“Ignoring what is obvious incurs a huge cost. It requires you to go about your day numbing yourself to the reality of who you are and what you want—which is a waste of time for you and everyone around you. By contrast, admitting what is obvious is freeing and motivating. But it’s terrifying to do it. Sometimes the most obvious truths about ourselves are hard to see because the consequences of those truths seem so dire.” Those are the opening lines of one of my favourite essays - https://every.to/chain-of-thought/admitting-what-is-obvious I’ve read in the last year, written by this week’s guest on Infinite Loops - Dan Shipper. Dan is the Co-founder and CEO of Every, a media company that wants to be an intellectual lighthouse amidst the tempest that is the Age of AI. Every began life in 2020 as a bundle of digital newsletters (almost like a centralised version of Substack with more of an editorial flourish). These days, it’s blossomed into an ecosystem of colourful newsletters, podcasts, courses, and software products, all oriented around the unpacking of a single question - “What comes next?” - https://every.to/about Every is already one of my go-to destinations for all things interesting. It’s less brain food than brain buffet (the kind of buffet that serves fresh blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup). In our conversation, Dan shares his thoughts on everything from AI companions; his approach to erecting the Every ‘Pyramid’; his playbook for building new media companies; the idea of LLMs as mirrors for humanity; and using content to ‘find your people’. What I love about him is how candidly and thoughtfully he talks about his journey to discover his own truth. His realisation that he didn’t need to hang up his boots as a writer in order to become a founder is something that particularly hit home for me. Dan Shipper is also my underdog pick to eventually wrest the title of Infinite Loops Emperor - https://newsletter.osv.llc/p/finding-method-in-the-madness from reigning clubhouse leader Alex Danco. By which I mean to say, this is most certainly not the last time Dan joins us on the show, so you may as well get to know him better. For the full transcript, episode takeaways, and bucketloads of other goodies designed to make you go, “Hmm, that’s interesting!”, check out our Substack - https://newsletter.osv.llc/. Important Links: - Dan’s Twitter - https://x.com/danshipper - Dan’s writing on Every - https://every.to/@danshipper?sort=newest - Dan’s personal website - http://danshipper.com/ Show Notes: 0:00:00 Intro 0:00:58 Main podcast 0:02:10 Dan’s Superhero Origin Story 0:08:26 Writers as Founders 0:19:47 What Would You Pay To Do? 0:22:05 The Every Pyramid 0:25:31 The New Media Playbook 0:29:28 How to find your people 0:34:20 Our AI Mirrors 0:38:00 From Explanation Problems to Engineering Problems 0:46:17 On Intuition 0:53:25 from the knowledge economy to the allocation economy 1:07:26 The Reluctance to AI adoption 1:21:11 AI Companions 1:29:40 Dan, The Emperor of The World Books and Articles Mentioned: - Admitting What Is Obvious - https://every.to/chain-of-thought/admitting-what-is-obvious; by Dan Shipper - The Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century - https://www.amazon.in/Global-Brain-Evolution-Mass-Century/dp/0471419192; by Howard Bloom - Against Explanations - https://every.to/chain-of-thought/against-explanations; by Dan Shipper - The Trial of Socrates - https://www.amazon.in/Trial-Socrates-I-F-Stone/dp/0385260326; by I. F. Stone - The WEIRDest People in the World - https://www.amazon.in/WEIRDest-People-World-Psychologically-Particularly/dp/0374173222; by Joseph Heinrich - The Three Musketeers - https://www.amazon.in/Three-Musketeers-Alexandre-Dumas/dp/8172344694; by Alexandre Dumas
Dan Shipper is the co-founder and CEO of Every. With just 15 people, Every publishes a daily AI newsletter, ships multiple AI products, and operates a million-dollar-a-year consulting arm—all while their engineers write virtually zero code. It’s the most radical example of AI-first operations, and Dan is a prolific writer who has become a leading voice on how AI is transforming the way we build and work. *Learn:* 1. Why Dan thinks AI won’t steal jobs en masse—and may actually reshore many jobs to the U.S. 2. The most underrated AI tool for non-programmers 3. An inside look at Every’s AI-first workflow 4. Why every company needs an “AI operations lead” 5. How Dan’s team uses an arsenal of AI agents (Claude, Codex, “Friday,” “Charlie”) in parallel, treating each AI like a specialist with unique strengths 6. Why generalists will thrive in an AI-first world, as rigid job titles blur and everyone becomes a “manager” of AI tools 7. Dan’s playbook for making any company AI-first—from the CEO setting the example, to hosting internal prompt-sharing sessions, to upskilling teams on AI tools *Brought to you by:* CodeRabbit—Cut code review time and bugs in half. Instantly: https://coderabbit.link/lenny DX—A platform for measuring and improving developer productivity: https://getdx.com/lenny PostHog—How developers build successful products: https://posthog.com/lenny *Transcript:* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-every-dan-shipper *My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers):* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/167681269/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation *Where to find Dan Shipper:* • X: https://x.com/danshipper • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danshipper/ • Podcast: https://every.to/podcast *Where to find Lenny:* • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ *In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Welcome and introduction (04:04) Hot takes on AI and job reshoring (07:06) The power of Claude Code for non-coders (14:35) The future of AI in business operations (18:45) AI’s role in enhancing human skills (22:26) The evolution of AI tools and their applications (25:40) Building an AI-first company (29:50) Innovative AI operations and team dynamics (35:35) Dan's AI stack (41:26) Compounding engineering (48:29) The impact of AI on learning and development (50:10) Accelerating career growth with AI (51:36) Revolutionizing code review and workflow (53:07) The importance of coding knowledge (57:26) Building AI-driven products (01:02:01) Innovative fundraising strategies (01:08:45) Consulting and AI adoption in companies (01:17:01) The allocation economy and future skills (01:20:12) The value of generalists in the AI age (01:24:07) Lightning round and final thoughts *Referenced:* • Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code • Gemini CLI: https://blog.google/technology/developers/introducing-gemini-cli-open-source-ai-agent/ • Microsoft Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/ • Cursor: https://www.cursor.com/ • Base44: https://base44.com/ • Solo founder, $80M exit, 6 months: The Base44 bootstrapped startup success story | Maor Shlomo: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-base44-bootstrapped-startup-success-story-maor-shlomo • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell • Plato’s Argument Against Writing: https://fs.blog/an-old-argument-against-writing/ • From ChatGPT to Instagram to Uber: The quiet architect behind the world’s most popular products | Peter Deng: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-quiet-architect-peter-deng • Granola: https://www.granola.ai/ • Tobi Lutke’s post on X about context engineering: https://x.com/tobi/status/1935533422589399127 • Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook • Every: https://every.to/ • Cora: https://www.cora.computer/ • Sparkle: https://makeitsparkle.co/ • Spiral: https://spiral.computer/ • Lex: https://lex.page/ • Nathan Baschez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nbashaw/ • Kate Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-lee-506768/ • Katie Parrott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katieparrott/ • Animalz: https://www.animalz.co/ • Rachel Woods on X: https://x.com/rachel_l_woods • Nityesh Agarwal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nityeshaga • Claude Opus 4: https://www.anthropic.com/claude/opus *...References continued at:* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-every-dan-shipper _Production and marketing by https://penname.co/._ _For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com._ Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.