Claude Code Can Be Your Second Brain

Noah Brier might have the coolest Claw

code setup I've ever seen. He rigged a

home server in his basement, put his

Obsidian vault in it, and then runs

Claude code on top so he can think,

research, write, and even ship code

right from his phone. Today, he shows us

how he uses Claude Code as a true second

brain, a thinking partner that asks him

sharp questions, pulls research from his

whole note archive and the web, and even

keeps a running log of what he's learned

and what his best ideas are. And he

walks us through his whole stack and his

whole workflow. If you want to learn how

to use claude code as a true second

brain, this is the episode to watch.

Let's dive in.

This podcast is supported by Google. Hi

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Noah, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to have you. Uh it's really

good to uh get to chat. This is our

first interview in probably like 5

years. You were one of the for people

who don't know uh you were one of the

first uh super organizers interviewees.

That was the newsletter that turned into

every and um I I love the way that your

brain works. uh you have this like uh

really interesting taste for tools for

thought and back in the day you were

using Evernote in all these really

interesting ways. Um you were uh the

co-founder of a really cool startup uh

called Percolate uh and then another one

called Variance and now you're running

Alfic which is an AI strategy

consultancy

and um I'm just really excited to see

how your um mind has uh started to use

these AI tools now that now that they're

uh now that they're you know working so

well. And I know you have some pretty

cool cla code stuff to show us. So yeah,

thanks for coming on. Thanks for having

me. Yeah, I'm super excited. That was a

a fun interview all those years back.

It was. It was really really fun. Um, so

I want to just like dive right into the

the like the thing that I think is so

cool about what you're doing. So I know

you have a whole like vibe coding setup

that you built for yourself. Can you

talk us through that?

Yeah, I wouldn't uh I'm not sure about

actually the vibe coding part of it. Um

uh I have a a sort of fairly heavy duty

clawed code set up. Um but actually uh

mostly not for code. Um so uh since

those days of uh super organizers like

many people um uh I've abandoned

Evernote um and uh switched over to

Obsidian. And one of the big advantages

with Obsidian as a note-taking platform

is that it's a bunch of markdown files

and a bunch of folders. Um, and uh, they

can then be synced with Git and you can

do lots of other fun kinds of things.

And so actually probably my number one

claude code use is using it as a tool to

interact with my notes. Um, and so that,

uh, I've got a fairly serious cloud code

setup that I use with Obsidian. And, um,

my most recent obsession,

um, has been, uh, standing up a server

in my house so that I could also use

Claude Code on my phone.

This is incredible. I want to I want to

go through all of this. So, um, where

should we start? Should we do should we

do how you use cloud code as sort of

this like research assistant notes

organizer notetaker thing or should we

start with uh how you use it on your

phone?

Um we can use it we can start uh with

just the sort of general part of it that

that might be the sort of easiest. The

phone is really just an extension of

that same thing. I um I would say sort

of generally and this is something I

feel like not enough people talk about

with AI is like one of the things I find

really extraordinary about it is the

ability for me to um work really

productively

on my phone and that's been like a huge

huge change because so much of what I do

is sort of writing or coding and the

phone is definitely not the best place

for that and you know even the phone

wasn't always the best place for doing

research and thinking Um, I felt like my

computer was a better place for it,

which is why I've been such a sort of

notetaker. And, um, you know, I have

found whether it's like claude code and

obsidian or, um, I mean, even claude

code and code, right? So, like the other

piece of it is being able to then, you

know, if you see something go wrong,

being able to sign in on your phone and

have Claude code push a small update to

something because you just realize it

while you're out is amazing. But then

even like uh um you know I use quite a

bit of uh uh Grock voice mode and you

know I find that that as a sort of like

alternative way of working through

problems. I have a Tesla so now it's

baked into the Tesla. Um and uh you know

it's just I and you know obviously all

the sort of other Chad GBT and Claude

and all these things of just being able

to sort of like go and do research and

really think and and explore things

in this device that's always been useful

but like not useful for deep work I

think is probably um something most

people would agree with is that the

phone has not been the best place to

kind of do deep coding and research work

and I feel like it it it's really

changed my ability to do that. Wait, I

got to stop you. So, you're using Grock

voice mode and and is that specifically

because it's built into your Tesla or

using it um in situations where you

could also use, for example, CHBT voice

mode?

No, I'm using it because it's way better

than any of the other voice modes. And I

will fight anybody who says anything

different.

Okay. No, tell me like what is what do

you like about it? Why is it better? I

to be fair um uh OpenAI launched their

real-time API which may or may not be

baked into chat GBT voice. Now I it's

not totally clear but the old voice mode

was based on 40 and I just found it to

be completely unusable. Um and uh uh

Gemini's voice mode I just didn't find

to be smart enough. Um and I just found

Grock's voice mode to be significantly

smarter than anybody else's. Um, you

know, I'm using Grock

2, three, four, I don't even remember

what whatever the latest

the latest one. Yeah.

Yeah. Not the super I don't have the

most expensive account.

Super heavy or whatever.

I don't have super heavy. Um, but I just

find it to be much better. It does tool

calling way better than any of the other

ones. That's that's I found to be a

major weakness of the voice models is

that they don't do great tool calling

and research. And um, uh, Gro seems to

have solved that. So, no, even before it

was loaded in my Tesla, um I dropped my

daughter off at summer camp this summer

up in New Hampshire. So, I had a 5-h

hour drive on my own and I spent like

two hours researching and essentially

like working through a piece. Um, and I

did it by just like connecting it to

Bluetooth and just sort of sitting there

in the car. And, um, I found it to be by

far the uh the best of the voice modes.

I I hope these other models catch up

there cuz I would I would love more

really good voice modes. I mean, I had a

mind-blowing session this weekend and uh

I'm giving a talk and I'm sort of have

some ideas. I think it's generally going

to be about transformers eating the

world and um so I was sort of catching

myself up on self attention and exactly

how it works. and um I did like an hour

session and it really I I it like was by

far the sort of best

explanation I've ever read for it and or

ever heard I guess and so yeah I' I've

just found it to be a a kind of pretty

extraordinary product.

I do love voice mode for that. Um it's

sort of like it's the it's a podcast

made specifically for you about whatever

you're curious about and that's really

cool. I went up to I I drove up state

this weekend and I've been reading um

I've been reading the Iliad and so I had

it on audiobook and then I had some

questions as I was driving and so I

unfortunately use CHBT voice mode

because I didn't know about Grock. So I

wish that uh Grock's voice mode so I

wish that uh we had had this

conversation before then.

The thing about TGBT voice mode is yeah,

I think when it first came out it was

cool, but it just hasn't gotten as smart

as the models are are. And they they

gave it this new personality that I had

to get used to where every time you ask

it a question it goes like, "Oh, yeah."

Uh-huh. Well, you know, and it's like

it's just this like weird Gen Z thing

that it feels like it's has a little bit

too much onwe or something like doesn't

actually care about you. I don't know

what that is. So, I had to get used to

that. Rock has a stoner mode for when

it's worth. Yeah.

