understand the vision and are also down to basically run the day-to-day and know that like it's critically important for you to have enough time to do the creative work because that's what makes the whole thing run. Yeah. And so rather than it feeling like I feel guilty because I'm not doing enough work, it's like, actually, no, no, no. The 4 hours in the morning where I try not to do meetings, that's really important. Cause if I don't do that, everything grinds to a halt to some degree. And so I hired a couple people who really helped me do that. So we hired Kate, Kate Lee, who's our editor-in-chief. And she does a fantastic job on the media side. And then Brandon Gel, who runs our studio, and he is doing a fantastic job on that side. And we have a couple other amazing people as well. And all of them just do a really phenomenal job understanding what needs to be done, making sure the trains run on time. Managing like everybody else, uh, figuring out what to do, like all that, like all that kind of stuff. Um, and obviously I'm there, uh, and I'm, you know, helping out and whatever, but like there's a little bit more of a buffer where, um, I, I also have time to do the things I need to do. Um, and, and that's like really lucky. And, um, that's what, that's what makes it all— that's what makes it possible. It would not— it would be very, very much more difficult if I didn't have people around me to do that.

Yeah. And I think like one thing that jumps out to me is you started to make the content like the non-negotiable. And that was the thing that was just, that was going to get done. And I think like speaking from my own experience and, and I don't know if this seems like it was similar to you and something you've moved past is. It's like for the past year-ish, the content has always been secondary or third, third dairy. It hasn't been like the number one thing that like, or if I'm doing it, it's like literally just to get it done. It's like, well, the newsletter has to go out tomorrow and it's 10:00 PM the night before. So I'm just gonna write something. It's not, but it's not as considered, uh, as, as much as I, as much as I would like. For it to be.

Yeah. Um, I mean, I would not say I've moved past it, but I have, I have like, um, built structures into my life that make it easier for that not to happen. Um, but it's a like dynamic balance that's like, it's, oh, you're, oh, it's always getting pulled at and it's always has to be defended and sometimes it's better at defending it than others. And I think it's, you know, like creative stuff is, this like fragile thing, that needs like a lot of time and space to like even let it bubble up, you know?

Yeah.

Um, and a lot of that looks like not working.

Yep.

And, and when you have people or clients or family or like whatever, like there's always gonna, there's always people demanding your time and it's always Um, it's easy to say like, I'm busy because I have XYZ thing to do. And it's hard to say I'm busy because I like literally need to sit on my couch and do nothing until I get a good idea.

Right. Um, that's definitely been part of it is like, well, this client is doing this launch tomorrow. Like, okay, well, I guess there's not going to be a YouTube video today. And it's like, and then like just fill in the blank for other things that could, could be coming up. One of the things that, um, I think does help because I've also found like, and this has been interesting for me, uh, cuz yeah, I think we, I think we initially met because of like, you know, productivity writing. Yeah. I think I, even before Everly, I found you on Superorganizers. And, um, the thing that has like challenged me and frustrated me at times over the past, you know, year plus is like. I'm a very proactive time blocker of like, hey, I know how much time, you know, again, content creation is kind of a different beast, but I know how much time pretty much that things take. So like, okay, I'm going to block out 2 to 4 PM on Tuesday afternoon to be creative. But then it's like, okay, is something like really pressing on that time? Client-related, or even if it is like you were saying, like it doesn't feel like a good use of time when you have a lot of demands on your time, just be like, okay, well, I don't know if anything's really gonna happen during this 2 to 4 hour block. Yeah. But I need to be able, or I need to like, and sometimes it's just like literally inside of me. It's not that necessarily people are pulling me away. It's like, I can't be disciplined enough to do nothing in a sense. Yeah. So that the thing can come out.

I feel you. Um, and it's not just about, um, it's also not just about like actual minutes on a clock. It's like there's a, there's a level of emotional time where it's like an emotional space where even if you managed to like. Block out those 2 hours, if you've got a big thing coming up the next day, like good luck.

All right.

