0:00
I think there's like a much more moderate middle ground [music] future in a lot of what we're building that is not turn off all the technology or let's build a Dyson sphere around the earth.
Search this video
0:09
Um, and I think I think that's where a lot of the technology will end up and I think that's where it's most interesting.
0:14
>> AI can generate words, but can it help you figure out what you actually think?
0:18
John Steinbach is the founder of Marker, a new AI writing tool built around the creative process, not just a prompt box.
0:25
Now we're building features of like how do you make the getting your ideas into a developed format more efficient.
0:29
What we hear from the people using it is they just feel like more supported and fulfilled when they're writing with marker.
0:37
>> This week on the show we talk about why Google Docs feel stuck in the past, the tradeoffs of [music] leaning on AI to write for you.
0:43
And the big question for writers now, does AI make us better thinkers or just smoother producers of slop?
0:50
>> I'm Ellis Hamburger, founder of Meaning, a storytelling studio for tech companies.
0:53
and I'm Alex Heath, founder of sources.
0:55
news, your home for scoops about the AI race. >> Welcome to Access.
0:59
[music] >> John, welcome to the show.
1:04
I feel like it's been a solid 15 years, which means [music] I'm very old and that makes me uncomfortable.
1:12
Were you back at Forsquare at the time? >> I was.
1:15
It's a real throwback, isn't it?
1:17
Uh, I remember at the time you were at The Verge, uh, which is still the hottest publication out there, aside from present company.
1:23
Uh, but you've, uh, I've been following your career very closely since then.
1:29
>> Yeah, I've kind of been all over the industry since then.
1:31
So much has changed, but it doesn't look like you've aged a day.
1:34
I guess you have a little beard now, and now you have your own startup.
1:37
Um, but for real, I miss Foursquare so much, man.
1:39
Like, there is nothing like it.
1:42
Like, what am I supposed to do?
1:44
Like I guess with with my AI I say, "Hey, when I ask you about recommendations, check Infatuation and Eater, but like Foursquare was always months ahead because the cool people were using it and rating new places and it was literally the most trusted uh recommendations."
2:00
I think Alex was a fan as well.
2:02
>> Oh yeah, I was in New York with when Foursquare was in its heyday.
2:04
Covered the company actually uh at Business Insider and then at the Verge I think a little bit.
2:11
I remember the Swarm launch.
2:13
Dude, I had the exclusive on this Swarm launch, Alex. >> Of course you did.
2:16
[laughter] >> I have to say like I feel so sad that something like this doesn't exist right now.
2:24
I feel like Foursquare took a little bit of my innocence because we were building the version of the future that we wanted to exist and that it doesn't like 15 years later.
2:31
There's not a better way to explore with your friends. Feels just sad.
2:35
Like we need to build good things.
2:38
I actually ran into Dennis, the founder of Foursquare recently at a meetup in New York and he was showing me, he's still tinkering, man.
2:47
He's doing this uh >> Debbop man.
2:48
It's telling him bring it to London, >> this AI gossip thing.
2:50
He was doing it during New York Tech Week and it was sending me some interesting texts.
2:54
But yeah, Dennis, uh, shout out Dennis, one of the OGs of of New York tech.
3:01
>> Well, I mean, he's certainly a mode, isn't he?
3:03
one of those founders who just kind of tries to build the same thing with little permutations over and over again.
3:09
>> I feel like there's there's like something pure at the heart of the internet where creative people can tinker and they might find a huge audience for what they're doing.
3:17
Uh and that to me is the beauty of it all.
3:21
>> Well, since we're on the topic, John, I mean, why why doesn't a new version of Foursquare exist?
3:25
I mean, maybe you've played with Corner.
3:27
Uh there's Zest Maps now from a friend of mine, but there's just nothing quite like it.
3:35
>> Zest Maps, is that what you said? >> Yeah, dude. Zest Maps is cool.
3:36
It if you're comfortable sharing your Plaid like connection to your bank, it'll [laughter] scan. Isn't that funny?
3:48
It's like all new tech AI things.
3:50
It's like give up everything and you get restaurant recommendations.
3:55
[laughter] >> Um but it but it's it's smart.
3:55
>> Um but it but it's it's smart. So the John I'm sure knows all about this but it's hard to get people especially normies to check in which powered for squares recommendations and everything like that and so zest just like looks at your credit card transactions and it's
4:09
like oh you went to wilds oh you went to the lries house of prime rib or wherever you cool people go in San Francisco Alex and so it checks in for you using your credit card transactions >> I'm going to look this up >> well John why why is there no uh why can't a foursquare exist Uh I I still think it can. I maybe
4:27
I maybe Dennis will go out and build it.
4:29
I think the most interesting thing for me right now is that people are going back towards community.
4:36
I think like in on the other side of the AI spectrum, you get a lot of people just leaning in to connecting to people around you.
4:41
And I talked to a founder that I probably shouldn't say what he's working on right now, but he's got another new version of how do you connect with your local community?
4:51
And I think we're going to see even more experimentation around this because people value it a lot.
4:54
I think in the in kind of the upswing of the social internet, uh there wasn't like the modality of place didn't quite take off.
5:04
>> Slop go up, human connection go up.
5:08
>> Is that the is that the coral? Oh, yes.
5:10
I was going to say hopefully it erodess human connection, but yes, it should propel us to greater links between each other. >> Yeah.
5:17
I mean, it's the ultimate signal.
5:19
I feel like in the age of slop, people are definitely finally realizing that like the consensus of the entire internet doesn't necessarily provide the best recommendation or the most interesting recommendation or what we learned during the four square days a million years ago is that the recommendation that matters is the one your friend gave you so that you could talk about it.
5:41
I think about that all the time.
5:44
I this is so we're really dating ourselves but we're gonna just dig back to like 15 to 20 years ago.
5:48
I was at in the four square days I was at a fireside chat with Ev Williams where he defined uh social media and it was so simple but I'd never heard it before and it really changed my outlook.
5:58
He's like social media is media whose value is determined by your social connection to the sharer.
6:03
And it feels like so so pure in the sense of like that's how uh these early platforms were designed to use.
6:11
And we've we've essentially we essentially don't have that anymore.
6:14
Like it's now algorithmic media.
6:14
You might be following somebody that you've never met before or seen a lot of their content.
6:20
Uh and that just erodess the trust in these networks.
6:23
And I think you're seeing the counter movement which is how do you like reinvent trust and reinvent essentially like social media or media you follow because you have a social or parasocial relationship with the person sharing it.
6:34
And I think that's what we're going to see the most interesting experimentations on like the human side of the internet there.
6:41
>> I mean, do you think people want it?
6:41
You know, having some experience in the world of building social products like Instagram kind of proudly states, which just continues to confuse me, that people don't seem to want content from their friends.
6:55
And now less than like 15% of the content on Instagram is between friends.
7:00
I think people do want that stuff.