I will say uh the car version is very

interesting to me. Like this was in the

most recent Tesla release like a couple

weeks ago. And um you know I had been

doing that same thing you did where you

just plug your phone in and you put on

Bluetooth and you you know do your best

to make it work. And it's very

interesting to just like have a voice AI

button and it syncs back to your regular

Grock, but it you can't get you can't

rejoin old chats. So, it's just like,

hey, I it's just like but you know, I

mean, these things are significantly

better than Siri and all of these other

things and particularly I mean, you

know, there's no comparison if you

actually have something more than just a

a single question you want an answer to,

right? like if you actually want to have

a conversation about the Iliad or you

know about Transformers and self

attention like um I don't know it's

pretty amazing to just be able to sort

of like hit this button and and yeah use

that car time. I I mean I I was on my

way somewhere last week and I was um you

know I was like having it research uh I

was going back to the um Walter

Benjamin. I was I was I I have this sort

of idea to write a piece about um how uh

um the reactions to every new technology

are essentially elitist um critiques of

it and that you know it's always like oh

no everybody's going to be able to like

do this thing that only we used to be

able to do and so um I was in the car

and I was thinking about this and so I

had it go and I was like okay you know I

know I it's been years since I read the

Walter Benjamin uh

mass production of images one yeah

uh yeah that that one And um so yeah,

then I'm having conversations about that

and I'm like who are Walter Benjamin's

contemporaries? And then I'm like into

all these, you know, it's just like I

don't know. That's a it that's amazing.

It's the best.

It's the best. Yeah. I don't know.

Um Okay. And so you're filling your

brain with all these things from voice

mode, which I love. Uh, but tell us

about your your second brain setup or I

don't know how you I don't know how you

refer to it, whether whe you think that

second brain is appropriate for this,

but I want to know how you're using

cloud code to uh take notes and do

research and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah. So, um, uh, you know, I could just

open it up. Maybe that's the easiest

thing to walk you through it. I'll I'll

start on my computer and then we can do

the phone. The computer's just a way

easier a way easier share here. So, um,

all right. So, um,

uh, this is what I was working on

before. Um, uh, but essentially, you

know, this is just claude code and it's

just sitting on top of my Obsidian. So,

you know, if I jump out here and I just

do like, you know, you can see I'm I'm

following the the Parah method. Um, and

uh uh you know, I've just got everything

sort of organized in here and and put in

the places that they need to be. Well,

let me just uh let me just stop you for

people who are listening. So, okay. So,

we're looking at we're looking at cloud

code. It sounds seems like you have

cloud code running in your Obsidian

vault and there's some kind of uh it's

adding something to an existing it looks

like it's adding something to an

existing note. Is that that's what

that's what's going on? That's what

we're looking at.

Yeah. So, in this particular one I'm I'm

working on this talk. So, I I'm putting

on my conference in two weeks. I'm

giving this talk about marketing and AI

and sort of what's going on. And um I'm

uh if we sort of jump back a second um

I've been doing these conferences uh

called Brand BRXnd.AI and they're about

marketing and AI and um I did one in

February in um LA and my talk in LA was

about this uh I'm sure you've seen it.

It was the Office of Strategic Services

which was the precursor to the CIA wrote

this manual called the Simple Sabotage

Field Manual. Um, and it was essentially

a manual to help citizen saboturs in

Nazi occupied territories um, sort of

like quietly sabotage um, the the Nazi

occupation. And um so it was like you

know there's a whole bunch of stuff for

bluecollar workers that's like if you're

a janitor you should leave a bucket of

oily waste around and accidentally drop

a cigarette in there so that you know it

it will um but then there's this amazing

um set of recommendations for white

collar workers and they're like um

always refer things to committee um uh

always revisit previously made decisions

um make sure that like if somebody is

trying to make a decision you should

suggest that they don't act with too

much haste um uh less like we be

embarrassed and and so it's like um you

know uh my talk was about kind of how

one hope I have is that AI um can kind

of like sidestep a lot of the

bureaucracy that exists inside large

organizations because it sort of has

this um kind of uh goo like effect where

it can kind of fit into any crevice or

crack because it can act as this fuzzy

interface and it doesn't really care

about the sort of input output. Um and

so

the sort of next part of the story is I

after the conference I realized that um

uh that manual was in the public domain.

So I hired a designer and I printed 300

copies and I wrote a new forward for it.

And so we're giving this away at the

conference and so my talk is sort of

trying to tie all these ideas together.

Right? So, I'm I'm trying to pull from

the sabotage manual and then I was doing

a bunch of research into wild Bill

Donovan who started the OSS. And the OSS

was sort of the precursor to the both

the CIA and the um uh uh special forces.

And so anyway, I'm I'm writing this talk

and so I've got a project inside my

Obsidian, which is the beginning of the

research for this project. And I'm

pulling in sort of like chats and

articles and all these things. And then

I'm constantly kind of talking to the

the AI in here and giving it new ideas.

So I'm like, "Oh, I need some

conclusions. Here's sort of my first

thought on conclusions." And I'm having

it like note down the conclusions. And

then at the end of each day, I have the

AI write up the changes that I sort of

like the things I learned that day that

are going to help me push this talk

along. And um so that's what you're

looking at right here is sort of this is

all part of this um work that I've been

doing where I've been feeding it. Um I

was working on sort of what are some of

the conclusions I want it to be. And so

this is all sitting in this uh this is

all sitting in in my Obsidian a project

specifically for that talk.

Okay. So let me get a a clearer sense of

this. This is really interesting. So you

have a project uh when you when you have

a new thing you're you're giving a talk

you make a new folder and then uh as

you're thinking about stuff you're

working with cloud code inside of the

folder

and uh you're researching stuff and then

saying like I want you to take notes on

it. Um, in this particular case, you're,

you know, that a component of your talk

is the conclusions section. And so

there's one particular markdown file

that like you're just going back and

forth with it and having it add

conclusions. But like what else is in

that folder? So is it like there's a

body there's a body note and then

there's an intro note or is it like

So one of the big things here is that

I'm in thinking mode, not writing mode

yet. Um, and so, uh, there's some stuff

in here where I've specifically told, I

think it's in the front matter actually,

where I've told claude code like, don't

help me write anything right now. And I

I generally find this to be a big thing

with all these models is like they

immediately jump to wanting to help you

with the artifact. Um, and you know,

when you're just in thinking mode, you

have to be very explicit in like, hey, I

just want you to help me think and ask

me questions. And so, um, yeah, what you

can see here is like there's there's a

bunch of files in here. I've got chats.

That's where I'm literally like taking

chats I'm having in other things. And,

um, I'm just like using the Obsidian web

clipper to pull the whole chat in. I've

got daily progress. That's where I'm

having the AI actually like look through

all the notes that came out that day and

like help me think through the progress.

