[Raw] The Danger of the Invisible Phase

00:00 — Intro: People Love the Beginning and the End

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.

This one’s been sitting in my head for quite some time now, because I keep noticing these patterns over and over again in most areas of my life.

People love a good transformation story.

They love hearing about the addict who got sober, the person who lost a ton of weight, the broke person who suddenly becomes financially stable, or becomes rich, or the dropout who becomes extremely successful.

Just people who turn their lives around.

People love to hear those stories.

They love the beginning, and they love the end.

But it’s the middle that I think people shy away from.

Nobody really wants to hear about what happens in the middle, or how someone actually accomplished those big goals.

And I don’t even mean that in a cynical way.

I think there are probably some really good reasons for it.

Because once someone explains the middle of how they accomplished the big goal, it usually sounds way too simple.

Not easy.

Nothing’s easy.

If you’re going to do something big, it takes a lot of effort.

But it is simple.

And I find that’s what makes people very uncomfortable.

01:24 — Running and Realizing People Stop Caring

For me, I’m going to bring it back to the running that I do.

I do a lot of running.

I just got off the treadmill, really.

When I first started running consistently, I talked about it consistently.

I tracked every day.

I would tell people about my streaks, the distance I was totaling, what paces I was running at.

Because it was new and exciting, I’d naturally bring it up in conversations.

And people cared at the beginning.

They were very intrigued by it.

“Are you still running?”

“How far have you gone?”

“How often are you running?”

But eventually, all that kind of faded away.

People really didn’t want to hear it anymore.

It’s not that they didn’t care, I guess, but it’s not their life.

It’s just something I do.

Honestly, why would they care?

Obviously, when I hit milestones, like a year or two years, I let people know that.

And people were genuinely amazed at that.

It was a pretty big accomplishment.

But in the end, why would they care about the day-to-day?

Because to me, those days represent bad weather, exhaustion, stress, and low motivation.

A lot of those days, I did not want to do it.

I really did not want to get out there.

But to everyone else, it was just:

“Oh cool, he still runs.”

Over time, you begin to stop talking about it.

You’re not hiding it.

You’re not ashamed of it.

You just don’t bring it up anymore because it’s who you are and what you do.

It becomes something personal.

Eventually, it stopped becoming a story and just became part of who I was.

I run.

That’s it.

Now, weeks, months, years later, people ask me if I’m still running.

If I see them occasionally, or I drop into the office, people ask:

“You still running?”

And I’ll just say:

“Yep.”

That’s pretty much it.

Some people ask what my pace is up to, how many kilometers I got this week, or if I’m still doing it every day.

Now people are curious because I don’t bring it up anymore.

But to me, I just let it be.

I don’t need to explain anything anymore.

It’s personal.

I do it for myself.

And really, it’s a habit now.

04:15 — People Don’t Want the Daily Middle

I think this applies to almost everything.

People don’t want to keep hearing:

“I’m going to start running every day.”

Eventually they get bored of it.

They don’t want to hear it anymore.

But they do want to hear:

“I made it 365 days.”

Or:

“I made it two years.”

When you make it two years, people get pretty impressed.

But they don’t want to hear it every day.

Because if they hear about the steady consistency, the good times, the bad times, the days you want to do it, and the days you don’t want to do it, they don’t really want to hear about that.

Because really, all it is is:

Put on your shorts.

Lace up your shoes.

Run.

It could be outdoors.

It could be on the treadmill.

It could be at a track.

It doesn’t matter.

You just do it.

It’s not that complicated.

It’s pretty straightforward.

There’s no secret method.

There’s no magic sauce that makes the thing work.

05:42 — Simple Feels Worse Than Complicated

I think people almost want it to be complicated.

Because if it’s complicated, then they have a reason not to do it.

They can say:

“I don’t have the money.”

“I don’t have the time.”

“It’s too complicated for me.”

“I can’t get involved in that.”

But once they find out most things are pretty straightforward, it puts the responsibility back on them.

How did you lose the weight?

Well, I ate better.

I moved more.

I stayed consistent.

I kept doing it.

That’s pretty basic.

Watch your calories.

Move.

Eat healthy.

There’s no real secret sauce to that one.

How did you learn AI?

And I’m still learning, by the way.

I’m trying to stay up, and I still feel like I’m going nowhere.

But really, all it is is I spend time with it every day.

How did you save money?

Well, I consistently invested over years.

How did you write a book?

I didn’t write it yet.

I’m close.

It’s 140-plus pages, but it needs some tweaking.

But it’s close.

And I just kept on it.

Last night I spent an hour on it, maybe two hours.

I didn’t spend that much time, but I managed to get a lot done in that time.

So it was just consistency.

I try to carve out a certain amount of time per week for each thing.

As long as I continually stick to that, it compounds and it builds.

Those answers frustrate people because they remove the mystery.

People want to hear that there was a massive breakthrough.

Some hidden framework.

Some big life hack that no one else knows about.

Then they can say:

“Well, I can’t do that because they have the secret and they’re not going to share it.”

But really, in the end, most people will tell you it’s just consistency.

Most meaningful change is honestly just repetition.

I think people don’t realize how much success is just continuing after the excitement wears off.

That’s really it.

Even when you’re not motivated, you keep doing it.

08:47 — AI and Feeling Behind

I think AI is exposing this really hard right now.

Personally, I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.

Seriously.

Every day I wake up and feel like I’m so far behind.

And I use it every single day.

I still always feel like I don’t know anything.

Yesterday, I built my first agent in Codex.

Only last week, I built my first skill, or two skills, in Claude.

There are a lot of things that I’m doing wrong.

I built my agent system out before, but what I was calling agents were really just scripts and cron jobs and whatever else.

Then I talked to a non-developer who helped me figure out:

“Oh, you need to hook it up to this.”

So it was a whole rewrite.

Then I thought I had it working, and then I met him again.

And he’s not a coder.

That’s what scares me.

Well, it doesn’t scare me.

It makes me happy, and it makes me excited.

Because pretty much anybody can do anything, or be anyone, at any moment.

You just have to spend the time looking at it.

You also have to leverage other people who are doing it.

In this case, he figured out another way to build an agent system that I really wanted, and he shared it with me.

Now I have that running.

And it’s very exciting.

But I didn’t figure it out.

Again, I feel like I was so far behind.

I still feel far behind.

I know I’m far behind.

But I keep at it.

I keep asking questions.

I keep trying to play with it.

10:38 — Most People Still Aren’t Really Using AI

Then you look around at other people and find out that most people aren’t using it at all.

They might be using it for work.

They might not use it personally.

If they do use it personally, they’re just using it like Google.

A couple quick questions, then move on to the next thing.

Maybe they use it for code, or to help read a document, or for basic stuff.

But they’re not trying to expand their knowledge with it.

Honestly, if somebody spent 30 minutes a day just using it, literally talking to it, typing into it, playing with new tools, and then spent another 30 minutes watching videos, reading articles, seeing what other people are building, looking at prompts, and asking questions, they would get better.

Even if it was just 30 or 45 minutes, three or four days a week.

You’re going to become familiar with it.

You’re not necessarily going to become an expert.

Maybe you will.

But you’re going to be ahead of the average person.

Because familiarity compounds.

That’s really all most of it is.

Exposure.

Repetition.

Curiosity.

Consistency.

Eventually, the unknown stops feeling scary.

12:09 — The Invisible Phase

I think the hardest phase in anything is what I’d call the invisible phase.

That period where you’re working hard, you’re showing up, you’re doing the right things, but externally nothing really changes yet.

That’s where most people stop.

Because effort and reward feel disconnected.

You save $50.

Then you put another $50 away.

Your investment barely moves.

It only moved because you put the money in.

You run for a month and still feel out of shape.

You learn coding or AI and still feel very confused.

You write some pages for a book and it feels like you’re getting nowhere.

You haven’t even gotten the introduction done.

That’s a dangerous phase psychologically.

The outcome is invisible, but the effort is very real.

People start questioning:

“Is this even working?”

13:14 — Writing a Book by Breaking It Down

I think about this a lot with the book I want to write.

I’m getting through it, but I still feel overwhelmed every time I get to it because there’s no visual.

That’s really the key.

People look at writing a book like it’s an impossible feat.

Two hundred pages.