7:02
that stuff. it just isn't as good at being clickbait and so it dies on a platform that is primarily driven by engagement and I do still really enjoy my close friends stories on Instagram and I do think they prioritize those which is good but uh yeah there really
7:18
isn't isn't a place for that type of sharing anymore and I wonder if it was just kind of a novelty at the time being able to share with all your friends and if that just doesn't need to exist anymore or I don't know do you think there's a place for it? I I mean I hope
7:29
I I mean I hope so that like I think the the future of society depends on us being able to connect with the people around us and and like have trust in in what we're consuming.
7:39
Um I think it is hard like you're you're facing off against the forces of optimization and it's always like okay I'm 2 seconds into a clip.
7:46
It feels compelling so I'm going to keep watching and then suddenly you're 30 minutes down.
7:51
But I I think people walk away from that and you hear this I think you feel it viscerally yourself and you hear it from other people.
7:58
is like that doesn't make them feel better.
7:59
Those 30 minutes didn't feel amazing.
8:01
Um whereas you give them something that is like inside the social world that they live in and that's that's a much better experience.
8:10
But I think it requires innovative new models to fight against how optimized these things are to just hijack our attention.
8:17
>> John very excited to talk about marker but first um your career arc is very interesting.
8:22
So Foursquare in the early days, a few stops along the way and before going to start marker, your own company, you work at Google DeepMind running creative and marketing. How did that happen?
8:34
>> How I mean, how does anything in happen?
8:36
[laughter] It was uh one conversation led to another and then 18 interviews later you have a job.
8:41
have a job. I but I think if I was to look back a little bit at the arc of my career, I've always been obsessed in where the latest technology is inter intersecting with creativity and I've tried to like follow that especially where like uh people are involved and where the most people can benefit from
8:59
it and this was pre-hat JPT but it just uh I I I felt like AI was the future and you have a couple conversations with the people there and they are just brimming with creativity um and getting to have a a like front seat, front row ticket to the innovations going on there felt like an opportunity I couldn't pass up. >> That's interesting, John, cuz when you
9:19
>> That's interesting, John, cuz when you think of the frontier labs, I wouldn't say brimming with creativity is the first way I would describe how the people inside these labs think.
9:26
I think they're certainly creative in like the way they attack, you know, model architectures and um, you know, pushing the frontier and soda to performance and all these things, but an appreciation for the arts, I'm not sure.
9:39
I It's interesting to hear you say that because it's not how you think of uh, one thinks of Frontier Labs, I would say. >> Yeah.
9:47
And like if you were to time travel back a few years to 2021, I think the research was a lot more spread out around the frontiers of AI.
9:54
I think that was obviously pre-LM as we currently imagine them.
9:59
Um, and you had people doing things like how will AI help us understand incomplete Grecian earns so that we can we can have a fuller mapping of what's going on there.
10:08
Um, you have a lot of really interesting explorations in storytelling and like understanding intelligence.
10:15
I remember the first one-on-one I had with Demis I was asking him as one does like what is what is stressing you out right now or what's on your mind?
10:22
He's like that we have no idea what time is. like isn't it so wild?
10:26
And I think that was the that very much felt like the energy of the time.
10:31
Uh the AI race obviously obviously took a much more focused direction, but I think this is just like Deep Mind's just this amazing place of of creative exploration.
10:39
>> Well, so did you figure out what time is by the time you left? >> Absolutely.
10:43
[laughter] >> I've left it to him.
10:46
He's got to get He's got to have something to get a second Nobel Prize. I I can't.
10:48
Something Demis said uh at a dinner I was at with him recently was like he thinks a lot about uh that there aren't enough philosophers covering what's happening with AI.
11:00
So back to that humanity aspect that we're getting ahead of u how this is going to impact all of us and not spending enough time on that which I think a lot of people feel right now.
11:11
I I think there's a lot of questions about what these models will do to society to like the jobs marketplace.
11:18
Um and it seems like a lot of things that are happening right now to be really polarized to the extremes.
11:24
And I think part of the reason we started marker and part of the reason I wanted to work on a more specific problem specifically writing was I think there's like a much more moderate middle f middle ground future in a lot of what we're building.
11:40
um that is not turn off all the technology or let's build a Dyson sphere around the earth.
11:44
Um and I [laughter] think I think that's where I think that's where a lot of the technology will end up and I think that's where it's most interesting like where it where it insects with intersects with people and creativity.
11:55
>> You got dudes in SF stepping over uh homeless people while they think about Dyson spheres.
12:01
[laughter] It's just like the most ridiculous image. >> Yeah.
12:07
Um, well, speaking of marker, I was playing with it last night and something that feels very intentional about it is when you open it, it's a blank page.
12:14
It's not it's not a prompt box, which is maybe something >> can you build? >> Yeah. I want to know. >> Yeah.
12:20
Which is I was expecting like like good evening Hemingway like what are you thinking of blah blah blah you know it's nothing like that. It's a blank page.
12:28
It's very old school in that sense and that's a little bit daunting.
12:30
I got to say as someone who has uh maybe outsourced too much of my brain to AI in the last 6 months um that was interesting to see.
12:38
Talk to us about kind of how you were thinking about building this and why you saw an opportunity to do this AI uh powered writing software. >> Yeah.
12:48
I I mean I I'll just start at the beginning which is like Ryan and Ryan my co-founder and I started marker because we just really love writing.
12:54
Um and in many ways writing is is experiencing a renaissance.
12:59
Like I think there are more independent publications.
13:01
You have four million people who've self-published on Amazon pre- AI.
13:04
Um but at the same time the tools we use for it are eroding the craft.
13:10
Like LLM's treat writing as an output rather than a process of intentional decision-m um and you have two pieces of software each with a couple billion users, Word and Google Docs that are essentially transcription and formatting engines.
13:25
and formatting engines. um like you open up a new Google doc and you have 39 buttons across the top most of which have to do with where words sit on the page and there's almost nothing that helps you actually with the task of writing and I think uh you know writing uh hasn't change writing tools have not changed in about 20 years since the
13:45
invention of Google Docs which essentially made word docs uh connected and we think there's a chance to actually revisit the foundations of writing and build build essentially a Google doc success professor that addresses them, that takes people through the writing process and doesn't fixate on uh just getting your words down and formatting them on a page. >> That's so funny. I think uh a lot of >> That's so funny.
14:05
I think uh a lot of founders say blank hasn't changed in 20 years and that's why we built this tool.
14:12
But I think in your case, it's actually true. [laughter] >> Yeah.
14:15
>> Like [gasps] like it's almost like the way that Notion innovated on the writing process is just removing the toolbar.
14:22
And now I go back to Google Docs and I'm like, "Oh my god, this feels like the stone age, literally."
14:26
Um, but I mean, in your mind, like what are the the primitives that would make a writing product as opposed to, let's say, a word processing product?
14:36
>> Yeah, I I think number one for us, and you talk about the blank page, but it's really a blank screen in the same way that 20 years ago Google do Google Google Docs kind of like did away with the save button slowly.
14:46
>> Oh my god, I totally forgot about that.
14:49
I used to have like a muscle memory tick literally about hit hitting command S to save after every [clears throat] sentence.
14:54
That used to be a muscle memory.
14:56
>> And it's so wild that like now almost nothing we write ends up on a printed page, but we still use that skuorphic page.