Um, and then I've got research. That's

where I've got a bunch of like articles

and PDFs and stuff that I've pulled in

so far and been reading about. And then

there's a bunch of other kind of random

notes along here where I've been, you

know, just using it to kind of help me

um think and and so yeah, I was in the

midst of um one I've got this conclusion

note. So, you know, I I sort of felt

like I had blocked out the big kind of

um the big themes of the talk, but I was

like, okay, I need to figure out what am

I going to say at the end? And you know,

essentially what I'm going to say at the

end is about a lot of the stuff I've

learned over the last few years of

working with these large brands on AI

projects. And um so I was starting to

get it to the conclusions. And so yeah,

I'm just kind of like trying I'm really

piecing all this stuff together right

now. That's kind of what's happening.

And give me a sense of like when this

folder was empty, what did you start

with?

Um so I think I started with um the the

I started with uh telling it like I'm in

thinking mode. I'm not in writing mode.

Um, here are my past few talks that I've

given at brand to give you a sense of

the sort of style that I have and I

here's the kind of general idea and the

big points I want to make, right? Like

I'm giving away this book. So I want to

talk about simple sabotage field manual

and I have this notion like I have this

it's kind of just a title. It's like

transformers are eating the world. It's

this idea that like one of the very

interesting things happening with these

models is they're sort of displacing a

whole bunch of specialized code in

places. Um, and so I sort of want to

talk about that. that and then I've got

these conclusions. And so the first

thing I said was like, hey, just go look

through all of the rest of my, you know,

probably 1,500 things in my Obsidian and

go see anything else you can find that

um might be of value to this talk um of

the existing things I have. And so just

go kind of pull those into the research

folder at the beginning to kind of like

jumpstart this process.

Got it. And you're starting are you

starting Claude in this folder or are

you starting it in your full Obsidian

vault so that it can access all that

stuff?

Um, no. I'm So I'm starting it in the

full Obsidian vault. So like if we um

like this is coming if I step out of

here, right? Um we're in the root

directory. All this stuff is in the root

directory. My Obsidian

I get Um, and my Obsidian setup is also

like a little more intense for what it's

worth because like um I've also realized

like you can add a package.json to add a

bunch of like custom code commands to

your Obsidian that you can then run and

then you could use those code commands

in slash commands and all of these other

things. So, you know, there are a bunch

of other kind of moving pieces in here,

but generally it's a fairly

straightforward um I mean it's it's a

I'm trying to use parah and some other

kind of bits and pieces.

So, for people who are who are listening

or watching and are like we just went

through a bunch of stuff really fast.

So, the basic gist is Obsidian is just

like a a notetaker note-taking app uh

that runs it's all local and so

everything that all the notes you take

like they they exist in essentially text

files on your computer organized by

folder. Um, and when you're starting

Cloud Code, uh, one way to do it would

be to start Cloud Code in the folder for

the particular project that you have.

But it sounds like what you're doing is

instead you're starting in the root

directory where all of your Obsidian,

uh, notes live. And the advantage of

that is

um, Cloud Code has some like sandboxing

things where it's like it's not really

supposed to like run commands outside of

the folder it was started in. It can run

commands inside of any subfolder, but it

sounds like what you're doing. So, it

has access to your entire Obsidian. It

can do a bunch of stuff. And you've also

added a package.json which lets it run,

you know, custom software custom

software commands basically. Um, that's

really really interesting. Okay. And do

you do you find cuz I've sort of like

had this as a twinkle in my eye to like

have it go find relevant stuff for me.

Do you find that it's actually relevant

and interesting? Cuz I think sometimes

when I've done this kind of thing before

with language models, they're like, "Oh

yeah, like this random thing is relevant

because XYZ." Like it doesn't feel like

I can understand why it picked it as

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the episode.

I think by and large, yes, I agree with

you. I think in this case relevance is a

little simpler since like ultimately

this talk is sort of the the things I

were as was asking it to look for I've

done a bunch of thinking and research

around. So it's like I'm not asking it

to make large conceptual leaps to

relevance. It's like go find all this

like I'm want to talk about the simple

sabotage field manual. It can literally

just do a like find for all the times

all the articles and things I've got in

my Obsidian about that. And so it

relevance is uh yeah it's kind of a

loaded term right um and I I agree with

I I I agree with what you're saying. I

think this is what I'm asking it to do

is much more simple which is like

amongst this set of things go find all

the notes that I've already researched

that kind of brought me to be thinking

about these things to begin with.

Got it. And then once you had it do all

that research, did you have it do any

sort of summary to like let like sort of

stimulate you to be like, "Okay, here

are the here are some jumping off points

based on what you've done before." What

was your next step once you once

No. So my next step is I actually have

an agent in here. So if we go to I'll do

continue for now. Um

and so for people who are listening, so

you're just starting up Claude. You're

using the continue flag. So uh you're

you're starting claude by continuing the

last session that you were in. And now

you've got and you cloud code gives us

ability to do sub agents. So those are

like little mini clouds that you can

spawn. And you have a

you have a thinking partner one

thinking partner sub agent. Okay. How

does that work?

Yeah. And so this is the whole thing

where I'm like hey you're a

collaborative thinking partner

specializing in helping people explore

complex problems. Um your role is to

facilitate thinking. Um, and basically

don't try to write the thing. Um, and so

after I had that initial set of things,

I flipped to this and it's like, okay,

let's get into a flow. Ask me the kinds

of questions, help me think through it.

Um, you know, this is also where I've

got a chats folder in here. So, it's

like it's not just happening here. I was

also having like a I've got a whole um

uh sorry, I'm just backing out. So like

if we go into um

if we go into chats like these are a

whole bunch of the chats that I had

um

like with the interviewer. No, these are

chats I was having with chatb and Claude

and Grock and all of these different

things that I went and just grabbed the

full transcript of. Um, so you know, I

was also having all these other

conversations and then, you know, I'm

specifically telling the interviewer

like review all these other things. So

actually you know I think the first one

there's one of these conversations is I

originally had this idea about

transformers are eating the world and

you know the sort of notion there is

like um you know there was some research

that came out I think a few months ago

that um uh they had found a um they were

able to sort of outperform some

specialized uh time series modeling um

uh models with transformers and like you

know I think there's really interesting

stuff you know there's a story about

Tesla removing 300,000 lines code with a

neural network and you know I've just

got kind of got these bits and pieces

and one of the ways I work generally is

like when I have an idea of something to

write or think about I'll start a a

thread in chat GBT or claude and I'll

then save that somewhere and then I'll

just kind of keep coming back to it when

I have more ideas. It's like, oh, here's

another example of transformers doing

something. And so, one of these

conversations is actually that thing

from, you know, probably four or five

months ago when that kind of idea

initially came into my head. Maybe when

I saw the research about time series

modeling or something

really interesting. Okay. Um, okay. So,

let's let's keep going. So, uh, you've

got you got the sub agent and I actually

I want to like just actually I want to

pause on that really quick, which is I

think this is a very common complaint

that they just dive in and it's a common

pattern to make a thinking agent and I

think claude code or claude in general

is probably the best one for this. So

this is a thing that we faced with uh

one of the apps that we've incubated

called Spiral which is a a aentic ghost

writer and

I think we found I found the same kind

of thing when when I was thinking about

okay how does a good ghostriter work

they don't just like you don't say hey I

want you to write a blog post and

they're just like cool I made it here it

is like a good ghostwriter is going to

get to know you and really you're gonna

you're going to work together to figure

out what's in your head about it but

also shape what's in your head like it's

not just, oh, I I can see it and like

I'm they need to get it out of you. Like

you're you're actually making it

together. And in order to do that, you

have to have a really good um inter

basically interview process to uncover

things. And that sounds like you've

found that too. And I think that's

really really interesting and really

important for people who are thinking

about how do I get the best out of AI?