Three hundred pages.

Even one hundred pages.

But then you break it down.

If I could write one page a day, that’s basically 30 pages a month.

In two months, you’re around 60 pages.

In four months, you’ve technically got what you’re looking to get done.

So if you took a year, you could spend four months writing the first draft.

Then another month revising and tweaking it.

Another month playing with it, getting people to read it, getting feedback.

Then you’re polishing it, publishing it, and getting it ready to go.

In a year, you could have a book around 120 to 160 pages.

That’s with acknowledgements, references, footnotes, all of it.

I think it’s a very possible task.

Not easy.

Nothing’s easy.

But things aren’t always as hard as they seem.

They just take effort, and you have to break them down into small tasks.

14:57 — Reading and Small Daily Progress

People get overwhelmed with reading too.

I read a lot, and people are always surprised by how much I read.

But when you break it down, reading a book isn’t really that much.

Reading two pages a day isn’t that hard to do.

It doesn’t take that much time.

And some days you’re going to go a little farther.

On a weekend, or in the evening when you just want to relax, you might read 10 pages or 20 pages.

That compounds pretty quickly.

Next thing you know, you’re going through several books.

Even just to learn and absorb knowledge, if you’re driving to work, use audiobooks.

If you’re working out, use audiobooks.

At work, use audiobooks.

They’re useful tools.

I use them a lot when I’m driving, working out, on my bike, and even swimming.

When I swim, I have headphones I can wear in the water, and I usually just listen to books.

It’s a way to absorb knowledge while doing something else.

You keep doing that, and it compounds.

Next thing you know, you’re reading a book a month.

That sounds daunting when you think about it, but there are some years I’ve gone way beyond that without even realizing it.

16:19 — The Big Goal Makes People Freeze

If all you focus on is the big picture, your brain almost rejects it immediately.

If you want to lose weight and all you look at is:

“I need to lose 80 pounds.”

Or:

“I need to become wealthy because I need to retire.”

Or:

“I need to write a book.”

It feels way too far away.

Too unrealistic.

Too massive of a task to even think about.

That’s where small goals fit in.

Small goals feel survivable.

Today’s run.

Today’s page.

Today’s workout.

Today’s investment.

Today’s learning session.

Maybe today I’m going to sit down and read five articles.

Maybe I’m going to play with AI for a little bit.

Maybe I’m going to learn how to code, or learn some marketing, or whatever it is.

Every small goal creates a tiny little victory.

A tiny little proof point.

It proves that you can do it.

It proves that you’re one step closer.

Eventually, those tiny victories start changing your identity.

They become habits.

And once something is a habit, it’s part of you.

17:44 — Investing Is Mostly Consistency

Investing is one of the clearest examples of this.

Most people think wealth comes from huge wins.

A lottery.

An inheritance.

Lucky investments.

Picking the right stock.

Timing the market.

Finding the next big thing and getting a windfall from it.

But for most regular people, it’s usually just consistency.

Automatic investing.

Not touching it.

Setting it and forgetting it.

Repeating the process over and over again.

The beginning feels pointless because the numbers are so small.

You put in the money and nothing happens.

Sometimes it even goes backwards.

That’s the worst.

It’s the worst when it goes backwards.

Unless you have dividend reinvesting, then there’s a little bit of a sigh of relief because the next dividend payout can buy a little bit more.

That makes it feel a little better.

But because the progress feels slow, and sometimes goes backwards, people quit.

They stop before compounding can even start to matter.

Years later, you look around and realize a lot of people never stayed consistent long enough to see the investment curve bend the way they wanted it to.

Then, when they see someone doing well financially, they assume that person was lucky.

Or intelligent.

Or picked the right stocks.

Or had secret knowledge they didn’t know about.

Because the truth sounds way too ordinary.

They gave up too soon.

They knew what to do.

They just didn’t keep doing it.

And you did.

That’s literally all it is.

That’s the middle.

20:03 — The Reality People Don’t Want to Hear

I think that’s ultimately what people don’t want to hear.

The reality is that most meaningful things are built slowly enough that they feel invisible while they’re happening.

There usually isn’t a magic bullet.

No huge cinematic moment.

No overnight transformation.

Mostly just repetition, patience, discipline, conviction, and continuing when it stops being exciting.

20:35 — YouTube, Motivation, and Showing Up Anyway

Even with these videos, today I’m kind of motivated.

This is my second one today.

I’m feeling a little bit like I want to do it, because I didn’t want to earlier this week.

But when you go back and look at what you’ve started to build, and how much is there, you sort of don’t want to stop.

You want to see it continue growing.

I’m not getting massive views.

I’m not getting massive likes.

I get some, and I thank the people who do interact with me.

I love it.

But I’m not getting those massive numbers, and I don’t expect it.

For me personally, it’s a goal to try to hit.

So I have to consistently keep at it, even when I don’t want to show up and do it.

Like I just did a run.

I didn’t want to do a run.

My hip hurts right now.

My feet hurt.

I didn’t want to get up this morning to do a workout.

I was so tired because I was up late working on my book.

I didn’t want to do that either.

But I wanted to get some things figured out and ready.

So you have to motivate yourself.

Most people don’t want to hear that.

They don’t want to hear that they have to push themselves.

They don’t want to hear that they have to continuously do it, even when they don’t want to.

21:56 — Running Outside During COVID

During COVID, my treadmill was broken, and I couldn’t get a treadmill.

I was still doing my running.

I didn’t want to run outdoors.

It’s cold up here.

Real cold.

Windy, wet, cold.

But I ran every day.

No matter how cold it was, I went out.

You start to like it, actually.

It’s not fun.

Especially the wind and the sleet.

On garbage day, we had a problem with garbage.

It was not nice.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t do it.

It was just a 30-minute run, or whatever it was.

It wasn’t the end of the world.

I didn’t have to hit massive targets.

I just had to get out, do it, get in, and be done.

Once you figure that out, it’s just consistently and continually doing it.

There’s no secret sauce.

There’s no magic bullet.

It’s just showing up and doing it.

23:04 — Still Inside the Journey

Honestly, I’m saying this as someone still inside a lot of these journeys myself.

AI.

The book.

Investments.

I still feel far behind.

There are a lot of things building up that I’m trying to figure out.

I’m trying to help other people with their work.

I’m trying to help my kids.

There’s a lot of stuff that falls through the cracks.

Even just cleaning out the garage, or getting a backpack fixed.

There’s always something.

But it’s a matter of setting those small goals, showing up, and doing it.

As long as you don’t make yourself feel depressed about it, and as long as you set small, tangible goals, it adds up.

Every weekend, a little bit of this.

A couple times a week, a little bit of that.

Then when you look back over the weeks and months, it adds up pretty quickly.

23:55 — The Middle Is Where the Real Stuff Happens

Honestly, every meaningful thing in my life pretty much came from the same place:

Small, consistent actions repeated long enough that they eventually became part of who I was.

And maybe that’s why so few people talk honestly about the middle.

Because the middle is slow.

It’s not exciting.

The middle is the boring piece.

It’s the stuff no one wants to hear because it’s repeat, repeat, repeat.

You don’t want the same rerun over and over again.

It’s slow.

It’s boring.

But it gets you to the end.

Because you have to start somewhere, and you want to end somewhere, but you have to get there.

The middle is where all the real stuff happens.

That’s where the building happens.

That’s where the change starts.

So hopefully there are things you can look at and piece by piece, brick by brick, step by step, keep moving.

It all adds up in the end, man.

Thanks for watching.

Have a good one.

Data Wins. Not AI. (A Raw Lab Session)

00:00 — Intro: Why Data Is the New Battlefield

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

So this is gonna be like an unedited, just speak out loud, follow the script about who I believe, well I don’t know who’s gonna win the AI battle in the end, but based on what different people have and have access to and are obtaining and control, I think that’s what helps people win the AI race basically, or in a combination, different avenues of it.

So this really started as something totally different.

I was thinking about building a personal AI memory system.

And it’s something I started a long time ago. My friends told me I was kind of thinking too big, I guess, or it was not plausible because it was too much information.

It really started as just a memory dump. I think I called it Brain Dump, and it might actually be another video where I talk about how I use AI just to give it everything.

The idea around that was I want to give it all my notes, emails, ideas, chats, calendar.