15:03
Um, we stripped away all the Chrome, so there's there is some formatting there like general general markdown stuff, but it doesn't appear on the page.
15:10
And we asked oursel what writing is.
15:13
writing is. uh and happily there's a lot of prior art from the last 43 years especially from academia uh that's been ignored by the software industry but writing it is not to get all academic but there's this uh seminal paper by
15:29
flower and hay and they talk about three stages uh which we we refer to as prewriting writing and rewriting >> prewriting it's like AI training >> yeah kind of writing >> but with a quiet reinforcement >> yes [clears throat and laughter] recursive of self- intelligence. Uh and
15:44
Uh and uh so we were like what does the prewriting process look like of like getting your ideas out?
15:50
What is the transcription process which is what word and docs focus on and the output of LLM's focus on?
15:56
And then if you ask anyone including I'm sure the two of you uh most writers estimate that about 70% of their writing time is the rewriting process, the editing process.
16:06
And we're like how do you help people at each stage there?
16:10
Um, so we we established those three pillars and now we're building features of like how do you make the getting your ideas into a developed format more more efficient and more uh like keep you in a place of discovery and thinking about things.
16:23
How do you make the transcription as easy as possible?
16:26
And that's things like you know you can use xxx or tk and it looks up but you can stay in the flow of writing. >> That's very cool.
16:33
>> We have the inline thesaurus where you highlight a few words and it looks at the whole sentence and gives you alternatives.
16:38
Um, and then from an editing perspective, you can obviously add all your friends and have discussions.
16:43
Uh, but we also built a facilitative editor.
16:46
And this is again like not how do you change this word or tinker with this, but how do you keep people in a place of discovery?
16:53
So, you make observations and ask them what they intended by it.
16:57
Like there's a lot of points in this paragraph.
16:59
Like which one to feels the most important or like is there a reason you put this so far below?
17:05
And again, that pushes people back into a place of thinking about what they want to communicate.
17:09
And we what we hear from the people using it is they just feel like more supported and fulfilled when they're writing with marker. >> I love the XXX thing.
17:18
I mean, I frequently know the direction of what I'm trying to say or the dot I'm trying to connect, but I don't have the, you know, the fact in my brain.
17:30
Um, and it's such a nice uh reverse engineering like how people actually write kind of feature that I love.
17:39
And um, you've actually got the we've been talking about Google Docs a lot, but you've got the creator of Google Docs as what an early investor who's giving you quite an endorsement, which says a lot, I think.
17:48
Um, >> not quite an endorsement.
17:50
He literally said it's the first real advance in writing platforms since Google Docs 20 years ago. >> Yeah, here. Here. It's a big endorsement.
17:58
So, um I guess what I'm interested in though is is this just writing or do you see marker expanding into other things?
18:08
>> We are obsessed with writing and that's where we're at.
18:11
I'd like uh the thing the thing that I think about when you say that is like just writing like people spend all day writing in different places.
18:18
Uh like you're writing an email to your parents.
18:21
Uh you're writing a memo to your team.
18:23
You might be writing on sources.
18:25
You might be writing for a client.
18:26
um like writing is is the most universal creative uh creative thing that people do and we think there is so much room.
18:34
Uh you mentioned Steve Newman, one of the founders of Google Docs who's who's an early investor in us.
18:39
Um another one is Cal Henderson, one of the co-founders of Slack, uh who backed us because he's like, I want this to exist in the world.
18:48
Uh and then he followed it up with and you guys have a long road ahead of you.
18:52
And I think of building this platform like we're so proud of where it is today, but we go through the wave of like, oh my god, it's great.
18:57
And then the next day like, oh, we've we've got a lot of work to do.
19:00
There's so much more to uncover in the writing process.
19:02
And I think this is something where there is just a tremendous amount of room for us to keep building amazing tools for people to help them in the craft of writing.
19:12
>> And writing is obviously a thing that most people do all the time, but it happens in a lot of different surfaces, right?
19:18
So if I'm writing in superhuman, I'm not necessarily writing in marker.
19:22
So that's what I was also saying about expanding like do you need to suck in some of those surfaces or find a way to get there versus having marker be the thing that people just go to and then copy paste out of?
19:33
>> We want to be everywhere people do writing eventually.
19:35
Like I we made a very conscious choice to build the platform first because again to the idea that like writing isn't a moment in time, it's not an output, it's a process.
19:46
process. uh we we refer to it in internally as like the telemetry of people's writing how many times have you revised something like what was the what was the process how did each person collaborate and all those things are incredibly helpful for understanding how
20:01
to support somebody's writing process so I think we want to create the best possible experience on an endto-end composition platform um and then move to places where people do their other writing as well >> I'm super curious for your thoughts on whisper flow and the other AI dictation products. I personally have a really
20:18
I personally have a really tough time with it, which almost like reveals to me maybe that I need to see it in order to like think it or something like that.
20:30
Like when I'm dictating, I'm like, where do I look?
20:31
I like kind of look to the bottom of my screen or like something like that.
20:35
I don't even know what's going on.
20:37
Uh do do you find that that's like a different flow or a different process in people's minds for doing that or do do you expect that that's where everything is going?
20:44
I think a lot of people believe that these days.
20:48
>> I think a lot of a lot of things are changing.
20:50
And I think like voice input as a modality seems to be one that is growing tremendously.
20:56
Like I'll give the example my I have an 8-year-old daughter uh who loves to write, but she has no idea how to type.
21:02
So, she uses whisper with marker uh to write her stories.
21:04
And I like I totally get that.
21:07
I I'm a lot like you, Ellis.
21:10
Like I need to see the words on screen coming out of my fingers.
21:13
I think that's part of just the way I've been hardwired by my upbringing.
21:17
Uh, but I also know people who are who are just like voice as input pill and like are constantly talking into their phones or into their surfaces to get their words out.
21:28
>> That's actually a brilliant example.
21:30
Your 8-year-old using Whisper because that could be it.
21:33
Honestly, that could be it as far as this behavior goes.
21:36
I learned how to type because of AOL Instant Messenger and that was what incentivized me to type a lot faster.
21:46
Meanwhile, if dictating is so natural and easy and it's getting dramatically better all the time and even navigating your computer saying actually delete that line that is here if not coming imminently.
21:58
Uh where will the incentive be around typing?
22:01
Is it just for when you're you know in a crowd and can't talk?
22:06
Then we have the products that let you just kind of mumble into it.
22:08
You know, it it that that could be it as far as the incentives go.
22:12
And >> and I think one of the things we've learned about writing is that people like you talk to two different writers or a hundred different writers and they have a hundred different ways that they go through their process.
22:21
Like some people have notebooks, some people have Obsidian, some people do their drafting in Apple Notes and then move them to Google Docs so they can share it with people and they'll create 10 Google Docs. Yeah, I know.
22:30
Um, and I I think the same is true of inputs.
22:34
Like I think one of the things about the three stages, the like prewriting, writing, and rewriting is people are not that's not a linear process.
22:43
People are jumping between them to ex to do different parts of their project or even within an individual paragraph.
22:49
And I think for some people, voice input might be part of that.