Actually stop for a second and like let

it ask it to understand you first.

Yeah. One of the things I say to a lot

of people is just like I think partially

because we call it generative, there's

entirely too much focus on its ability

to write and not enough focus on its

ability to read. Um, you know, and it's

like its ability to read is incredible,

right? And and I think, you know,

arguably sort of like much more useful

on a day-to-day basis. Like we produce

artifacts far less frequently than we

just like think about things. And um,

uh, so yeah, I I I do this a lot. This

is definitely a complaint I have about

all the models is like, you know, even

when you very specifically tell it not

to try to do your work, it still often

still tries to do your work. And so you

have to like really really be like, "No,

I said no." Like I think actually if we

look at um

uh so

here critical when Noah says he's just

collecting source materials or I do not

under any circumstances want you to try

to write it, take this literally. Do not

create outlines, drafts, or any versions

of talkswriting. Only gather and

organize the requested materials.

It's so good. I love it.

Um, yeah, this is like uh but yeah, I

think, you know, I think we all we all

experience that and you know, I mean, I

I do hope over time that that sort of

gets baked into the models. I think it's

a very interesting tension that exists

with the model companies because like

obviously you know like the sort of a

lot of the economic input output is sort

of measured in the artifacts that it

produces. Um and so I think it's very

oriented and you know I I suspect that

part of it is just like that sort of the

helpful assistant thing has like come to

be a sort of meme that is probably

self-ingested.

Um, but yeah, it's it's um I think for

those of us who are trying to do more

interesting things with these models, it

it becomes a real barrier to work.

Totally. Um, okay. So, I want to think

about when you're using the thinking

agent, did you say it like it's is it

outputting some sort of summary of what

you've come to into a particular place

or?

Yeah. So that thinking agent is sort of

told to as it ask me questions kind of

make notes about the questions that it's

asking me and keep a kind of running log

of what I'm uncovering and how I'm

thinking about it and all those sorts of

things.

Got it. And then you know you come back

the next day and you're like oh I just

want to go down this rabbit hole on XYZ

thing about the you know this wild bill

guy. Um and that you start in a new chat

maybe with it maybe with the subision

maybe maybe not and that becomes its own

new file on that topic.

Yeah. Exactly. So like I I this the um

the Wild Bill stuff started as like deep

research in Chad GBT um and I you know

had it go out and I'm reading the Wild

Bill book right now. there's a like one

sort of particularly famous biography of

him and uh um you know I'm kind of

thinking about the bits and pieces and

trying to make and I I think I made a

kind of interesting connection in there

um uh where you know a big part of what

sort of he seems to have been after with

the OSS and and you know the sort of

inspiration for the special forces was

like empowering individuals um you know

that's sort of like the theme of that

manual was like obviously empower

empowering citizen saboturs, but also,

you know, I think a big part of the

special forces is like, you know, having

kind of like incredible operators at the

edge who, you know, obviously operate

within a sort of command and control

hierarchy, but like have a ton of

autonomy to move and execute

independently because they're kind of

they have all the things that they need.

And um so you know in all of that wild

bill research I kind of went back to

this and I was like is is this like an

interesting way to connect all these

ideas that like maybe kind of there's a

you know and again I'm this is still

early I have not like solidified these

conclusions this is like you know the

regular kind of writing process right um

but it's like well I think there's this

idea that like you know fundamentally

well I know you know fundamentally one

of the big things with transformers is

it moved us from sequentialbased models

to models that can act in, you know,

sort of paralyze their work better. And

that obviously allowed us to have much

more powerful and, you know, interesting

models and has, you know, arguably

kicked off this entire sort of

revolution of what's going on. Um, and

you know, what we both do for a living.

Uh, and so, you know, I think there's

this kind of interesting connection. And

so that was what I was playing with. I

think here was like oh maybe there's

this connection between kind of

sequential processing to this kind of

parallel and then there's this

connection to bureaucracy and then

there's this connection to wild bill who

seems to be have been very much about

sort of like working within a system but

like having autonomy at the edges and so

that's kind of what I was playing with

and just kind of taking notes and then

yeah I would jump out and be like oh

well actually I haven't figured out a

conclusion yet let me start the

conclusion section and I'll just sort of

get that going on the side but Um, and

then, you know, I I have a job, so I

can't be doing this all the time. So,

it's also like you interrupt yourself,

and it's really nice to be able to come

back and be like, you know, um, can you

catch me up on the last three days of

research?

Oo, I love that question. That's so

cool.

And so, yeah, you can just kind of go in

and be like, can you catch me up on the

last few days of research? And, um, it's

just going to go read all the stuff,

right? Again, it's like I think the

point you made earlier about the, you

know, go find relevant sources. It's

like I find a lot that the difference

between the people are getting a lot of

this right now is part of it is just

like you have a good feel for where the

edges of the capabilities of these

models are and you sort of like

encourage them to work within those

capabilities. Like this is an incredibly

easy, you know, it's like we know what

it's going to do here, right? Like I

could write all these Unix commands.