The example I always give is like I run a lot, so I know what shoes, exactly which brand, which size, which model.

And then if I keep track of that and keep notes on it — treadmill, outdoors, wears down, all these different things — even ones that like, okay, this one’s no good, that one didn’t work.

Then when I go see a new one is on sale or I want to try it, I can quickly say:
“Hey, I’m looking at this shoe.”

And it can come back and give me specifically:
“Oh, based on your previous things, I suggest this, this, and this.”

That was really the idea, like a brain dump.

So it was a way to try to figure out how to connect it all together, keep track of it.

And I really didn’t know what I was getting at, but it was more or less a personal assistant, I suppose.

And the deeper I got into that and realized all the connectors and everything you had to do, I was like:
“Hm… based on everything I know about AI and models and stuff, it’s all about the data.”

It’s not about the model in general.

The generative intelligence obviously is what it’s built off of and how it makes decisions and recognizes patterns and uses memory and analyzes things to find the best possible answer.

It’s all probability.

But the way you do that is with data.

00:54 — How the “Brain Dump” Personal Memory System Shifted My Thinking

I’ve been reading a book — I think I finished it now — by a YouTuber I watch. I’m gonna say his name wrong, Farzad I think. The book is called Abundance or Collapse.

And in this one he talks about data moats.

Because the data is the moat that protects the LLM.

Whoever has the biggest moats usually wins.

Who has the most data.
Who has the most connections.

And it’s understanding the value of that data because of how their AI learns from it.

It has this context and this feedback.

It’s such a big knowledge system.

And I started looking at all the companies that hold this amount of data and human behavior and how that’s really gonna fuel the AI systems.

It’s almost like their food source in a way.

Search history.
Emails.
Videos.
Conversations.
Workflows.
Purchase history.
Location history.
Medical data.
Social interaction.
Financial data.

It’s not just random information.

It’s patterns of human life.

And the more you dig into it and think about it, you stop seeing AI as just:
“Who has the smartest model?”

You start seeing it as:
“Who owns the deepest understanding of humans and how we operate?”

What we need.
What we want.

02:37 — The Generative Fallacy: Probability vs. True Human Patterns

Most people look at AI really like:
Who has the smartest chatbot?
Who can analyze the deepest?
Write the best code?
Who’s fastest?
Who’s gonna get there first?

But it doesn’t really matter.

It feels more like each model is kind of replaceable in a way.

It’s not bad.
It’s not unimportant.

But it’s less of a moat because eventually everyone catches up to everyone else.

Building the model itself, eventually everyone figures it out.

They do things a little different.
Different speed.
Different processing.
Different algorithms.

But what you can’t change is the underlying data that it builds from.

You can synthesize it, but then you’re gonna get hallucinations and side effects and incomplete hypotheses and stuff like that.

You’re not getting true human input and data and reactions and observations and how we act and how we see things and what we expect.

And that changes the probability of what we’re looking for.

So then what actually matters?

The context.

The memory.

The conversations and observations.

The ecosystem around the model.

The human side of the equation.

04:12 — Data Moats: Why the Biggest Knowledge System Wins

When you look at the companies out there, think about Google.

Search.
Chrome.
YouTube.
Maps.
Gmail.
Google Drive.
Android.

All the phones and devices running Android — all that’s feeding back into the system.

That’s not just internet.

That’s behavior.

People searching.
Where they’re going.
What they’re watching.
What documents they’re writing.
Where they’re clicking.
What they’re looking for.

All that becomes a very big moat.

That’s why when people thought Google was behind in the race and then suddenly they release something new and leapfrog again, it shouldn’t really surprise people.

They’re leveraging the data they already have.

They don’t just need a smarter model.

They already have one of the biggest pools of human behavior in the world.

05:41 — Company Deep Dive: Google’s Behavioral Pool

Then you look at Microsoft.

And I think people really underestimate Microsoft.

They own Office.
Outlook.
Teams.
Azure.
Xbox.
LinkedIn.
Windows.
GitHub.

And GitHub is a big one.

That’s where all the code lives.

There’s not many companies that aren’t running on GitHub in some way.

Even if private code is private, there’s still ways to analyze patterns at a high level.

What languages are being used.
What frameworks are trending.
Developer habits.
What companies are building.

And when you’re that big, you can do a lot with patterns.

Then combine that with LinkedIn.

Who’s hiring.
Who’s applying.
What jobs are being posted.
What companies are growing.

It’s a mammoth amount of information.

Then add Teams and Office and Outlook and Windows on top of it.

Microsoft holds a lot of keys to the business world.

That’s a very big moat.

06:58 — Company Deep Dive: Microsoft’s Keys to the Business World

Then you turn into Meta.

Facebook.
Instagram.
WhatsApp.
Oculus.

Between WhatsApp and Facebook and Instagram, you’re talking billions and billions of active users constantly.

All that conversation.
All that interaction.
All that human behavior.

Relationships.
What people are posting.
What they’re interested in.

That’s insane.

Google has one type of data.

Microsoft has business data.

Meta has social behavior.

That’s a huge one.

08:16 — Company Deep Dive: Meta’s Social Behavioral Advantage

Then you throw in Amazon.

AWS powers a huge amount of the internet.

When AWS goes down, huge parts of the internet feel it.

There’s logistics.
Software.
Storage.
Infrastructure.

Then you add Alexa.

I use Alexa all the time.

Groceries.
Cars.
Family communication.
Smart home stuff.

Then you buy everything through Amazon.

Purchase history.
Watching habits.
Prime Video.
Twitch.
Smart devices.

Amazon understands buying behavior.

What people actually spend money on.

What startups are happening.
What people are storing.
What companies are building on AWS.

Amazon has a huge moat too.

Then there are the AI-first companies themselves.

OpenAI.
Anthropic.

What’s interesting about them is they don’t necessarily own the massive ecosystem layers of data like Google and the others.

But they consume the data users give them directly.

And that data is still extremely valuable.

Because people aren’t just searching with AI anymore.

They’re thinking with it.

Planning.
Brainstorming.
Debugging.
Learning.
Emotional questions.
Financial questions.
Life decisions.

Those conversations become very rich very quickly.

OpenAI especially feels like it’s replacing parts of search and research and brainstorming and decision making.

Then you have Anthropic with Claude.

We use Claude at work.

And honestly, I think most developers do.

But not just developers.

Researchers.
Writers.
Analysts.
Lawyers.
Business people.

People are feeding it contracts, taxes, financial analysis, legal documents, code.

That’s a huge amount of high-value interaction data.

09:30 — The “Connector Realization”: Partnerships Are Everything

But the really interesting one in this category is xAI.

Because unlike the others, it potentially has access to the entire Musk ecosystem.

X for real-time public conversations and sentiment.

Tesla for real-world driving and camera data.

Starlink for global internet infrastructure.

Tesla Solar and Powerwall.

Robotics.
Chips.
SpaceX.

It’s not just internet behavior.

It’s real-world data.

Driving.
Energy.
Communication.
Robotics.
Movement.

And all of it is becoming tightly woven together into one ecosystem.

That’s very different from just being a chatbot company.

But the strange thing is we really don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes.

These are corporations after all.

We see demos.
Announcements.
Benchmarks.

But we don’t know:
what breakthroughs they’re sitting on,
what projects failed,
what systems are almost ready,
what partnerships they’re building internally,
or what data-sharing agreements exist.

One breakthrough could suddenly reorder everything.

Better memory.
Cheaper inference.
Robotics.
Agent systems.
Synthetic data.
New chips.

Any one of those could suddenly change who’s leading.

11:05 — The Scary Side: Who Owns the Patterns of Your Identity?

But the thing that really hit me planning my own little Brain Dump system was the importance of connectors.

The connectors are everything.

Because right now all our lives are fragmented.

Work.
Personal.
Bank.
Phone.
Doctor.
Accountant.
Insurance.
Email.

Everything is spread everywhere.

So a huge part of this is gonna come down to partnerships and integrations and APIs and what systems are allowed to talk to each other.

What information gets shared.

What patterns can be understood.

And honestly, this is where it starts feeling both exciting and uncomfortable.

Because I want this.

That’s why I was trying to build my own.

I want to just open my phone and ask something and it already knows.

It knows I forgot to call about the car.