22:54
Uh, I think editing is probably going to be easier with a cursor and keyboard in the future.
22:59
uh even no matter how good these models get, but I think it's going to be a lot of different things that even an individual uses.
23:08
>> It's time to talk about my writing setup.
23:09
Uh I want your thoughts on this, John.
23:11
Um I don't know if you saw I went kind of viral.
23:14
I did an interview with Wired about how I'm writing sources and it was about how all these different tech reporters are using AI because it's obviously a hot topic to use AI at all in the uh reporting creative process.
23:28
Um, I basically dictate everything.
23:28
I do type, but I think I I dictate probably 60 to 70% of what looks like typing to other people.
23:36
Um, these days, um, I use co-work connected to all my stuff, my transcripts, uh, my skill file, which is trained on all my writing.
23:44
And it's kind of it's like my editor and it's like my rewrite desk allin-one.
23:49
And I and then I talk to it like an editor.
23:52
So, it's maybe also just the writer, but I I give it a very long prompt with the source data to go pull from, recommend some structures, recommend some kickers, some leads, some like nut graphs to focus on.
24:05
I say, I really want to hit this, I want to hit this, I want it to be a little piffy, blah blah blah.
24:08
I'm very descriptive, but I let you know the first pass of the writing be done that way, and then I massage it.
24:14
So in that setup, would I bring the first pass into marker and then and then edit it from there or would I revamp this workflow entirely?
24:25
You think >> I think you should go end to end with marker.
24:28
[laughter] >> It's no and more seriously like it feels like your setup works for you.
24:34
>> The blank page is what terrifies me.
24:36
>> Yeah, >> because I would rather but maybe I would just dictate into it in marker first like I do for the cloud prompt.
24:42
The the problem is with marker you don't have like my granola mcp that sort of thing.
24:48
You have your memories you have that file system that you can upload things into which I appreciate but maybe that's an opportunity to do some MCP stuff where you can pull in more data sources now.
24:57
>> Yeah, we were I was just uh looking at our MCP test today because I think there's a lot of demand for that.
25:01
I think one of the one of the things we've been thinking about is we want this to be a mass product.
25:06
Like I you know there are a few billion people on Word and Docs.
25:11
I think a lot of people care about their writing and respect their writing and want to do it on a surface that treats them with respect.
25:17
And if we're going to do that, we have to make this as simple as possible.
25:21
So, I think we're like, you probably noticed this in the UI.
25:24
It's so stripped back and the tooling and the fundamentals are things that we put a lot of thought into.
25:28
Uh, but we do wonder like what does it look like when you MCP with granola?
25:34
>> I do feel disrespected by Google software.
25:36
So, I like to hear that you're trying to respect me.
25:39
I mean, I'm like literally in the midst of like switching back to Apple Not only because my phone is running out of RAM after two years, but because the software upsells take a year to get through instead of having every PM fighting over every single thing.
25:56
Like you open up Google Slides now, which is where I have my pitch deck, and they've got bars on the right, they got bars on the bottom, they got bars on the left, they got bars on the top.
26:05
All pitching you different AI features, and I feel disrespected.
26:10
>> So, you're going to use keynotes and pages. >> Oh, no.
26:13
I'm just kind of like, well, notion [laughter] mail notion mail notion mail sadly died the other day.
26:21
So, I do hear that the people at Apple actually do do it that way, which blows my mind. >> Of course they do.
26:25
Uh I don't know how it's possible. Yeah.
26:28
No, I'm trying to find I'm trying to find my new slides uh service at the moment. >> Yeah.
26:35
I mean, also does can we just appreciate that um granola MCP is a phrase that grown men can say on a podcast in the year 2026 and um at least a subset of people will know what that means.
26:46
>> Just wild times we live in.
26:47
>> It was really funny you reflecting on going viral because we've been having discussions about AI and writing for over a year now.
26:53
over a year now. Like we go and meet with publishers and agents and reporters and people running Substacks and a year ago the discussion was uh like very aggressive I would say and that there was a lot of feeling like these LLMs have stolen all the written word since
27:11
the beginning of time including our things and I never want to use that and I think one of the most amazing things because I think the tooling has changed and like the ways that the tooling has changed have evolved really quickly is the discourse is now like what what does the future look like? Because it's
27:24
Because it's probably not a quill and an ink block, but it's also not outsourcing all your writing.
27:29
And I like part of our thesis from the beginning is there's a middle path um that we hope there's a good way to use these tools um that supports the writing process and doesn't just like feed things into the machine.
27:40
Um and I think I'm amazed that that is becoming a more acceptable conversation for us uh for us to have.
27:48
Like we went and met with one of the largest uh literary agencies in London a couple weeks ago and they were like, "Yeah, we'd love to test this."
27:56
Which like we were pretty gobsmacked and amazed about the speed the speed at which uh the discourse is changing around this.
28:04
>> Well, it's inevitable.
28:04
I mean, I just think you know you can uh him and Haw and they of course the labs like still content to train um that's known at this point.
28:13
point. the an you know anthropic burning books has been published all that stuff but this is happening no matter how you feel about it and you can choose to use the tools or not I mean that's kind of how I feel about it and um you obviously
28:26
want to do it in a way that feels right and ethical for you um and maybe that's a good way we can pivot into I think a question Ellis had too about just the model architecture Ellis do you want to ask that >> yeah I mean you could ask today's AI about how to Right? And they will give
28:42
And they will give you a lot of things that they have seen before.
28:47
Whether it is story structures, whether it is phrases like not this but that, which is especially funny to me because I caught myself doing that in college.
28:57
And at the moment I realized I was using not this but that.
28:59
I commanded in my document and there were like five examples and I was like, well, me.
29:06
I I found my little uh my little tick that I do.
29:09
But um it it seems like you know your model that you're using is less about trying to I don't know give you best practices and more help give you alternatives or push you forward.
29:20
How would you describe that?
29:20
I mean it's it's cool to see that you think of it as the thesaurus cuz people ask me how I use AI write for writing and I describe it as almost like an idea thesaurus as opposed to a word thesaurus especially when you're trying to find something a little different.
29:34
Um, how would you describe what goes into the model and and how it helps you write uh in a world where others are maybe giving you, oh, here's, you know, the the story structure that thousands of books have used, etc.
29:47
>> Yeah, I like there's so many studies about how LLMs are are deeply problematic for the creative process.
29:53
Like you have LLM outputs and they have a brilliant vocabulary, like very elaborate grammatical structures and an incredible clustering of really boring ideas in the middle.
30:02
Um, and I one of our foundational decisions was we do not want to be style police here.
30:06
We're not trying to make everybody's writing sound the same.
30:11
We're much more interested in supporting idea generation.
30:13
And we often say we write with people rather than for them.
30:17
Like we're not generating in that central column of text.
30:19
In fact, anything that we suggest has to be approved [snorts] by the user um to go in for their writing.
30:25
Um, and the other thing is we just look at the at like the architecture of information about a piece.
30:31
So like writing in its simplest form is you want it's something you want to say to someone.