It's just going to go find a bunch of

files in this directory and it's going

to look at them by date and it's going

to look at all the files created in that

project over the last you know and we

know it's going to be able to do that

and so it's saying um you know the major

breakthrough day was this idea of

bureaucracy as positional encoding which

is very much work in progress idea but I

kind of like it um but you know so it's

just like it's pretty amazing also to

just be able to kind of revisit deep

work like this right where you know you

know you're going to break your flow um

you're not and it's like it's often you

know I find whether it's code or writing

the hardest part is like just picking it

up again um because you're you're out of

it and so just to kind of like kickstart

that process is sort of amazing um I

think what I was playing with here is

this idea that um bureaucracy was

actually like an innovation right um

that like we look at bureaucracy as a

negative and generally we talk about it

as a negative and I think often it is a

negative um but you know um bureaucray

cy was a sort of like huge innovation

for how companies operate, right? And

ultimately it sort of represents kind of

hierarchy and structure and a whole

bunch of things that are like actually

like pretty positive for operating at a

large scale. Um and so um you know again

my my kind of whole thesis on AI around

all this bureaucracy stuff is that

what's interesting about it is that um

as opposed to kind of past technologies

which kind of forced you to make a

decision about whether you wanted to

kind of like use your existing

sort of structure and build that

technology into your existing structure

or adopt the new structure. most of the

time the new software required you

adopted the new structure and that's why

so many sort of software projects failed

for so long at least that's sort of part

of what I think and um you know I think

part of what's interesting about AI what

I find so interesting is like that

you can kind of keep letting everybody

work in whatever way they want you know

it's like a classic problem inside large

companies is like one team wants to use

a sauna and one wants to use Jur and one

wants to use linear right and so then at

some point there's like a there's a

there's a huge project and they bring in

some big consulting firm and they decide

they're going to all centralize on this

one thing and now twothirds of the

company is unhappy um and like they've

all made sacrifices and you know you're

sort of in this like um very non ideal

state and I think what's really

interesting about AI and I I this is a

little more sort of theoretical because

I think you know we're so early in this

is that like I think it's very possible

you could just say well everybody just

keep doing what we're you're doing we're

going to stick sort of some models in

the middle they don't care what you use

because like it's all just data

structures to them and so we can then

have this sort of central thing and if

you know I when you we talked about

percolate at the beginning percolate was

a content marketing platform worked with

very large companies so it's a

enterprise software product and it's

like you know at the end of the day this

is sort of the fundamental challenge of

enterprise software is about like you

know adoption and change management and

I just think I think and I hope and

again this is sort of the the optimist

in me that like AI kind of lets us just

not worry so much about these things and

and rather than trying to make everybody

change the ways that they work, kind of

let them work in these ways and let AI

sort of it's my I I call it my Thomas's

English muffin theory of AI, which is

that it like gets into the nooks and

crannies. Um, and so uh uh yeah, that's

so anyway, but I have no idea what

bureaucracy is positional encoding means

yet. I'm hoping I figure it out in the

next two weeks before I have to give

this talk. I think no, but I I think the

point you just made is is totally right

and it's actually not it doesn't have to

be theoretical like I I've been seeing

this too inside of every and I've been

meaning to write about it and the the

place that it's been coming up is we

have so inside of every we run like six

different products um and we have 15

people so it's it's like a crazy product

to headcount ratio um and what's

interesting is I really like doing

things in a in a bottomup way so

everyone everyone each of the products

has its own stack. We're not like

centralized into a particular stack.

Each you know GM that runs a product

like just has made a decision about do I

run rails or TypeScript or whatever. And

what I'm seeing happen which is very

cool is um a lot of the different

products are running into similar things

they want to solve for. So an easy

example is um we have one product called

Sparkle which is a little bit like a um

uh a finder replacement or spotlight

replacement. So it it it organizes your

files and then it implements really fast

spotlight search.

I'm a user. I like it.

Okay. So then you you know um and uh so

that's really cool. And uh Agentic

Search coming soon. Uh check it out. And

uh and we're just building a new

product, new GM, new stack uh called

parah, which is essentially an in-house

council. So it's short for parallegal,

not par like you know, Thiago Forte

Parah. Um and uh the whole job for PAR

is just, you know, take all of your

legal files and whenever I have a

question and be like, okay, did do we

ever sign this contract or what's the

employee agreement template or whatever?

it just gives you the answer and it's

just clouded code sitting on top of a

directory. Um,

and and a thing that we needed to

implement for that is uh this sort of

like fast file file search. And what's

really interesting is historically if we

wanted to reuse the stuff that we

learned from implementing sparkles file

search that would have to be abstracted

out into this modular library that

anyone can use and then we have to be on

the same platform and like that all

those things right and what we did

instead is we just added uh Piti who's

the developer for for for par right now

we just added her to the sparkle repo

and I was just like just ask cloud code

to figure out how it works and just do

your own version. Um, and so you get

this like sort of tacit code sharing

where we all get better but without

having to do the work of uh abstracting

and modularizing everything because the

the percentage of things that you can do

that for are pretty low because it's a

it's a heavy lift. And I'm seeing that

happen all the time where just having a

bunch of repos that are all solving

similar problems but in different

environments in different ways you

everyone gets more productive because AI

can kind of translate.

I've uh one thing we've done there uh we

also we so at le

uh very large brands um and so we sort

of build all kinds of AI things and um

you know so we we've got lots of sort of

internal and external repos and we

frequently have the same thing and

actually I've used the GitHub MCP um a

few times for that same purpose which is

just like um you know you're just in

cursor or cloud code or whatever and

you're like hey can you go like look up

uh we run we've got an internal tool um

called intelligence that just sort of is

a wrapper around a whole bunch of like

stuff that we use right so it's like got

some CRM stuff and it's just like been a

fun place to build the things that we

need to run our company um but it's also

a good place to kind of experiment and

explore and figure out solutions to

interesting problems and so I'll

frequently be like oh can you go like

just go look at the intelligence repo

and um you look at how I implemented

that thing there and take those sort of

best practices and just pull them over.

Um, and yeah, I think that stuff again

that's where I really do believe in this

idea. I like one of my whenever we have

like a client meeting or something my

first the question the icebreaker I

always use is what was your aha moment

with AI? And um uh mine was

uh uh I mean it was probably not the

very first, but it's the one that sort

of I think was most impactful was I was

uh I got access to build a chat GPD

plugin. Remember when plugins came out

like uh two and a half years ago or

something now?

You mean 50 years ago?

50 years ago. The the um uh and you know

I I like you. I've I've written a lot of

software in my life and I you know you

know what you do when you like get

access to something new. It's like I got

to go read the API docs and figure it

out and you know like there's a going to

be a contract and you know as long as

you follow that contract it works. And I

go read the plug-in spec and it

basically is like oh you just stick a

manifest.json JSON file in the root

directory of your application and in

that you describe how you want us to

send you data and you describe how

you're going to send it back to us and

then we'll deal with the rest. And I was

just like that's amazing. It's also like

it it's how the world should work. Like

I wish everything worked that way. I

wish I didn't always have to adhere to

the big company's contract for how to

send and receive data. Um, but also like

I the thing that really struck me in

that moment and it's like been my kind

of like rallying cry around all this

stuff is that um it's also just like

fundamentally counterintuitive in that

like I literally have a career's worth

of intuition for how to integrate

software systems and it flipped it on

its head like like like quite literally

180 degrees away from my intuition of

how software systems should be

integrated was this thing. And that I

think since then has been my kind of

thing for everybody has been like this

is just not intuitive for now. And and

that's not a bad thing. It just means

like you need to build intuition and

like that's what we're all just out

there trying to do with it, right? And

so, you know, when I don't know, I mean,

part of what I like about what you're

doing and, you know, even just hearing

the things you're saying, but like

generally what you do with the podcast

and what you do with every is like so

much of it is like we're all kind of

just figuring stuff out for the first

time, right? And like um you know, we're

like, "Oh, will this work?" And then

like all of a sudden you have this new

bit of intuition for what these things

can do and what a computer

that is not deterministic looks like.

And um that's I think that's just what

we're all doing all the time. And that's

why it's so fun. I think

that's why I love this moment cuz like

you just have a weird idea and you're

like

has anyone done this before? And and

it's like no. And it's not a it's not a

complicated idea. It's just it's just a

new whole new territory, you know.