And I have that too, cuz we, you know, we launch products and we do all this stuff. And so even if I'm not directly the one doing everything, like if I'm gonna put my name on it, I'm gonna write the launch post, I'm gonna whatever, like I'm right. You know, there's a lot to be done there and it does suck up a lot of energy. And so I definitely do not want to come off as like I've totally solved this. Yeah. But I have started to realize the importance of it and I have created some structures that help a lot. But it's hard.

Yeah. What's an example of one of those structures?

Oh, like, you know, hiring people that, whose job it is to kind of like protect me from this to some degree and like I try not to do meetings before noon and I succeed usually Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Mondays is our like kind of team day. So I have like lots of meetings on Mondays and then a little bit on Fridays, but I publish on Fridays, so it's a little bit more.

Do you like to publish on Friday because you kind of have the whole week to lead up to it? That's why I do my newsletter on Saturday.

Yeah, it just sort of ended up being that way. I don't remember why. I think like. When we first made the schedule, I was the last to pick because I was like writing the least frequently and Friday was just the last slot open and then I just basically stuck with it. But it is nice that I have the whole week to like, you know, figure it out. I mean, what ends up really happening, cuz like right now I'm writing the column, which comes out on Fridays and then I'm writing a, like a long form piece. It's gonna take me a couple more months to finish. So I'm mostly writing that during the week, like the long form piece. And then what happens is like Thursday, I'll sit down and like bang something out. Um, and I've gotten actually pretty good at, um, knock on wood, like knowing how to like go into the day on Thursday with something in my head that I can pretty much see and that I just need to kind of like do, you know? Um, which for essays, it took me a while to get there, but I'm, I'm like, I, I can pretty much do it, isn't it? It's, which is very satisfying.

One of the things that's come up a few times is the importance of taste. And you're saying, hey, it's going to get easier to do all this stuff. Just like you and Evan have both written about taste and also using AI in writing and content creation. It's like the ability to make something has gotten easier and easier. But I think ironically, the ability to make something good may be getting harder and harder, and taste is a part of that. And one thing that you talked about in, in an essay— let me get the— I get the title right because it's not what I— not what I would have thought when I read it. It's the What I Do When I Can't Sleep essay. Where you're talking about your ineffable list and paying attention to what you find, like, great and interesting. And that was really— that was really helpful to me because, like, another person that you've had on your show on the podcast is Steven Johnson, who I'm a big fan of, and he has his spark list or his spark file. And the ineffable list kind of reminded me of that. But I really like how you're like putting in like pieces of content, ideas, like snippets of whatever that you find really interesting and compelling, but then doing, going that extra, like 10%, let's just say, be like, what is it about this thing that I do find interesting and compelling? And you use a really great metaphor that like at the beginning I didn't, I didn't really understand when you were talking about smelling spices. But you're like, as you, like, the more that you can identify a smell, then the better you get at recognizing it when it's just like out in the wild, for lack of a better term. And you could do the same thing with the type of content ideas, just things about life that are really like compelling and interesting. And like wonderful to you. Yeah. And by doing that, you get better at cultivating that in your own writing and like, say, you know, videos, whatever, whatever it might be. And like, I think just that having that like ability to define taste, even if it's just for you, is something that is going to become more and more important as AI becomes more and more prevalent, and rightly so.

Totally. And I think like where that comes from is, you know, to be a better writer, or this applies to everything, but I'm gonna use writing as the primary example. There we can like create two broad categories of like ways of doing that. One is like go read a bunch of like books about writing and like be like, oh, here there's a rule. I have to do like, simpler sentences, you know, lemme write that down. And then maybe I'll like, well, review that every once in a while and make sure I like get it in there or whatever. And that can work in certain circumstances, but like, I think the problem with it is instead of paying attention to how you feel and what you like, you're paying attention to the rules and whether or not you're following the rules. Um, and that's a very poor recipe for success. Um, and I think a better way to do it is sort of like the second broad way, which is first to, um, cultivate an awareness of what you like and how things make you feel. Um, so as you're reading something, if you like it, if it makes you feel good, makes you feel sad, makes you feel happy, like just being aware that that's what's happening and saving the things that have a little bit of that flavor where you're like, this is great. I love this.