30:35
And when we're looking at what somebody is writing, we look at I think it's right now 19 different things like the rhetorical strategy, the inferred audience, the stylistic moves.
30:44
Um and we use that as a as a filter.
30:47
This is when you're using the editor.
30:49
We use that as a as a filter to think about things.
30:52
And then we come back with three things that we want to do when you when you click our editor button.
30:57
The first is some again this is um the feedback that's facilitative.
31:00
So it's not a word choice but it's really what you were trying to get across and if it matches what we inferred.
31:06
The second is summitative feedback.
31:08
So if you've ever had the pleasure of working with a professional editor they'll often sit down and give you a large group of feedback and that's fed in both through the those 19 dimensions and the comments we had throughout.
31:20
Um, and then we try and engage the writer in a discussion about their piece, especially the places where we feel there's some tension between what's on the page and what we're inferring there.
31:30
Um, we use a mix of different models like we use some small very quick models for things like fact-checking.
31:36
Uh, we use models that are really good at that.
31:39
Um, but we we intentionally are just trying not to write in people's voice pros because frankly we just don't think it's very good out there. >> That's really cool.
31:50
So you basically went very deep on post training from a writer's perspective.
31:54
It sounds like you didn't get any proprietary kind of text content.
32:00
You're using off-the-shelf models, orchestrating them, and doing a bunch of post training.
32:05
That's the model approach.
32:08
>> And and one of the interesting things we're seeing is like we're already getting what I think is a pretty unique data set, which is the circularity of of data from people using the product.
32:16
And we see things like the comments that we give to people on their writing are 50 more 50% more likely to result in rewriting than comments from another person.
32:28
And that makes sense like most people that you share a document with uh are not trained editors and might not be pushing you back to that place of discovery.
32:35
But I think that's a really nice validation that like LLMs rather than being something that replaces thinking can actually push you back into a place of deeper thinking.
32:43
In the same way that I had Claude build a skill based on all of my writing over the years, can marker do that?
32:49
Can it can it ingest all of my writing to learn me?
32:52
We can't do it right now.
32:55
I would say there's two dimensions of that.
32:56
We can learn about your writing style.
32:59
Um, and we can try and like one could try and approximate your writing style.
33:03
We just haven't like if I'm being my most honest self, I haven't seen a good example of style transfer.
33:10
I think you can get LLMs that write not unlike you, but it's really difficult to get them to write like you.
33:18
And like it's it's pretty wild that we have, you know, we have models that are powerful enough to shut down the like most advanced spy services in the world today, but they can't replicate your voice even with all the examples they have.
33:30
But I think that's just a testament to like the complexity of writing and the the complexity of the communicative task you're engaged in.
33:38
Well, and the thing I'm trying to be cognizant of as well is that the only thing it's seeing is the in the past, right?
33:43
So that's it's not seeing sparks of creativity, ingenuity, um the humanness of like processing something that maybe literally just happened to me and the connecting the dots that happens in real time.
33:55
All that stuff that makes us human, the AI doesn't see.
33:56
And so if you're relying too much on your backdated work, even if you're contributing net new things on the edges, I am worried that maybe I'm creating a longtail slop version of myself is something I'm starting to think about, >> which would would still be a great writer.
34:18
But I think like the other thing that it doesn't get is is the shared social context.
34:22
Like if you were writing a speech for a a giant dinner that was celebrating Ellis, um like you would draw on your shared experience.
34:28
It's going to be a wonderful dinner.
34:30
Alice >> just sat up and did a little dance when [laughter] you said that.
34:34
>> I was picturing Alex at at one of his Yahoo dinners he does.
34:37
Uh but [laughter] uh you made the dinner a lot better for me.
34:41
>> It's we're always celebrating you, but it's you lack any of the shared context you have.
34:46
Like an LLM could never do that.
34:48
Like some of my favorite emails from users are like it really helped me with this this like email I've been struggling to write to like a mother or or a loved one.
34:56
We have somebody right now is telling me they're they're working on it for a wedding speech.
34:59
It must be so bizarre to get up and deliver a slop wedding speech because it is all personal experience.
35:06
Uh and there should be an equally easy way that still still maintains your humanity at the center of that process.
35:14
There's going to be best men who have run granola their entire lives in every context [laughter] and they're going to use it with Claude to write their best men speech.
35:23
>> I say, "Hey, do you mind if I bring my Plaude to this bachelor party just so I make sure I can get the memories for uh for my speech later cuz I'm not [laughter] going to remember."
35:32
>> Get a second time to say Granola MCP in this podcast.
35:36
>> Well, see, I mean, there's a distinction here though, right?
35:37
I mean, like, as I've built my studio over the last few years, something really core that I've realized, and I I kind of realized this previously as well, but I couldn't frame it up, is that there's a big difference between ideas and their expression.
35:50
And while I think that AI could fetch a memory for you just fine, that's great.
35:59
and maybe it could imitate your tone.
36:02
What you're talking about as the criteria for success as a writer, which I agree, is the communication of the ideas.
36:07
And if the ideas are new, then there how could the AI help you with that?
36:14
Perhaps it could help you bring it out of yourself, but it's not going to know it because it isn't from the past.
36:21
Maybe if you're writing a paper trying to bring together a bunch of things that you've already written about or a trend piece, it could help with that.
36:25
But those are two very different things, right?
36:29
The ideas and their expression. >> Yeah.
36:31
And and when we were fundraising like some there was one VC who said to us like I don't think writing will exist in 5 years. Uh which I don't know.
36:37
It's a it's a prediction of the future, but it treats writing as if it's something like a like a web app or something like that.
36:47
And I think there's just >> burn a web app [laughter] >> a web app which we're a web app right now too.
36:54
It's a it's a huge compliment.
36:56
But I think there's just like there's just something magical to your point, Ellis, about like the the chaos of writing and like throwing people back into the chaos, not taking out the part of the writing process that makes us human and like it it's you know you we talked about Google Docs earlier, but you open it and in place of a cursor it says generate document >> and I think you you want to like >> does it really now?
37:20
>> Maybe they've moved it around.
37:22
everything everything's shifting a little bit.
37:23
But I think like you want people to own the space that they're developing and sharing ideas. >> But that's the thing.
37:30
It's like all the AI is built for people who spend their day turning docs into keynotes and keynotes into docs.
37:36
And if you want to generate that in a different format, fine, you could do that.
37:40
But like this is why I think all the advantages of slop are going to be super short-lived.
37:45
Whether you're creating slop text or video, it is applying every known best practice to it to raise the bar for whatever it is.
37:53
But where is the newness?
37:56
There is inherently no newness.
37:58
And that is what drives good content long term, I believe.
38:00
And in Alex's case, the newness is primarily a function not of his style, which he's I don't know outsourcing, but the information he has.
38:10
>> Uh yeah, I should probably focus more on style.
38:12
Um >> Well, I don't know.
38:14
No, I mean I'm not I mean is like depends what the goal is.
38:17
If your goal is to transmit your scoopage >> any Yeah.
38:20
I don't think anyone's reading me for my creative pros or ever have uh done it for that.