I Yes. I I think about that all the

time. And I think actually like I think

one of the really damaging sort of

things out there is that um I think

there are a lot of people who think

we're way further along in this than we

are. And so you know I think

particularly the people who are sort of

scared you know we run we work with like

Fortune 50 companies. And so you know

when we're sort of like out there and

we're talking to people inside the

organization a lot of people feel like

they've already been left behind. And

it's like, no, you can like literally go

sign into Chad GBT and like

do something like nobody's thought about

doing with this thing yet because

there's just so much white space to

explore and and you might discover some

totally new way of using it and or like

totally new trick and um I don't know

that's just that's and you know I think

to be fair to some people that's sort of

very intimidating and I don't think by

and large the models do any favors to

themselves in helping those people get

their feet wet in that like you know I

think people go on there and they you

know it's like you ask it to write you a

poem and then it writes you a poem and

you're like okay it wrote me a poem um

but uh I don't know that feeling of like

that feeling of yeah being it's like

being on the frontier right

totally and yeah I I think that um your

point about intuitions and getting

intuitions is the big thing and I think

people what we don't realize is when

you're dealing with something

fundamentally new you you can't trust

like how you reason about it without

experiencing it because you have to

build the intuition in order to be able

to reason about what it means and and

how it fits in and whether it works or

not. And we're just not used to that cuz

we're used to reasoning about things we

already have an intuition for. And um

and I think that's why like when you

first see maybe when you first saw JBT

be like oh my god it can do everything.

Like we're not going to have jobs in a

year. And now we're like three years in

and we're like, "Yeah, it's awesome."

And

jobs are complicated. There's a lot of

complex stuff that we do, you know? Um,

and I I love I love kind of that, you

know, in order to build the intuition,

all you have to do is is use it. And

that just by using it, you're already

kind of on the edge uh for now. And

yeah, I think that's the best.

There's apparently there's a a German

word called fingerpitsengu.

of course there is

building fingertip feeling and that's

been my um uh just because I can't

resist also um I I I'm in that whole in

in sort of the realm that you're

discussing like uh I've been trying to

do a lot of analogy analogizing right

it's sort of like and I think you know

that's really hard and um uh you know

but my two that have sort of stuck the

most one is just um I watch a lot of

YouTube with my kids and um Uh, we watch

this channel called Veritassium. It's a

science channel and

I love Veritassium.

Yeah, it's great. Um, and he did one

where he built a bike that locks out

left if you try to turn right and locks

out right if you try to turn left. And

what he's proving is that you can't

actually turn a bike left unless you can

turn it right. Um, which none of us

would think about when we ride a bike

because it's all just second nature and

intuition. But it's also why you can't

explain to a child how to ride a bike.

um they just have to get on it and feel

it and um and so you know I really that

video is amazing and um uh it's uh that

channel is amazing and and but I I've

thought a lot about that and then the

other one which is a sort of deeper cut

is um uh there's an amazing book about

quantum physics called beyond weird um

by Philip Ball and um the thesis of the

book is basically that like there's

nothing particularly strange about

quantum physics that we like we have a

very good understanding of it like we

wouldn't be talking right now. We

wouldn't be on computers. We wouldn't

have phones if we didn't have like a

very good grasp of the mechanics that

exist underneath it. And his thesis in

the book essentially is that like what's

really lacking is the vocabulary because

like we all exist in a Newtonian world,

not in a quantum one. And so we all have

words that reflect the sort of

deterministic processes of that macro

universe. And I think a lot about that.

I have not like fully been able to sort

of pull that string all the way to AI.

But I feel like there's a real

connection there because I think that

there's just something really weird

about using probabilistic computers.

Like we're not used to using things that

like you ask them the same question

twice and they have different answers.

Like that's very strange. We're not used

to I'm not used to writing code where

you can tell the larger company how you

want them to send you data and they can

just do it. Like these are not

normal things that any of us have lived

with in our lifetimes and so of course

it takes some time for us to adjust. I

think so too and I I actually have a

hope that language models by becoming a

standard way that we use computers will

create that vocabulary. Um because we

actually are quite good at dealing with

probabilistic nondeterministic things

like other humans. Um we've just grown

up in a world where

because of you know the enlightenment

and the scientific revolution and and

the tools that came out of that are very

much like deterministic we've associated

that with uh how we see like that's how

we see the world because of those tools

and that language and uh there's a whole

other part of the way that we see the

world which is much more squishy and

much more like vibes based that has been

um I think de deprioritized uh

especially in western culture that now

that we have a tool that works that way,

I think we'll be able to start seeing

that again. And that's one of the

beautiful things to me about language

models is it opens up that whole world

again.

Yes, I love it. Um

I do want to go back to cloud code uh

and

we should do the phone unless there's

unless there are other things that you

uh that that you want to share on the

computer. Um, but the the the thing I

want to do before we get there that's

just on my mind right now is like you

said you said, you know, you watch this

with your kids and I'm sort of curious

how like what do your kids think about

this and how are you dealing with it

with your kids? Um,

yeah. Um, I love that question. Uh, so

uh I've got a seven and a 10-year-old.

Um, and obviously like I'm pretty kind

of deeply embedded in this stuff and so

I've sort of exposed them quite a bit to

it. um uh you know they don't uh so they

will like occasionally use the sort of

voice models and they have a pretty good

understanding and we'll be in the car

and just play games and ask questions

with Grock and do those kinds of things.

Um this weekend actually for the first

time my 10-year-old um uh she was really

eager to be every year um uh my wife and

her sister and brother and mom and and

all the cousins and we all get together

and we do Christmas together and so it's

too many presents to give to everybody.

So we do a kind of like not secret

secret Santa where everybody chooses one

person and my 10-year-old really wanted

to be the one who got to be the chooser.

Um, and uh, I encouraged her to uh, vibe

code an app to do it. Um, and so I just

gave her my phone and Vzero. And um,

honestly that was like so amazing to

watch. Like not just cuz it was so cool

to see her do that and build it. And she

went through, she was having so much

fun. She did 75 revs on Vzero. Um, uh,

so she like really got it going.

Polished Santa app. Uh, She also like

started to get into like really

interesting kind of like computer

science ideas without knowing it. So in

one of the things like the adults give

presents to adults and the kids give

presents to kids, but she wanted this to

be a more generalized app. So she

realized that like rather than having

adults and kids, you need to call them

groups, right? and like you know so

she's like getting into data modeling

and like all of this I'm like watching

this conversation happen and um I just

thought that was so awesome. Um, and you

know, also just like a real pet peeve of

mine right now and I've I've sort of

gotten this argument with a bunch of

people is like there seems to be a big

conversation that like there's a a

bubble in vibe coding and like because

one company or another might have too

high of a valuation. And my take on that

is like I just I I could not care less

what the valuations of these companies

are. I think like fundamentally if

there's a tool that could allow a

10-year-old to like build an app there

can't that can't be a bubble. like I I

just like can't see a possibility where

that is that. So, um anyway, that's sort

of one side of it. The other big one for

me that I've been thinking a lot about

is um

uh is sort of media literacy and

education um stuff. So, um you know,

both at the sort of schools they go to

um and then also I went to NYU and I've

sort of um been having more and more

conversations with the dean of the

school I went to there. Um and uh um

there's a lot of fear inside schools

right now about AI and about cheating

and um there's a big thing you know so

some parents in my town they you know

they wanted to have more of a

conversation about it and um you know as

someone who I I've thought about this a

lot but I've also just like been I've

spent my entire life thinking about sort

of technology and its effects on culture

and I I think I'm like relatively

grounded in these things. of like I've

put in good hours of thinking. I I know

that for sure. Um and so, you know, my

my take on it is like one that sort of

you can't hide technology that won't be

hidden, right? So, it's like, you know,

putting our head in the sand is not the

best solution. And then, you know, my

bigger one though is like I I was out um

a friend of mine asked me to come um

talk to a school two years ago about AI

um out in LA and um afterwards I was

talking to a English teacher there and

she was like, "What do I do? Like what

do I do about all these kids, you know,

using AI and I was like, look, I don't

really know what your job is because

like I mean being an English teacher for

11th graders sounds really much harder

than my job." Um, but on a really

fundamental level, like I don't actually

think your job is to teach these kids to

write because that's like a lifelong

pursuit. I think your job is to convince

them that it's worth learning to write.