It knows when my dentist appointment is.

It knows what I’m talking about without me needing to explain it.

That sounds incredibly useful.

But at the same time:
who owns that data?

Who owns the behavior?
The patterns?
The identity?

And that’s where it starts getting scary.

12:20 — We Aren’t Building Chatbots; We Are Building Digital Operating Systems

The more I think about AI now, the less I think this becomes:
“Who builds the smartest model?”

It’s more:
“Who builds the best understanding of people and systems?”

And honestly, I don’t think there’s going to be one winner.

I think different companies are building different pieces of the same future.

Search.
Work.
Social.
Commerce.
Finance.
Robotics.
Infrastructure.
Transportation.

The real race may end up being who connects it all together.

And the weird thing is all this started snowballing in my brain because I just wanted a better note-taking system.

I just wanted somewhere to dump my thoughts and ask questions later and have it already understand the context.

Anyway, there’s a lot to unpack here.

I’m trying to move these videos more into raw, unedited conversations.

I don’t really edit much.

I want it to feel more real and more like thinking out loud.

Anyway, thanks for watching.

Life Gets Heavy If You Stop Looking for Happiness

00:00 — Happiness Is a Choice

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.

This video is going to be about happiness.

One thing I always say is:
happiness is a choice.

You choose how you react.
You choose your attitude.
You choose what you focus on.

And I know sometimes people hear that and think it sounds fake or overly simplistic.

But that’s not really what I mean.

This video is more about how people can choose to work toward happiness instead of waiting for happiness to randomly happen to them.

Because I think a lot of people end up stuck in this disappointed state where life never feels the way they hoped it would.

Things aren’t working out.
Stress keeps piling up.
Responsibilities keep growing.
And slowly they stop looking for joy altogether.

So this video is really about why I think adults slowly lose happiness as they get older.

Not depression in the clinical sense.

More like disappointment.
Worry.
Negativity.
That “why me?” feeling.

That heaviness life slowly starts bringing as we get older.

Because eventually life becomes less about wonder and more about responsibility.

You think more about what still needs fixing.

What went wrong.

What needs repaired.

What bills need paid.

What chores need done.

What problem is waiting around the corner.

And somewhere along the way, happiness stops feeling automatic.

It starts feeling far away from your current situation.

And I think that’s where a lot of people slowly fall into sadness without even realizing it.

02:00 — Childhood Wonder

Because when we’re kids, happiness kind of just happens naturally.

Everything is new.

Everything around you feels exciting.

A random car ride with the windows down.

The first snowfall of the year.

Christmas morning.

Birthdays.

A movie you’re excited for.

Halloween.

Vacation.

Even tiny things feel huge when you’re a kid.

Because you’re not carrying everything yet.

Your only real job is to learn, explore, and enjoy life.

You’re not paying bills.

You’re not making sure people depend on you.

You’re not planning everything.

You’re not stressed about work or money or layoffs or responsibilities.

You’re just existing inside the experience.

And honestly, even kids that grew up poor usually don’t realize it at the time.

Most people look back at childhood and remember:
friends,
bike rides,
sleepovers,
school,
playing outside,
learning things for the first time.

Those experiences bring joy almost everywhere you look because life still feels full of discovery.

03:40 — Adulthood Gets Heavy

But then adulthood slowly sneaks in.

It doesn’t happen overnight.

It slowly starts adding pressure.

School.
Work.
Money.
Stress.
Responsibility.

And then eventually family enters the picture too.

Now you’re not just worrying about yourself anymore.

You worry about your spouse.
Your kids.
Your parents.
Your siblings.
Friends that lean on you.

And when you’re the person people go to for help or advice, you absorb pieces of their struggles too.

Hopefully they absorb some of yours too.

Hopefully you have people you can vent to and release pressure with.

But either way, it all builds up.

And it usually isn’t some giant dramatic movie moment.

Most of the time it’s just small things stacking on top of each other for years.

One thing after another.

Then one day you wake up and realize:
life feels heavy.

Honestly, I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately.

Life is heavy.

There’s a lot of responsibility.

Especially now with the economy, layoffs, stress, news, social media, constant noise.

It’s just a lot.

05:20 — Everyone Is Carrying Something

And I think people look at other families from the outside and assume they have it all together.

You see someone and think:
their life looks good,
they seem happy,
they seem successful,
everything must be working out for them.

But once you actually start talking to people honestly…

you realize we’re all kind of in the same boat.

Everybody is carrying something.

Everybody has little fires they’re trying to put out.

Everybody has stress behind closed doors.

And I don’t know why people try so hard to hide it all the time.

I’m pretty open about most things.

Not every detail obviously.

Some things are private.

But I think it’s healthy to admit when life feels hard.

Because when you do that, you realize other people feel the exact same way.

And if people could actually open the windows and doors into most families’ real lives, they’d realize almost everybody is struggling with something.

From the outside I think people look at my life and assume:
oh, he’s got things figured out.

But honestly, I think my family has probably gone through more than most people realize.

Being self-employed for years carries pressure.

Being the only consistent breadwinner at times carries pressure.

Businesses failing or struggling carries pressure.

Family situations carry pressure.

Kids carry pressure.

Parents aging carries pressure.

Extended family situations carry pressure.

And when you take on more responsibility in life, you naturally encounter more problems.

That’s just part of it.

Things break.

Plans fall apart.

Unexpected costs show up.

People struggle.

Situations get messy.

That’s life.

08:00 — The Real Meaning of “Happiness Is a Choice”

But this is the important part.

I don’t think people look happy because nothing bad happens to them.

I think some people survive better because they don’t live inside the bad parts forever.

That’s the choice.

Not pretending everything is perfect.

Not flipping a switch and magically becoming happy.

It’s choosing not to let every hard thing become the entire story of your life.

Because if all you feed your brain is:
why me,
life sucks,
everything goes wrong,
nothing good happens…

eventually that becomes the only thing you can see.

And I’ve felt that before.

You can actually feel when negativity starts taking over your environment.

Everything feels heavier.

You stop noticing good moments.

You stop appreciating small things.

You stop laughing as much.

You stop seeing beauty in ordinary life.

Eventually life starts feeling emotionally empty.

Not because happiness disappeared…

but because your focus slowly trained itself somewhere else.

09:45 — Life Is Still an Adventure

And this is why I always come back to the idea that life is an adventure.

Not because adventures are always fun.

Some adventures are stressful.

Painful.

Messy.

Some feel endless while you’re inside them.

But something strange happens after you survive one of life’s really difficult situations.

At the time it feels overwhelming.

Like you’re mentally drowning.

Like it’s never going to end.

Then eventually you get through it.

And there’s this moment where you finally breathe again.

You look back and think:
okay… somehow we survived that.

You’re tired.
Changed a little.
Maybe more cautious.
Maybe more appreciative.

But you made it through.

And a lot of times those situations become lessons later.

Stories.

Experiences you use to help someone else.

Or reminders to yourself that you’ve survived difficult things before.

That’s why I read so many books too.

Why would I willingly walk into every painful lesson myself when someone else already went through it and wrote about it?

You can learn from other people’s mistakes.

Other people’s pain.

Other people’s experiences.

And maybe avoid some of those same traps yourself.

11:40 — Happiness Can Be Trained

I started reading a lot about happiness and optimism lately.

Books like The Happiness Project and others.

People actually study happiness.

They study optimism.

They study whether people can train themselves to see life differently.

And honestly, I think they can.

Because almost everything valuable in life works that way.

You want to become stronger?
You exercise.

You want to become healthier?
You eat better and take care of yourself.

You want to become smarter?
You study, learn, read, solve problems, build skills.

Musicians practice.

Runners run.

Everything valuable usually requires repetition.

So why would happiness be any different?

Why would attitude be any different?

It’s still a habit.

If every day you focus on gratitude,
perspective,
calmness,
joy,
appreciation…

eventually your brain starts recognizing those things more naturally.

But the opposite works too.

If every day becomes:
this sucks,
I hate life,
everything goes wrong…

your brain starts building around that pattern too.

And that’s why I think happiness takes work.

Not fake positivity.

Not pretending life is perfect.

But training your perspective little by little.

14:00 — Music and Emotional Memory

And honestly, I think music is one of the best examples of how this works.