38:25
So I I'm trying to lean into what works for me, but um >> yeah, they're reading you for what you overheard in the bathroom at Davos. >> Exactly.
38:33
Um but I I do think there can be both and tools should support both, right?
38:39
And maybe marker is more towards the other side of people who, you know, the pros is the point. I don't know.
38:45
>> Well, so you know, and there's all sorts of different pros.
38:47
Like if you're scheduling and a meeting over email, it it's not a pros exercise.
38:52
Uh, and there's a sliding scale, but for us, we've always said like if your audience is people and you care about the relationship with those people, you care about the words you put down.
39:02
And if you've read like if you've tried to put LLM slop in that place, you recognize it doesn't reflect what's in your head.
39:10
You know, every every word is a choice and every choice creates nuance and this thing is devoid of the nuance that you wanted to to give to something.
39:17
You got, you know, Paul Graham tweeted the other day if if he knows an email as slop, he's he's like blacklisted that person forever.
39:25
Uh the Pope tweeted the other day that everybody should breathe their writing and like contribute more ideas into the world.
39:31
And I feel like there's there's a lot of people who just recognize this for what it is and and value the human connection that real writing brings.
39:40
>> Another company that comes to mind that I worked with a couple years ago is called Pseudorite.
39:44
Um curious if you're familiar with them. Any thoughts on them?
39:48
I know they are focused on novels at the current moment and they've built all these like little tools that help you figure out the skeleton of what you're writing.
39:57
curious for your thoughts on this and if there if there are any others in the space you know of in this emerging new area.
40:04
>> I I mean I get so excited when companies have the writer at their center.
40:07
I think one of the craziest things of the last year is we felt like there's a real future here but every writing startup that's come out is essentially like a prompt wrapper uh versus something that creates a writerly experience.
40:17
I think Pseudorite's doing a great job.
40:19
Uh Ellipsis is obviously like the anti-AI version of this and I think they've built something really amazing.
40:25
I love um like the what I would describe as the more niche ones that have been wildly successful like Hemingway and Scriber.
40:34
Um I I hope that there's a lot of people who are approaching writing with a specific window for the for the person they're building it for.
40:42
Um so I I like all of that.
40:45
I I hope and I believe something like what we are building will exist and be massively popular in the future.
40:53
Um, and I hope we're the ones to build it, but more than that, I just hope it exists.
40:58
>> Yeah, I mean, I do think it's important it exists, but how big do you think this can get realistically as a company?
41:03
>> Realistically, I mean, I think 500 million people uh are like creating essentially like a page of something a week that they share with other people.
41:15
uh like the the comps in this space that we con constantly hear about are are multi-billion user products from two of the largest companies in the world.
41:23
Um I think there's like people are doing writing everywhere and I think there I just think there's massive massive potential here.
41:32
Yeah, I know you've said you want it to be mass and I do wonder, you know, how much of that writing is kind of corporate or work writing and and if you intend to build for those use cases as well.
41:44
But, you know, at the same time as like substacks are ascendant, I think [snorts] the attention crisis that is coming for so many people, hard to read long form.
42:00
I feel like notifications are a big user problem potentially for you on your device preventing you from reading.
42:04
You read that books are dead, books are alive.
42:08
How do you see this from like a mass point of view?
42:10
Like what are people reading and writing at scale?
42:13
>> It's a great question.
42:13
[laughter] >> I don't know the answer to that. I think it's changing.
42:16
Um like I see bookshops having a bit of a renaissance obviously self-publishing.
42:23
Um I like I loved your interview with Chris Best.
42:26
Um, I think what Substack is doing is amazing.
42:28
I think what Patreon is doing is amazing and uh Kit and Beehive and all of them.
42:35
Um, and I think like right now is probably the day that people have written the most words in history and that'll beclipsed tomorrow.
42:41
Uh, but it's also the day when machines have written the most.
42:46
And I think uh like I think we need to keep pushing uh if if writing no matter how it evolves is is going to be as as big as we want it to be in the future.
42:58
>> And the way I frame it is like this is just part of how I sell myself.
43:00
But it's like every show needs a script, right?
43:05
Like whether it's a video or a novel or even a strategy for a tweet, like it all starts with getting ideas on the page.
43:14
To that extent, I think writing will always exist.
43:17
>> Yeah, I I very much agree with that.
43:21
>> Uh maybe we can end it here.
43:21
John, your favorite writing uh phrase or thing you rely on? Are you an M dash guy? Are you a colon guy?
43:29
Uh do we stand the mdash?
43:32
Do we do we keep it going?
43:35
Do we fully uh retire it as many are want to do right now?
43:40
>> Can you disallow semicolons from the editor?
43:41
It's a non-deterministic thing.
43:44
I I love that we are having societal level conversations about the mdash.
43:48
That to me is a sign that like people are engaging with the topic.
43:50
The thing I love most, the phrase I love most is uh the dissonance of discovery.
43:55
And that is like when you're going through the writing process, you discover something that you didn't realize when you set out to start it.
44:03
And I think if we can create that experience for people, we'll we'll build a very successful product that people are really excited to use. >> Yeah, it's funny.
44:12
Uh never occurred to me that you could almost have like a video editor library in the sidebar for your writing as well as your videos.
44:20
When I saw the materials tab, I was like, "Oh, that's quite interesting."
44:24
>> People tell us their favorite feature is just having two things side by side like that.
44:27
Uh >> yeah, how did you come up with that feature?
44:30
Well, I I think a big part of our question is what does the pre-writing process look like and it's a notepad.
44:36
It's documents you're looking at.
44:38
Uh but they need to be accessible because you're drawing for them.
44:40
Again, you might be doing some writing.
44:41
You might be doing some revision and you might jump back to uh think about the source material and AI makes that really wonderful.
44:49
Like you can look through all of your materials while you're doing the writing process.
44:53
You can get suggestions that come to you.
44:55
And I think we we put the three primitives there which is like what is the writer experience of transcription?
45:01
What's the place that holds all their thoughts that they they have put together when they created it?
45:06
And then how do you create an amazing editor that >> can I mean are they almost laid out like sticky notes you know how like a lot of people write you know stories and whatnot. >> Yeah.
45:15
And you see like you see in our UI there's there's just those buttons you have like editor materials the observations which is our understanding of your piece.
45:23
um and share like those are those are the only four buttons we have and that to us is is the core of the writing experience.
45:30
>> Final final question because I always have to one up Alex.
45:32
Um you're John Steinbeck making a writing app that would almost be like if Alice Hamburger made a hamburger shop. >> Have you not? >> Uh not yet.
45:44
>> H I talk about >> it's a lot of responsibility, isn't it?
45:47
>> I talk about this with my mom all the time.
45:49
Uh she is Colombian and insists that she did not name me after the writer John Steinbeck.
45:54
Uh it was very traumatic in middle school when we read of Men and the teacher kept asking what's Steinbeck thinking and I thought I was being called on every day.
46:03
Uh but life has a weird way. >> Said, "Come on, bro. Write something for us.
46:09
Write us something good, John."
46:13
>> And that that's what we're going for. >> Yeah.