You know? Yeah.

And that's what that, that list is. That's, you know, Steven Johnson's like spark list, whatever. And just that is really helpful because what you can do is, once you have it as you're writing, you can like go back and scroll through and it just like, um, it brings back that— those feelings. And once you're in the feeling— so like, you save something because it makes you feel a certain way, and once you read it again, you get back into the feeling. And once you're in the feeling, it's a lot easier to like make stuff that has that flavor too. Um, and then I think the, the next step, which is I think just really, like, one of the most amazing things about AI, uh, for me, or one of the most amazing use cases is what I was writing about in that, in that essay, is taking some of that stuff and just throwing it into ChatGPT and being like, right, tell me about what I like, and it will just list it out. And then you have words for what you like. You can be like, oh, um, I like really lyrical prose, or I really like, um, accessible writing that's sort of at the intersection of lots of different disciplines. Like, all those things for me are like absolutely true, um, and I had a feeling about it, but like I could never articulate it. And obviously like your taste is like not— never fully articulable, but like having those things, they become like these sort of, um, uh, you know, they point you along the way, um, both to find new things you want to read or listen to or whatever, and for what you're hoping to achieve. And so what you're, what you're sort of doing then is you have this, just by living your life, you have this sort of, you build up this sort of innate sense of what you like. And having that sense is like a really, it's like the most important part of being able to make stuff you like because you're like sort of following like, is the thing I'm making evoking those feelings in me? And obviously there's lots of technical stuff and there are things you need to learn in order to like even get to the point where you can make things that make you feel anything. But like, we can put that to the side for a second. And then what you're doing is by saving things that you like and learning to articulate it, you're like pulling them out of this like implicit, inarticulate sense of taste that you have. And you're like holding them up to the light a little bit so you can, you can like understand, you're unpacking them a little bit. And then hopefully what's happening when you unpack it is then they're just going back into you, going back into sort of your like implicit intuitive sense in a more refined, deeper kind of way where you can see, see that sense from different angles. And then that can come back out again in your writing. Um, and I think the thing that people end up doing that is probably not great is like really keying in on the like, um, that like middle part of it where they're like, okay, like I have these like rules that I can articulate for like how to write. And they're not, they don't really understand as much that like developing your taste is like enriching and developing your like these like ability to feel what you like and then produce it, which is always going to be mostly not explicit, mostly not rule-based, mostly intuitive. Um, um, but that the rules and the, um, the words and all that kind of stuff for what you're doing, they are important, but like only as part of the, of like enriching that like kind of intuitive process.

Yeah. And it's, it's something that I've tried to pay a lot more attention to over the last couple of years as I have enjoyed more and more like getting, getting into AI and just seeing what the potentials are. And this isn't even just an AI conversation. Like even if it wasn't like changing things as, as rapidly as it is, especially for content creators, still like very much believe that just the sheer volume of people and content online has been accelerating to such a, such a significant place that having like a unique sense of who you are and what you bring to the world is something that like, that's the thing that can't be replicated or can't be copied that well. And I really liked your recommendation in that piece to be like, hey, take your writing, take the things that inspire you, especially like something that I've I've done inspired by, by that piece is like, take your like highlights in Readwise, like notes that you might have been taking in, like in Notion, like those sorts of inputs. Cause it's, it's about more. Cause the thing that, and I haven't fully done this yet, but it's like, here's how I've been writing for the past year. Like tying this all together, even like with the newsletter, here's how I've been writing for the past year. Here's what I say that I like. Through my notes, through my highlights, how, how well does this match? Does it match? Be like, well, no, you say that you like this and this is what inspires you, but this is what you're actually putting out day to day. And that may not be a bad thing for like business or whatever you, whatever I'm doing right now. But there's something like, if there's a disconnect, then like the ability of something like ChatGPT or Claude or any of them to to highlight that and help you hone in on the unique perspective and the taste that you have for the things that inspire you, that's gonna be like a real like launching point for creating the type of content for making the connection and the impact in the world that like you're uniquely like able to do.

Totally. I, uh, I 100% agree.