Most people already do this without thinking about it.

They have songs that instantly change their mood.

You’re driving at night.
Cleaning the house.
Cooking.
Walking.
Working.

Then suddenly a song comes on and your entire emotional state shifts.

Sometimes it’s the beat.

Sometimes it’s the lyrics.

But honestly, I think most of the time it’s memory.

Music takes people somewhere.

A road trip.
A relationship.
A summer.
A phase of life.
A version of themselves they miss.

And the second that song starts playing, their brain reconnects with that feeling.

That’s powerful.

I literally have a playlist called “Happy.”

Which sounds funny when you say it out loud.

But that’s exactly what it is.

Songs connected to good energy, good memories, good feelings.

And every time those songs come on, it shifts something mentally.

That’s not random happiness.

That’s intentionally building environments around yourself that make happiness easier to reach.

16:00 — Building Conditions for Happiness

And I think that’s really the bigger point.

Happiness is not always something you directly chase.

Sometimes it’s something you create space for.

Music.

Family.

Walks.

Drives.

Books.

Movies.

Coffee.

Conversation.

A clean room.

Minimalism honestly helps too.

Decluttering removes pressure in a weird way.

Less chaos around you usually creates less chaos mentally too.

Good food.
Hobbies.
Exercise.
Rest.

Even just a quiet night where everyone is home and nothing dramatic is happening.

Those moments matter more than people realize.

Because if you don’t create those moments…

what are you waiting for?

Are you waiting for life to randomly become easy?

Waiting for all stress to disappear?

Waiting until everything is fixed before you allow yourself to feel okay?

That day might never come.

Life will probably always have another problem waiting.

That’s adulthood.

So if happiness is always postponed until someday later…

you might spend your entire life waiting.

18:10 — Closing Thoughts

And again, I don’t mean fake positivity.

Some things are serious.

Some things hurt deeply.

Some problems don’t disappear because you listened to happy music or went for a walk.

But you also cannot let problems become the only thing your mind knows how to hold.

You still need light.

You still need relief.

You still need moments that remind you life is bigger than the current problem in front of you.

Because if you don’t, life gets heavy really fast.

And eventually that heaviness starts crushing people.

That’s where I think many people get stuck.

They stop doing the little things.

They stop noticing.

They stop listening to music.

They stop going outside.

They stop laughing.

And eventually happiness has nowhere left to land.

So when I say happiness is a choice, I don’t mean people can magically choose happiness every second of every day.

I mean you can choose your attitude.

You can choose what you feed your mind.

You can choose what environments you build around yourself.

You can choose whether every hardship becomes proof life is terrible…

or whether some of those hardships become lessons inside your story.

Because life does get heavy.

But there’s still music.

There are still moments.

There are still stories.

There are still people worth loving.

And there are still things worth noticing.

I think as adults we just have to work harder to notice them again.

Anyway, thanks for watching.

Have a good one.

I Think People Are Underestimating AI

00:01 — Opening

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

This one is going to be about something I keep asking myself.

Am I the only one that sees this?

I don’t think I am.

But I do think a lot of people around me are not seeing the size of the wave that may be coming.

And it almost feels like that story, The Emperor Has No Clothes.

Except I’m not sure which side I’m on.

Am I the one walking around saying something obvious that nobody else sees?

Or am I the one who looks ridiculous because I’m seeing something that isn’t really there?

I don’t know.

But I really think something is coming.

00:54 — AI Feels Different

Part of why this feels strange is that I work in tech.

A lot of the people I work with are using AI.

I’m using AI. We use it at work.

But I don’t think everyone is using it outside of work in the same way.

A lot of people are using ChatGPT like a better Google.

They ask simple questions.

Maybe summarize something.

Maybe help write something.

But they’re not really following what is happening.

They’re not watching the new versions drop.

They’re not seeing what single people are building now with tools that used to require teams.

Every week something new comes out that changes what I thought was possible.

01:46 — Excitement And Fear

There is a reason I stay up too late.

There is a reason I don’t get as much sleep as I probably should.

Part of it is excitement.

But part of it is fear.

Not fear that everything is doomed.

More like fear that I need to be paying attention.

Fear that if I don’t stay close to this, I could get left behind.

I’ve never felt like that with technology before.

A new framework never scared me.

A new database never scared me.

Because those things still required learning and experience.

But this feels different.

AI can already help use the thing before I’ve even properly learned it.

And then the question becomes:

Why do companies need as many people?

03:05 — The Job Question

You still need people.

You still need creativity.

Taste.

Decision making.

But the actual building part may not need the same number of people it used to.

And that’s really what this video is about.

The discomfort of realizing a lot of jobs can already be partially done by AI.

And eventually maybe mostly done by AI.

The only reason some jobs still feel safe may be because companies haven’t fully reorganized around this yet.

Or maybe they already have.

Maybe some layoffs that look normal are actually companies quietly preparing for a more AI-driven structure.

04:39 — Why I’m Paying Attention

I don’t want to be the person sitting there with nothing to say.

If someone asks:

“Do you use AI?”

“What have you built with it?”

“How are you thinking about this?”

I don’t want my answer to be:

“I’m ready to learn.”

I want my answer to be:

“I’m already experimenting.”

“I’m already building.”

“I’m already trying to understand where this is going.”

A lot of people still look at AI like another workplace tool.

Like Word.

Excel.

Another software platform.

But I don’t think that’s what this is.

This may become:

“A tool the company installs into the business… and now they need fewer people.”

07:08 — This Is An Umbrella Video

This is really an umbrella video.

Because there are a bunch of other videos hiding inside this one.

Jobs.

The middle class.

Transportation.

Medicine.

Law.

Food systems.

Automation.

Replication.

But the core idea is simple:

I think people are underestimating what AI is going to do.

07:28 — The Moment That Stuck With Me

I had a conversation recently with a couple of friends.

One of them said she uses ChatGPT sometimes.

Then my wife mentioned that I pay for ChatGPT and use other AI tools too.

And she said:

“There are others?”

That moment stuck with me.

Because there’s a huge group of people who know AI exists…

…but don’t really understand how wide this already is.

08:10 — Why The Messaging Feels Soft

Maybe part of the issue is the news.

Maybe the people explaining this don’t fully understand it.

Or maybe they do understand it, but they’re trying to say it carefully.

Because if they came out and plainly said what some AI leaders are saying…

people might panic.

You hear people from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic talking about where this is going.

And sometimes it feels like they’re basically saying:

“A lot of jobs are going to change very quickly.”

09:11 — The Tesla Example

Then you look at something like Tesla.

If a company is willing to rethink production around robots — even while people are still laughing and saying the robots aren’t ready — that tells you something.

The point isn’t whether they’re perfect today.

The point is whether companies believe they’ll need them tomorrow.

Because if they believe that…

they have to start building now.

10:23 — The Market Already Feels Different

Some people are probably close enough to retirement that they may be okay.

But if they suddenly needed another ten or fifteen years of work…

I don’t know if the same job market will still exist.

I even had a conversation with someone I work with about this.

I told him directly:

Don’t lose your job.

Because I don’t think the market is the same anymore.

Even for senior developers.

Not because experience is worthless.

But because companies may not need the same number of people anymore.

13:35 — This Is Bigger Than Chatbots

People say:

“Well AI gets things wrong.”

And yeah.

It does.

But that’s not the whole story.

AI is already helping with:

• medical research
• diagnostics
• coding
• design
• legal drafting
• research
• support systems
• automation

And when you start reducing white-collar work, research work, analysis work, and support work…

that’s not small.

14:30 — Excited And Concerned At The Same Time

I want to be clear.

I’m excited.

I think this is one of the most interesting moments in history.

But I also think you should be a little scared.

Not hopeless.

Not frozen.

Just aware.

Because once you start pulling on this thread…

…it touches everything.

15:35 — People Are Looking At The Future Using Today’s Rules

People are trying to imagine the future using today’s systems.

Jobs.

Politics.

Money.

Transportation.

Labour.

Food prices.

And from today’s perspective, their arguments make sense.

Historically prices go up.

But what happens if production costs start dropping?

What happens if transportation changes?

Manufacturing changes?

Distribution changes?

If fewer people are needed in those systems…

then fewer people are earning money from those systems.

And eventually that changes everything too.