46:15
[laughter] Uh, I'm thinking of the Finding Nemo scene where everybody asked the clown fish for a joke.
46:19
It's a lot of pressure, isn't it? All right. Thank you, John. So, good to see you.
46:22
Uh, all the best and uh, thanks for coming on.
46:26
>> Thank you guys so much. >> Thanks, John.
46:29
>> And that's it for this week's show.
46:29
Stay tuned after the break for Alex and my reactions.
46:33
[music] >> Alex, how do you feel about that interview, man?
46:38
I uh, feel a lot of feelings.
46:42
It's [laughter] a question that is always top of mind with AI.
46:47
with AI. I mean you you know you operate like your network and your ability to reach people is I feel like very hard to clone but so many people are starting to tell me at least like hey are you worried about AI or like I tried to generate some headlines or some
47:06
manifestos with AI and uh I got something pretty good but I I do feel like we got to a pretty interesting answer toward the end of the podcast which is like the way that you write if there is any style of any kind to it is a product of like your entire lived experience. And for me at least when I
47:21
And for me at least when I go to write headlines for tech companies, it is we exist in a context of everything that has come from the last 20 years of tech and either riffing on it, subverting it, co-opting it, or at the very least knowing when something's already been done.
47:38
You know what I'm saying?
47:40
And AI doesn't seem to know any of that.
47:42
And so to that extent uh to the extent that clients even continue to want something new as opposed to just something pretty or something that sounds good, I feel insulated. But I don't know that.
47:55
>> Yeah, I think what I was saying about how the AI is only backwards looking is the thing I think about a lot and trying not to um rely too much on that and become a unintentional creeping slop version of yourself is a thing that I'm trying to avoid with my workflow and how frankly probably overreiant I've become on these tools.
48:14
overreiant I've become on these tools. U there was a moment where I was traveling recently on a plane and I didn't have great uh internet and I needed to work on the newsletter and Claude wasn't working and I was like oh my god I do I
48:27
need to write an article >> got a raw dog it [laughter] [gasps] >> uh and that was a weird feeling that didn't feel good like to be overly reliant on what is a frankly like expensive constantly changing product from a company that um you know is trying to invent uh AGI It it was a weird feeling. >> I don't know. I'm actually I try and >> I don't know.
48:48
I'm actually I try and always sit in the middle of the two strong opinions if I can about like is AI the best or the worst.
48:56
>> You're a nuanced thinker. >> Thank you.
48:58
But I mean your usage doesn't really scare me.
49:00
I don't think [laughter] like as for your livelihood or your cognitive abilities like I'm not sure that your lever is is quote unquote the writing as I see it.
49:18
>> Yeah, I've never thought that.
49:18
Um I think for certain people though writing is certainly the lever.
49:22
I think I think that's becoming rarer to be honest.
49:24
I think the bar for that gets higher and higher with how good LLMs are and products like marker even at massaging things.
49:33
So I think you need to be a true savant and you know really be studying and spend a lot of time with the the craft of riding pros to to excel at that these days.
49:45
Um, but I do think the other part of the barbell or whatever you want to say is like the information and what you're communicating and that being the thing and the writing being merely a vehicle to deliver that thing.
49:56
That's how I've always thought about it.
49:58
Um, and you know, if I had this AI stuff that we have now 10 years ago, uh, I would probably be using it the same way.
50:08
I wouldn't have like changed, you know, over the years and been like, oh, like I'm so precious about my writing.
50:12
And you know, there are moments where you're in it, you know, and you're like, "Oh, I'm jazzed about this.
50:17
This is like feels inspired. It's coming straight." >> Say, "God, I'm good. >> God, I'm good."
50:22
You know, it's coming straight off the top of the dome onto the blank page.
50:26
But that doesn't happen that often.
50:27
And it usually there's a lot of like external pressure happening.
50:31
It's like racing to get a scoop or it's something that is so just ingrained in me um and something I've spent so much time on that I don't need AI.
50:38
But um yeah, I I am trying to balance those two things.
50:43
It is something that uh you know, we're we're rare.
50:45
Um and that uh we're zelennials or at least I am.
50:48
I don't know if you know about this the the zelennial term, but it's someone who uh was born during a specific window in the early 90s and um which I am.
50:58
And you saw life uh you weren't an adult, but you were adult enough.
51:06
you were grown enough to see and remember life pre the internet.
51:11
Uh you also weren't uh you were still in your kind of formative years.
51:15
So um to be able to like see how I did writing in school pre all this how much I hated it. I hated writing papers.
51:25
Um I love the ideas in papers. >> Yeah.
51:27
I love the ideas in papers and the process of like putting it all together but I hated like the process of writing the paper from a blank page.
51:33
It would take me forever.
51:35
um just because of like that zero to one blank page thing has always been hard for me.
51:39
I always like need a starting point.
51:42
Um but seeing that um and then seeing where we are now and like man if I had all these tools in college now um I think college would be a lot more fun.
51:53
Like I think I would be able to focus on the things that were interesting to me which is like learning new things uh putting ideas together but also maybe you know I'd be dumber. Who knows?
52:03
Um that's >> well it's [laughter] one way to think about having fun in college.
52:06
Uh I think though like for you I mean especially I think this stuff is very useful and relevant like everybody in AI says that AI is going to help you do the busy work faster so you could focus on what matters and I think in your case literally it's having more conversations going to more things learning more about what's happening in the world and in people's minds.
52:28
Um, I did think though of one aspect of your storytelling that I do like that you don't want to automate away is just how you talk about the experience of going to some exclusive event. >> Yeah.
52:41
>> You know what I'm saying?
52:41
Like I wouldn't automate I wouldn't have the AI write that.
52:44
I would still try and bring people through >> that experience all the way to >> standing uh at the urinal next to Jensen [laughter] >> as you are as you are.
52:54
And you're pretty tall, so you could probably get a, you know, see over that, [laughter] make people a little uncomfortable.
53:01
>> And I want to be in that moment with you.
53:03
>> No, the human the human experience, the value of communicating that, I think only goes up.
53:07
Uh, how you present the raw info, the raw scoopage probably doesn't matter as much.
53:11
I mean, I'm curious for your stuff, man, because you're writing these manifestos, you're writing headlines, kind of positioning.
53:17
I imagine AI is an accelerant to all that.
53:20
It helps you a lot, but there's that human aspect of what you do and connecting the dots in the way that only you can that you definitely want to protect.
53:27
Are you are you pretty uh deep on AI and your process or is it still pretty kind of raw shower thoughts, you know, raw dogging it?
53:36
>> Yeah, I mean, I'll break it down.
53:36
And I think, you know, upfront with clients, I could have them do a learning session either on their own and just send me a voice note, answers to my questions, or to do a video chat with an AI persona, something like listen labs, you know, or some of the others that will have an actual conversation with you and prompt you further using my questions, but of the same topic.
54:02
They don't always know what's interesting because they haven't quote unquote been in tech. >> Yeah.
54:08
I would never outsource like you interviewing a client to an AI.
54:11
That seems >> Well, but you tell me this.
54:14
I mean, you know what's going on with the Frontier Labs.
54:16
Like the context windows today are small.