And so in that way, like I I'm not sure

that anything fundamentally changes

because of AI. Like I I think that you

know and again this is my very

optimistic take but like I am I think

that there are so many parts of the

education system that AI really just

exposes the sort of flaws in the way

that we teach. like why are there so

many tests on these kinds of things

instead of encouraging thinking and

learning and coming to love to write and

research and whatever you know it's like

we're so focused on teaching kids the

you know five paragraph essay you know

while every adult who is a writer has

long abandoned that and because like

it's all about sort of discovering that

you like to write and you you know what

your own style is and how to do it and

you know it's like I'm sure it's like

you know a big part of working with AI

to write is like telling it is ignoring

it because you're like no that's not me.

I'm not into that. Like I like I I I'm

totally comfortable saying really here.

I know you don't think it's a good idea

but like I'm I'm cool with it. Um and so

you know I don't know. I I've been sort

of having a lot of these different

thoughts. I'm actually pitching a class

for the fall of 26 at NYU to kind of um

the idea for it is uh code is essay and

my my sort of point of view is like this

sort of opens up this new way to express

yourself. um and that you know like we

have all these other ways that we

celebrate to express ourselves but code

has been like long shut off from people

because it's but actually it's kind of

amazing and it lets you express yourself

in all these different kinds of ways and

like you know this is what my

10-year-old was doing this weekend. So

anyway, those are all the bits and

pieces as a parent I've been thinking

about. The one other thing I will plug

is um media literacy I think is a big

piece of it. A lot of people are afraid

of these models and hallucinations and

um there's a book um by a guy named Tim

Harford who writes for uh the FT and

he's an economist um and he has a book

called The Truth Detective which is an

adaptation of the data detective but

it's written for kids and it's the best

media literacy book I've ever read for

adults or for children. Um, and I think,

you know, a lot of what this AI

conversation exposes is like how bad a

job we do with helping and arming our

kids and our adults to be sort of like

truly media and technology literate.

And, you know, like being really good at

knowing what's real on social media

turns out to be also really useful for

like differentiating between

hallucinations and non-h hallucinations

in chat GBD, right? like this is a sort

of to me a kind of very central skill

that like we need to arm everybody with

and um I am sort of way more interested

in that with my kids than I am in

worrying about them cheap. That was a

very long answer to your question. I

don't know if it got at what you were

looking for.

No, it's amazing. I that's exactly what

I'm looking for and it sort of what it

strikes me another way to frame what

you're saying is for example rather than

learn having them memorize and be

quizzed on the 50 what the 50 states are

uh

asking them to go find the 50 states

with CHBT and be able to tell when the

AI is giving them the wrong answer

because that's a lot more of the the

meta skill that they're going to need

anyway down the down the line. And

again, I'm not a teacher. I'm sure

there's lots of teachers who were like,

"This is that's crazy for a lot of

probably good reasons." But there's

something interesting there where it

becomes the meta skills become more

important than they used to be. And in

order to do well at the meta school, you

have to also be able to like to some

degree do the underlying skill, too. But

um we probably could be spending a much

more time in the medical school than we

are now. And the education system like

isn't really set up to do that anyway.

Yeah. And I I you know even I think even

simpler examples is like I I went to a

school called Gallatton at NYU and and

um when you graduate you have to sort of

it's not quite a thesis defense but you

have to sort of spend three hours with

four professors and and or three

professors and sort of explain kind of

your line of reasoning around why you

studied what you studied. and you need

to be prepared to kind of like weave

into that defense um uh any of 25 books

that you put on your book list. Um and

you know I was talking to them and it's

like amazing that's like entirely AI

proof, right? Like there's no cheating

on that. Like you show up in that room

and you're either prepared to speak to

it or you're not. And whether you're

prepared with AI or not is uh it doesn't

mean anything, right? like it's it's

like like do you can you can you make a

an argument in this room and like not

everything is going to be that easy to

be sort of like cut off but like I don't

know there's something really beautiful

about that idea right because it's like

it's naturally cheating proof because

like you're sitting there and and it's a

question of like did you actually

internalize these things um and I don't

know that's way more interesting to me

than even like was your essay or any of

these other it's like did you did you

get it like um and uh so yeah I don't

know um I'm I'm I I'm trying to do my

best to kind of like um take a balanced

approach and um try to at least sort of

like tamp down some of I I live in a

small town in Connecticut and you know I

think there's a lot of fear amongst

parents you know it's like it was mobile

phones and then it was social media and

now it's AI and it's like another thing

that's going going to ruin our kids. And

um I don't think that that is true. Um

uh but I think there are things we can

and should do to encourage it to not be

true. Like really get them really good

at the things you're saying. Like how do

you tell? And again, it's like a

hallucination is just a form of the same

kind of misinformation that exists in on

television and on the internet and in

social media and everywhere else. And um

you know just sort of like encouraging

people to kind of get in touch. There's

a great part of the truth detective um

for the kids book he he calls it the

brain guard and like one of the bits of

advice he has is when you encounter some

piece of information if it makes you

feel really good cuz you agree with it

then you should be even more skeptical

of it and he calls it the brain guard

you know and he's explaining this like

this is for a 9-year-old and I just

thought that was like such a beautiful

way to put it right like that's like

what that's what you learn to do when

you get good at being on the internet um

is that you're like wait I should like

be more skeptical of this because this

is like in line with everything I think.

Let me just doublech check the way like

I I you know, you get to learn that

feeling in your gut and get to learn

when to react to it. And so yeah, that's

a lot of how I think about it.

That's great. I'm I'm interested. I'm

going to get I'm going to get that book.

I'm I'm interested in reading it.

You should. My plan is to read it to my

kids every year um from now on.

Nice. I love it.

Just refresh it.

Um all right. Now for the moment we've

all been waiting for. show us how you

use cloud code on your phone as a second

brain notetaker.

Okay, so here we go. So I am going into

an app called Termius.

Termas is just a terminal.