18:41 — Replication And Automation

Then there’s replication.

What happens when machines can analyze products, materials, ingredients, or designs and recreate versions of them locally?

That’s another entire discussion.

But the larger point stays the same:

I don’t think people are really seeing what’s coming.

20:37 — What I Think We Should Do

So for now, I think we need to:

• stay curious
• learn
• experiment
• pay attention

That’s why I’m building things.

That’s why I’m trying to have fun with this instead of only being afraid of it.

And honestly, I’m trying to help my kids understand it too.

21:22 — Closing

We may be living through one of the biggest shifts in modern history.

Something closer to the industrial age or the internet age.

But maybe faster.

Because the infrastructure already exists.

The internet is here.

Cloud systems are here.

Phones are here.

Payment systems are here.

Data is everywhere.

And now AI becomes this extra layer on top of all of it.

That’s the part that feels different to me.

It’s not starting from zero.

It’s plugging into a world that’s already connected.

And that could change things faster than people expect.

I’m scared of that.

But I’m also excited to see what happens.

Alright.

Thanks for watching.

I Built an App With AI — Now I Need Testers

00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.

This video is me trying to bring the channel back a bit to what I want it to be, which is a little bit about everything.

I’ve been drifting into a lot of AI, which I’m still going to keep doing, but I want to space it out so it doesn’t feel repetitive.

So this one is about a project I’m working on.

AI is still part of it because I’m using AI to help me in every part of my life, but this is about something I’m building.

It’s called Glovebox GPS. It’s not finished, but it is test-ready, so let’s call it alpha.

gloveboxgps.com is up and taking signups for testers.

01:36 — Why I Built It

This didn’t start as a business idea, a startup idea, or some next great app idea.

It started because AirTags, which I was using for tracking vehicles and other important stuff, became unreliable in certain situations.

I have two grown adult children living at home, they’re on our insurance, and they drive our vehicles.

That’s why the keys have AirTags, and the cars have them too.

It’s not about spying. It’s about wanting to know where the vehicle is, where it’s parked, and having some sense of safety if something goes wrong.

02:49 — How We Use AirTags

Usually the kids are supposed to have sharing turned on, and we also use AirTags in backpacks, luggage, and rental cars when we travel.

But one of my kids really doesn’t like turning sharing on all the time.

They’re on a long road trip right now and they do have it on because they understand the safety issue.

But when they’re home, they don’t like to keep it on.

And I get that.

They’re adults. I’m not trying to control where they are.

But if you’re taking my vehicle, I need to know where the vehicle is if something happens.

04:47 — Where AirTags Fail

AirTags don’t always work.

They depend on nearby Apple devices, good conditions, and the right environment.

If my kid is out late, around people with Android phones, or just somewhere without enough Apple devices nearby, I can wake up in the middle of the night and have no idea where the car is.

That’s a bad feeling.

What I really wanted was to know where the car was, where it went, and what happened.

AirTags tell you where something is right now. They don’t really give you the full story.

07:48 — Looking At GPS Trackers

That’s when I started thinking maybe I could build my own thing.

First I looked at regular GPS trackers.

I’ve actually liked GPS tracking ideas for a long time, even going way back to an old investment I made that tracked transport trucks.

But modern GPS trackers mostly wanted subscriptions, weird hardware installs, battery hookups, or charging cycles.

And at the end of the day they were still just trackers.

If I’m paying monthly, I want something more flexible and more useful than that.

11:15 — The Old iPhone Idea

Then it clicked.

I already have old phones.

An old iPhone is basically already a GPS tracker if it has power and data.

If that phone lives in the glove box, then I know where the car is.

And those old phones already have GPS, WiFi, LTE, batteries, cameras, maps, messaging, and internet.

I started looking at cheap SIMs and eSIMs, including ones that don’t expire, and suddenly the idea felt serious.

You plug the phone into power in the car, leave it in the glove box, and let it sleep when the car is off.

14:18 — How The App Works

The app itself is intentionally simple.

And honestly, we’re at a point now where almost anybody can build things if they can explain what they want clearly enough.

You don’t need to deeply understand code the way you used to.

The app on the phone just shows a device ID, which you claim on the website and attach to your account.

Then it tracks movement, stops, long periods of inactivity, and major location events.

It stores longitude, latitude, device ID, date, and time.

It keeps those points locally and only sends them up periodically so it doesn’t waste bandwidth or battery.

17:16 — The Problem It Solves For Me

What I like about this is that it solves a problem for me without forcing rules too hard.

I could’ve just said if you’re in the car, sharing has to be on, but I didn’t want to turn it into some big-brother thing.

This felt like a better solution.

It solves the problem I actually have, and it works within the reality of how people really live.

I still love this idea, and even though I mainly want it for myself, I do think there are other people who would get it immediately, especially if they have kids or shared vehicles.

19:24 — Why It’s More Than A Tracker

The big thing is that this isn’t just a tracker.

It’s also a backup emergency phone sitting in the car.

It can be part of the car’s emergency kit.

It has maps, internet, communication apps, translation, phone calls, and all the normal phone capabilities.

So it’s tracking in the background, but it’s also potentially useful in a real emergency.

That’s what makes it feel more valuable than a normal tracker to me.

21:02 — How AI Helped Me Build It

This is where AI helped me the most.

Not in a fake “AI builds everything for me” way, but in a very practical way.

I knew enough development to understand the structure and what had to exist, but I’d never built a Swift app from scratch before.

AI helped me figure out the right architecture, so I ended up with a React front end, a Rails API back end, and an iOS app talking into that API.

It also helped me figure out the oldest iPhone I could realistically support while still getting the app into the App Store and still collecting the background location data I needed.

25:05 — Everything Around The App

Honestly, one of the coolest parts wasn’t even the coding.

It was all the stuff around it.

I wanted to do this through my corporation, not personally, so that meant DUNS numbers, registrations, forms, approvals, emails, and Apple Developer account setup.

AI helped me through that whole process.

Then Apple denied me because I’d forgotten that I needed a proper company website, privacy policy, terms, and contact information.

As soon as I told Codex what happened, it used what I already had in Cloudflare, Railway, and my repos, built the site pieces I needed, and got everything in place.

The next day I was approved.

27:51 — Where It’s At Now

So now it’s in TestFlight, it’s in alpha, and it works.

We redid the site, put together an alpha plan, and I’ve got social accounts around it, but I’m trying to keep the whole thing pretty organic.

I do want real people using it though, because I need to find what breaks, what’s annoying, what features are missing, and what only makes sense in my own head.

AI also helped me build the signup flow, database structure, onboarding, and approval process.

There’s still lots missing like saved places, trip logging, work versus personal distance, favorite routes, and better event summaries, but the basics are there.

31:00 — Closing

So yeah, it’s still rough. It’s unfinished.

But I use it, and I love it.

And I’ve got other apps going too, which is kind of the beauty of this AI age.

You think of something, and you can make it.

Even this whole Slow Builds process now has skills, memory, and structure around it.

There’s still a motivation game to all of this though.

I almost pushed this video off until tomorrow.

But no. I’m here.

Thanks for watching.

And again, gloveboxgps.com.

Go take a look. If you sign up, let me know and I’ll get you in there.

Android’s coming.

Alright, thanks for watching. Bye.

What Happens When Everyone Gets Access to AI?

00:01 — Opening

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.

So this one is going to be about: what if everything was free?

What if AI was free?

And what could become of that?

So let me jump into it.

00:14 — Starting with the main point earlier

I'm starting to look at these videos as something where I need to put out what this is going to lead to early, because I get slow, then I get kind of into it, and sometimes I lose my way.

So lately I've been thinking about — and I've done videos on this — how we're all fighting for resources right now.

Energy. Money. Access. Everyone trying to get what they can get. How much everything costs.

And right now, those things are limited.

So it kind of makes sense that these fights are going on, and that we keep hitting these limits.

But I keep wondering…

what happens if all that kind of stops?

00:49 — If energy stops being scarce

Take energy for a second.

Elon has talked about how much energy the sun produces, and how much we actually use.

Even if we wanted to power the entire world, we would only use a fraction of what the sun could do.

So basically, energy — as long as we can capture it and use it — would eventually become almost nothing in cost.

The delivery system would still cost money.