54:19
Are you going to be able to say consider every piece of tech news on every website for the last 20 years as you consider differentiation?
54:30
Are you going to be able to say that at some point? >> Probably.
54:31
You could probably do a version of that now um with a little fine-tuning on some things. I think so. Yeah.
54:37
But I I still don't think you're going to want to hand off your interview process.
54:41
That is the creative process for you, >> right? And so I don't do that.
54:44
And once I do my interviews, I take notes myself even though I have AI meeting notes running because I find that the AI doesn't know what I would find as interesting.
54:58
And then I also do the translation to my like kind of canonical document I do where I write down a company's core beliefs and all their pain points in the customer that they're trying to resolve and how they resolve them.
55:11
And I have my own constraints that force me to kind of rightsize all those things.
55:15
And then on the writing side, I consider the stylistic or expressive elements of the manifesto being secondary to like did we get to the very best version of how can you get attention given who you are, what you built, everything you know.
55:32
What is the problem that you're trying to solve in the simplest most unique form?
55:36
What is the solution that best plays to your differentiation and innovations?
55:40
What are your differentiators?
55:42
To me, the outline of those ideas is the hard part and the style or expression of the manifesto is always going to be in flux just depending like fashion on what type of pros is going to be ahead.
55:53
And so to that extent, I do have to continue evolving my own style even if I try to remain neutral.
56:03
remain neutral. Uh because the M dashes I mean it's it sucks you know I'm an M dash fan and what's funny is that AI learned M dashes from all the writers and so now we have to move ahead with the style but I think understanding yeah understanding are
56:21
interesting >> oh yeah it is >> it's I think it's max two M dashes per certain word count [laughter] >> says Alex I've met the quota but I really want to use it this >> that's literally happened I've literally been yelling cloud about that before. Yeah. Um well and I think for you the Yeah.
56:35
Um well and I think for you the value of you getting out there going to config which I know is like your Coachella you were doing that while I was in France like do going out and getting that real world data into your brain and continuing to build on that feels also increasingly important for what you do as the LLMs expand in capability and their context windows and can ingest more you know the value of new goes up I think. Yeah.
57:01
By the way, I'm going to put you on the spot.
57:04
I don't know if did I don't know if you actually listen to the episode, but there was a funny joke about you in the intro.
57:11
>> I did catch it, I think, but it's been a minute. Remind me. >> Wasn't that funny?
57:15
I was like, I'm Alice Hamburger and my co-host, Alex Heath, is uh out of office today at an offsite with his AIS.
57:23
[laughter] >> Yeah, pretty much.
57:28
>> I like to I like to picture that. >> Yeah. Um, no.
57:30
I was uh sweating my ass off and canned.
57:33
Thank you for holding the fort down for me. Um, hated Mr. >> Yeah.
57:38
What stands out in hindsight? >> Um, it was fun. >> Yahoo dinners.
57:42
>> Yeah, I was there with Yahoo doing a bunch of fun stuff.
57:44
bunch of fun stuff. Um but you know it was creator central and it really felt like folks like me who are kind of doing their own thing had like taken over that that conference uh in a way where you know we were outnumbering all of the you
57:58
know traditional media folk um like reporters and uh people that were there and uh >> is it kind of like CES where it just happens to be the place where this group of people >> Davos it's like Davos for CMOs in the south of France is how I would describe it. >> Why do they have to go that far to do
58:16
>> Why do they have to go that far to do that? Just cuz they can't. >> I don't know.
58:18
All these all these like fancy things. I don't know.
58:20
There's something about dropping you in an exotic, hard to get to, expensive place that I guess just forces people to uh >> to be there and actually like be present.
58:30
[laughter] You know, I think if it was like in New York, it would be nowhere near as uh serendipitous and magical.
58:36
You know, it's like you're you're you're on stage at the Tiestto party with Yahoo and like, you know, you go to the bar backstage and Steve Huffman is there.
58:46
Shout out Steve, former access guest.
58:48
Like got to catch up with him uh CEO of Reddit.
58:50
You know, stuff like that that doesn't happen uh in a normal place.
58:55
>> Are the scoops better uh internationally or domestically?
58:58
[laughter] >> Uh there is an international flare to scoops.
59:03
Um, but to be honest, I was seeing people that I normally see in San Francisco, New York, or LA.
59:06
[laughter] >> So, didn't necess spend a ton of time with Europeans. >> Oh, no.
59:13
I mean, like those people internationally, I think there's probably an element of human nature that is like, oh yeah, I'm not even in the same country. Oh, yeah.
59:21
Can be the lips can be a little looser because flowing. Yes. Exactly. Yeah.
59:29
>> So, is that what everybody was drinking or was there like, you know, a drink of the summer?
59:31
No, it's definitely it's still rosé and can, but um that's I tried to stick to wine mostly, but I I went a little too hard a couple headache. >> Yeah, man. I needed Ziotics.
59:40
Shout out uh I was about to ask >> early sponsor that we never had uh Ziotics.
59:46
[laughter] Um uh I needed that.
59:49
Forgot that um a couple nights, but it was fun, man. Um missed you that week.
59:55
Uh the episode with Jason was really cool.
59:57
Got a lot of good feedback on that.
59:58
I'm excited to try that and uh yeah, more to come.
1:00:02
>> Yeah, I've been chatting with Hivemind a bit and it's funny like talking about the chaos and spontaneity of human interaction and art and craft that makes it interesting.
1:00:13
You know, you could ask Hivemind something or it'll ask you something and it'll happen at a very random time a day and it won't tell you the answer immediately.
1:00:22
Like it needs to go out and get the answer from people uh if at all.
1:00:27
And uh it's quite it's quite interesting and fun and it really does kind of feel like that idea matchmaker in a way whether it's >> Should I use this for sources? >> I mean try it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, >> I will.
1:00:41
>> Uh get it while it's hot.
1:00:41
I guess I would say >> I don't think Jason put in anything about like I mean I I it asked me something and I was like well I'm worried about telling you the answer because you'll tell somebody.
1:00:54
And then it was like, well, I'm not going to tell someone anything unless you tell me it's okay.
1:01:01
>> This is like me talking to a source.
1:01:03
This is like exactly [laughter] how I talk to people who leak things.
1:01:08
>> If you made it to the end of the episode, Jason said that it scooped the something or other 3 hours early. >> I saw that.
1:01:16
See, this is what I need.
1:01:18
All right, I'm I'm going to get on it.
1:01:20
>> Okay, I'll let you get to your hive mind.
1:01:21
Thanks so much for tuning in.
1:01:21
If you like this show, don't forget to like and subscribe everywhere you get podcasts.
1:01:26
[music] >> We are access.
1:01:27
show online and you can find us in video at accesspod on YouTube.
1:01:32
>> If you really like this episode, we'd love a fivestar review or even share with a friend or agent.
1:01:37
>> You can find my newsletter at sources. news.
1:01:38
And you can find me at hamburger on Twitter and at meaning. com.
1:01:43
>> Access is part of the Vox Media podcast network and this show is produced by Hooked Creators. >> Bye. [music] >> [music]