Um, and uh, what is allowing all this to

happen behind the scenes is in my

basement I have a mini PC and on that

mini PC I have a thing called tail scale

running and tail scale lets you set up

these very simple VPNs. So I'm currently

inside like if I scroll down here you

see I'm on a VPN. That's my personal

VPN. I'm not like on an outside VPN. I

see. Um, so the only way to access this

machine is through my VPN.

Okay.

Um, and so then when I go in there, um,

because I sync my Obsidian,

um,

with, uh, Git, so I put it, it's on

GitHub, uh, in a private GitHub. Um, I

can then sync it back down to here. And

so then I can just call up Claude.

And now I'm just in claude code talking

and thinking and I can just be like um

what's new in the last two days.

Um I can access any of my agents. Um I

can do anything. And again this is in my

Obsidian but I can use this anywhere,

right? So I'll be like on the fly. I've

got other repos in here. Um, you know, I

I realized like a link was broken on my

conference site and so I uh um I just uh

opened the repo. I pulled it down. I

asked QuadCode to make the changes and I

was able to do it right here. Um, so

this has been like completely wild to me

because again, this is very much in that

like like on Tuesday of this week, um,

we had Monday off, Tuesday, I dropped

the I dropped the kids off at the bus

and then I, uh, I went and I sat and had

breakfast and I literally sat on my

phone and worked on this talk for like

two hours. Um, and I did it through

here, right? like on my phone where I

was like doing real thinking and

research and pulling things in and

pasting things in and doing all this

kind of stuff and you know I'm able to

do it all and it it just it doesn't seem

like I could do that kind of thing

without that. So yeah, this has been

like a completely revolutionary change

in my life. Um, and uh, actually one of

the things I've been doing lately is

like setting up I've got all these

friends now who have set up um, like

little partitions of this mini PC in my

basement um, so that they can also run

cloud code on their phone because um, I

like it so much. Do

does this make you be like, "Oh my god,

I got to drop everything and just build

a actual purpose-built notes app that

has cloud code as a backend for this?"

No. Well, I mean, actually, one of the

things I've been thinking a lot is like

maybe I just like everything should just

run in Linux all the time for me. Maybe

this is like at least for the short

term, this is the answer to all of what

I just need to like not have anything

anywhere else. Um, no, I mean, I'm I'm I

I will say I'm I'm sort of pretty out of

the SAS game these days, so I don't

often kind of think that I should drop

everything and and do anything. I find

this to be a really amazing solution. Um

and uh um but no, I mean I this but this

has really this has really like changed

the way I work and I feel like I can

just be anywhere and just be on my phone

and um you know I mean I was out like uh

I needed a break. Uh it was you know

4:30 I went and sat outside for a while

and then um we had a project that needed

to get delivered to a client and a small

change needed to be made that like I was

the best suited to make that change. Um,

and so I just like hopped on my phone. I

pulled the repo down and I um went into

Cloud Code. It's like a tiny little

change, you know, like the way I find

myself using Cloud Code the most for

code is that like mostly I'm having it

do the work I already know how to do.

You know, I'm like, oh, I like I know

exa I knew exactly what was going on in

that situation. Um, like I knew why we

were having the issue we were having.

And so it was like I could have gone

back to my computer and opened up uh

cursor and done it in cursor either by

hand or with cursor, but it was like I

just I was like I told Cloud Code

exactly where to look. It was like and I

first confirmed that the problem was

what I thought the problem was and then

I just had it push a solution and it

pushed a PR and then I was done.

Amazing.

And I was still sitting outside by the

pond.

I love that. Um yeah, I've I've

definitely had that experience. I've

never I've not done it on my phone. I'm

like I have my laptop out with me, you

know, by the pond or by a lake or

whatever. But you're inspiring me. I

have a Mac Mini in the office that I've

been meaning to set up. So, I think this

is going to give me

one of the other, by the way, um one of

my other I'll just take you out of here

for one sec actually just to show you

this. One of my other big ahas um

recently has been um

uh building um clawed code helpers for

um doing uh

uh basically like uh setup work. So it's

like I'm not I'm like been playing with

Linux lately. I'm playing with this

Omari which is DHH's Linux distribution

and I'm not like super comfortable in

here. And so I got this whole this is a

claude code project specifically to help

me configure this box and it's like so

nice because I'm like oh how do you do

this in Linux again or like what's the

neoim command or like can you change

this can you help me install this plugin

for neo or whatever it is or and so now

I have one on my Mac too where it's like

um can you clean up all the homebrew

things or like I switched from like

which Python package manager I was using

and it was like that would have been

super overwhelming for me and I was like

I want to switch from

pip to using UV. Can you like just make

that happen? And it like just did all

this stuff for me. And it knows all my

preferred settings. And so, um, I

actually have a version of this where

like now I've got it so tuned that, um,

if I want to launch a new box for doing

something, it'll just have all my

settings ready to go and then I can log

into Claude Code and the Claude code can

then set up anything else that didn't

get set up in the initial process.

That is amazing. That's wild.

Um,

this is my happy place.

I I can see that. Are do you have any

like um uh are there are there any big

projects like this that you've been

itching to do or itching to try out?

Uh, no, not really. I mean, I've been

having a ton of fun that my my server

stuff has been a ton of fun. I've been

doing a lot of that. Um I'm uh I'm I

like I said I mean this is kind of a

joke and kind of not is like I'm super

interested in um like doing more I

because Claude code has become such a

sort of integral part of my life like

I'm very interested in the command line

and I found myself installing more and

more things into the command line um and

like doing more and more work. So, I've

been using like uh um Simon Wilson has a

LLM command line tool and like been

doing more and more stuff sort of in

that and then like also layering that

back into cloud code. So, it's like I

did my newest Claude code little

Obsidian tool is it I have an

attachments folder in Obsidian where all

the PDFs and images and stuff in any

note go, but inevitably they have

terrible names, right? I mean, um, and

so this goes through very similar to,

um, uh, Sparkle and but just in that

Obsidian folder and it it renames them

all and then it also puts them in like a

meta data. It puts them in a table in

the attachments folder and then it

renames all the attachment links back.

So it just like cleans everything up. It

just does it through Gemini Flash. Um,

and so it's like I don't know, stuff

like that's kind of amazing. Um, so I

don't I'm just like I'm having the time

of my life just building and tinkering

and you know I mean this is just on the

side and I get to do the same thing. I

mean we work with like Amazon and Meta

and PayPal and all these big companies

and you know we're just like building

amazing stuff all the time.

I love that. I love the energy. If

people are interested in uh following

you or working with you uh where should

they find you?

Yeah. Um, so Alfic is alle.com. A l

pic.com.

Um, and then I also run this thing

called Brand B RX N D.AI to make it

particularly confusing. Um, that's a

conference. We've got the conference

coming up on September 18th in New York

City. You should come if you're around.

It'll be really fun. We're going to talk

about marketing and AI. Um, and I also

write a newsletter there at

newsletter.brnd.ai

about sort of specifically at this

intersection of AI and marketing. Um,

those are kind of the best places to

find me these days.

Awesome, Noah. Always a pleasure.

Pleasure is all mine. Thank you, Dan.

Oh my gosh, folks, you absolutely,

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