The transportation, the storage, the distribution.

We're not there yet.

But in my mind, it feels like it's coming.

01:23 — Cheaper energy means cheaper compute

So if you follow that a little bit more…

energy becomes so cheap that the constraint starts to disappear.

And that changes who gets access to things.

Because right now, energy is related to everything.

Food.

Transportation.

Manufacturing.

Computing.

And AI is a big part of that future.

Right now AI probably takes a large chunk of energy, especially if we start using it at the capacity we want to use it.

That's why tokens cost money.

That's why running these models is so expensive.

And that's why we're trying to make them more efficient — or at least make capturing and using the electricity more efficient.

02:11 — When compute becomes abundant

So if energy drops and basically becomes kind of a free utility, or a free resource in a way…

we capture it from the sun, it goes to solar panels, it comes down to us…

then the only things that really cost money are transportation, storage, and distribution.

And that's where my brain starts going.

Because if energy becomes that cheap of a commodity…

compute power becomes cheap.

We almost make these AI models limitless.

02:50 — It changes more than AI

And it's not even just AI.

Think about driving a car.

Sure, you still have to make the car and build the car.

But once you have it, driving it becomes almost free.

Buses.

Semi trucks.

Boats.

Planes might be a bit more of a problem, but drones could deliver food, medicine, supplies, search-and-rescue equipment — all kinds of things.

When energy becomes cheap to use, and we have the systems that need that energy, the whole world changes quite a bit.

03:31 — Hitting AI limits now

And that's where my brain goes.

Because right now, I hit limits all the time.

Claude.

ChatGPT.

Codex.

Grok.

I'm always pushing up against that limit of:

"You're out of tokens."

"It resets in two hours."

And I hate that so much.

It almost makes me want to use my work access for personal stuff, but you can't do that because then it all gets mixed together.

But it makes me wonder how much companies are really paying for all this.

04:10 — Companies forcing or limiting usage

And that's another video I'm going to do.

I touched on it a little bit before, how token usage can be looked at as a good thing or a bad thing.

If you're using too much, maybe someone thinks you're not a great coder.

But I just had a friend here who said their company actually has reports that the manager gets for employees.

And if you're not using it enough, you can basically get written up.

So it's the complete opposite.

They're really forcing it.

They're willing to pay for it at the moment.

It's kind of crazy.

04:49 — It isn't about using more

Other companies that are running lean are probably trying to find ways to limit access and make their employees more efficient with it, because they don't want to waste too much money.

And I do believe people waste a lot of money on it.

So yes, you can use it more.

But to me, that's a bad metric.

It's not how much you use it.

It's how you use it.

I always felt like I was using it quite wrong, and I've hit a lot of limits.

But I've gotten better at it.

I don't know if that's me getting better, or if the app is learning me more with memory and files and history.

Maybe it understands my nuances better now.

Maybe there's caching going on.

Maybe it's being more efficient.

But hopefully that's lowering my cost.

05:43 — Personal pricing perspective

I'm paying for Pro and I barely hit limits anymore unless I'm doing something really strenuous with files or bigger tasks.

But then I have friends using bigger plans, like the $200-a-month plan, and they're hitting limits.

And they're making fun of me.

And I'm like, dude, I'm almost on the free one compared to that, and I'm not hitting limits anymore.

So maybe I'm doing something right.

Maybe I'm not completely off the rails with how my brain is using it.

But anyway, I got way off topic on that.

06:14 — The real question

Here's where this video really wants to go.

And this is what I mean when I say I start these videos and they go way off.

I lose people in the beginning.

So hopefully people stick around long enough to get to the base of what I'm trying to say.

My idea is this:

If all of this became free…

and everyone had access to it…

what is this world going to create?

What is the world going to look like?

06:45 — The Olympics analogy

The example I always think about is the Olympics.

Sports in general.

You have these athletes that we praise.

The greatest athlete in the world.

The fastest runner.

The highest jumper.

The best basketball player.

And these are people who come from societies that had access.

Someone found them.

Someone trained them.

Someone helped them become the best at what they're doing.

07:14 — Hidden talent without access

But I honestly believe there are places in the world where there's someone who has no access to technology, no training, no visibility…

and if you put them out there, even with almost no training, they could be the strongest person in the world.

Or maybe there's someone in a country with no access to basketball who could be the next Steph Curry.

Maybe they're the greatest three-point shooter ever.

Maybe they're the best dribbler.

Maybe they're the greatest shooter.

We have no idea.

I think there are people in the world who are probably better than the best person we know right now.

They just don't have access.

08:00 — Apply that idea to AI

And I take that same idea and apply it to AI, compute, and energy.

Energy is the biggest problem here.

Access is the biggest problem.

If everyone suddenly had a cell phone, or a computer, or some other way to access AI…

if Starlink or something like it is sending down the connection…

if free energy exists…

if someone gets an old computer, an old iPhone, or a new iPhone…

and suddenly they can talk to an AI model…

then their access changes completely.

They don't even need a powerful computer.

They just need a way to talk to the model.

And you know where I'm going with that.

08:48 — Different constraints create different ideas

I believe there are people in this world who have creative ideas because of their situation.

Because of their lack of access.

Because of the limitations they've lived with.

And they might create some of the craziest, coolest things that our brains can't even think of.

We can't fathom them.

It's like when you read a story, or watch a movie, or play a video game, and you think:

"Man, how did they think of that?"

There are people out there who probably have that kind of creativity.

They just haven't had access.

09:28 — Survival mode changes what people can build

And we often see that lack of access as only a bad thing.

And it is bad in a lot of ways.

But I also think it can create a different perspective.

Imagine people in parts of the world where food, shelter, clean water, medicine — things we take for granted — are daily struggles.

Imagine the ideas that person would have to make their life better.

Maybe it's something simple.

Something we would never think about.

But they would.

And if they have access to a phone where they can talk to AI…

and AI can help them build an app…

or deploy something…

or use satellite data…

or 3D printing…

or drones…

who knows where that goes?

It becomes kind of endless.

10:22 — Utopia tangent

And this connects to another video I want to do about how I believe the world AI is creating could almost become a utopia in a way.

I already did the video where I talked about how the future could become very boring depending on how it plays out.

But I also believe it could become a kind of utopia, where things become free, access opens up, and maybe people only die from old age.

Maybe not even that anymore.

My wife is watching Upload right now, and she makes fun of that idea.

But I'm like, well, you never know.

If we can get consciousness into the system, why does the consciousness of the person actually have to die?

The body could be dead, but the consciousness…

Okay, I'm not going down that path.

That's a totally different video.

11:11 — Core idea

What this video is really about is this:

If we put this technology in the hands of people who have had no access…

people with limited resources…

what can they think of?

What can they create?

And I'm honestly very excited for where the world might end up at some point.

Because when you take millions of people who are currently in survival mode…

and you remove that constant survival pressure…

you let them breathe a little bit.

You let them relax.

You give them access.

Now they can unlock the creative side of their brains instead of only focusing on:

Where is my next meal coming from?

Is this mosquito bite going to kill me?

Am I safe?

Can I get medicine?

12:16 — What opens up after survival mode

Now all of a sudden, they can relax.

They can use their brains differently.

They can open up and be more creative.

And imagine the stories.

The movies.

The books.

The inventions.

The apps.

The communication.

Everything.

That's the part I'm excited to see.

Because they're going to build things around education, work, economy, scarcity, policy, product ideas, and app ideas from a completely different angle.

At all levels.

In all countries.

As soon as those limitations are lifted, and your brain is allowed to be a little more creative — not worrying about your next meal, but focusing more on exploring — I think that unlocks something.

13:18 — What people become

I think we're going to see great ideas from people who have never had a chance to explore them before.

Different perspectives.

Different problems.

Different ways of approaching things.

Different ways of solving puzzles.

And that's the part I think about most.

It's not just what AI becomes.

It's what people become when they don't have to hold everything else together first.

14:02 — The first wave is still narrow

That's where I think AI can become creative.

Right now, a lot of smart people are using AI to help them build code, build new ideas, attract money, make simple apps, and answer basic questions.

But the people using it right now are mostly the people who are already more well-off or already have access.

As soon as it becomes available to the masses, at all levels, I think we're going to see a massive explosion of great ideas.

And not just more ideas.

A different take on things.

Because now we're in a world where maybe there is less poverty.

Less hunger.

Less starvation.

And more people with space to think.

14:49 — Optimistic, with some caution

This one is hard to finish because my mind goes to those odd places of excitement.

Not scared.

Not worried.

More just wondering what's capable.

There is the scary side.

Someone might figure out ways to scam people or be malicious.

But I try to stay optimistic about that.

Hopefully people are smart enough to avoid it.

And hopefully the guardrails are put in place before we get there.

But I do believe that access for all changes everything.

And it brings us to a place where we're going to see some amazing things happen.

15:41 — Closing

Alright, thanks for watching.

This one was a bit of a ramble.

But the idea is this:

When a group of people who have had no access, who have lived in completely different circumstances, suddenly have those circumstances change dramatically…

they don't forget where they came from.

They know other people are still going through the same things.

And they don't want it to happen again.

Now they have the resources to express those ideas and try to solve those problems.

And I really believe we're going to see some amazing things come out of this.

Maybe over the next decade.

Maybe two decades.

But I think it's going to happen faster than people think.

Through technology.

Through real products.

Through people finally getting access.

It's going to be really interesting.

And I'm very excited for what's about to come.

Thanks for watching.

The Book I'm Writing With AI (and why it's harder than I expected)

00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.
I always say this one's going to be a little different — but they're all different I suppose.
What I will say is that as I get closer to finishing the book, I'm getting a little more free, a little more animated. My thoughts are starting to get clearer.
So this one is about the book — where I'm at, what I've been using, and honestly, what's been frustrating about it.

00:20 — Why the book exists

I've had this idea for a long time.
Not really "I want to write a book"… but more like I've been collecting things.
Advice, patterns, small realizations — stuff I wish I understood earlier.
Things that would've made life a little easier if someone had just taken the time to sit me down and point them out. Not "do this, do that" — just little nudges. Help avoiding pitfalls.
And over time, that turned into… maybe this should be something I write down properly.

01:10 — What the book is

It's not a story.
It's more like — if I had to hand something to my kids one day, or a younger version of myself — what would actually be useful?
Not a blueprint. That word's wrong.
More like tidbits. Small, specific things from a life lived — I'm probably closer to halfway through at this point.
Practical ways to think about:

• money
• pressure
• decisions
• responsibility
• family

Nothing motivational. No big speeches. Just stuff that would help them feel like — hey, other people have been here too. You're not alone in this.

02:00 — Starting with AI

So when I finally started putting it together, AI felt like the obvious place to start.
Because the hard part wasn't ideas. Ideas are life — they just happen.
It was:

• organizing them
• structuring them
• turning them into something readable

So I started using ChatGPT. It was working really well — helping me get thoughts down, fill in gaps, organize things. It was starting to look like a book.

03:00 — Tool hopping

Then I wanted more. I wanted infographics, slide decks, a different take on what I was building. So I moved into NotebookLM.
Which is good for structure — outlines, connecting ideas, building a framework.
But I started noticing something. Things weren't lining up. It wouldn't update properly. I'd paste something in, it would cut stuff out, or summarize when I needed the full thing. I'd overwrite the old version and lose content.
It started to feel like I wasn't working on the book anymore. I was just trying to maintain versions and mash things together. It took away from my words — and I really didn't like that.

04:15 — The rewrite reality check

So I got it back to a good place — broke things out into manuscripts, chapter by chapter.
Then I threw everything into Claude. Full tilt. I gave it a very specific prompt: you're an editor who hasn't had a hit book in a while. You need something on the shelves in three months. Your ass is on the line.
And that was a bit of a reality check.
Because it went deep. It found a ton of repetition. Filler. Things that didn't line up. And I thought more content meant progress — but it was mostly just noise.

05:30 — Cutting it down

So I started trimming.
The book got better… but smaller. Which feels weird — like you're losing work — even though you're actually improving it.
I hate books that fill space for the sake of it. Books full of pulled quotes just to pad chapters. Mine does have a quote at the start of each chapter and a short reference to a related book — but it's precise. It sets the tone. It earns its place.

06:20 — Automating the process

Then I went further.
I have a server running open-source Claude, and I built a system using Obsidian and GitHub. The book is in Markdown. I can push, pull, commit — version control the whole thing.
Then I built agents. The idea: I drop in ideas and feedback, and every night the agents work on revisions. They weave in new ideas, work on chapters, do rewrites. Every morning I'd wake up to a progress report explaining what happened overnight.
It felt really good. Like the book was continuously being worked on even when I wasn't there. All I had to do was focus on what I wanted in it — answer questions about timelines, stories, how things fit together.

07:20 — Where it starts to break

And then things started to feel off.
I went back through everything. Checked it in ChatGPT — "great job, you're doing awesome." Checked it in NotebookLM — wanted to tighten things up but gave specifics. Then went back to Claude.
And Claude found a lot of problems.

07:40 — Subtle drift

It wasn't obvious at first.
The agents were filling in gaps, smoothing things out — and suddenly I'd have something that sounded right… but wasn't true.
Stories were kind of in line, but digging deeper: that timeline's off. That didn't happen that way. It mixed up whose wedding I was at, who my business partner was, what client I was visiting. It didn't understand that you can have multiple businesses running at the same time with different people.

08:20 — Made-up clarity

And that's a strange feeling. Because the stories were believable.
But they weren't what actually happened.
And that's scary. If you start trusting AI enough to let it do that — and you don't check — imagine what happens to news articles, non-fiction books, history books. It's not even deliberate. It's just AI wanting the story to feel right, filling in what's missing, smoothing out what doesn't fit.
You can see how a whole drift in society could happen that way.
So now I'm going back through my own book trying to figure out what's real, what changed, and what got quietly invented.

09:00 — More work, not less

And this is the part people don't see when they say "AI wrote it for you."
It didn't.
If anything, it created more work. I have to:

• verify everything
• fix tone
• correct intent
• remove things that aren't mine
• find those things — which is hard in a 155-page book

09:50 — Slowing the process down

So what I do now is slower.
I take sections into Claude and instead of asking it to rewrite, I have it ask me questions first.
What actually happened? What did I mean? What's the point of this?
I answer all of that before anything gets touched.
At one point I went through an hour of back and forth — Claude asking questions, me giving answers. Then I asked: how many chapters do we have left, what's the page count, where are we at?
It said: "I haven't written anything yet. I'm just collecting the information. I'll write when you tell me to."
An hour of answers, and nothing was written down. If I hadn't asked, I would have lost the whole session and had to start over.
So now every time I want to stop, I explicitly tell it: write that in, commit it, push it. Make sure it's saved. Every single time.

10:40 — Still friction

But even that has friction.
It collects everything and waits. Which I understand — I'm the decision maker. But if I answer a question, I'd expect the answer to just be written down. Not stored in memory waiting for me to say "now go write it." It creates overhead. It makes me more aware of the process than the book.

11:10 — The loop

So now I'm in this loop where I'm not just writing the book…
I'm trying to:

• hold onto everything
• keep it consistent
• make sure nothing disappears

And going back through the same loop every session — rechecking, restating, re-establishing context — takes more time than writing.

11:40 — The tradeoff

And I think that's really the tradeoff with AI once you start jumping between tools, models, and workflows.
You're not just creating anymore. You're managing pieces. It starts to feel like a chore rather than sitting at a typewriter and just going.
Things get lost. Slight changes. Inconsistencies. Timelines drift.

12:20 — But for this, it works

But for the book — it's actually useful.
Because it forces me back into it. I can't just accept what it gives me. I have to reread everything, question it, restate it.
And that process is what makes it mine.

13:10 — What AI really is

At this point, AI is basically just my note taker and timeline keeper.
It helps me collect ideas, reflect them back, organize them.
But every important decision, I still have to make. There's no way around it.
I might put "co-written with AI" somewhere in the book — because it's the force that helped me start. I'll give credit where it's due.
But there is no world in which this book wasn't written by me. These are my truths. My words. My life. No one can tell me otherwise.

13:40 — The real lesson

The book sat in my head for years.
And the real problem wasn't writing it — it was starting.
AI gave me a place to start. Not a perfect version. Just something.
And once something exists, you can work with it.

14:40 — Closing

So yeah, it's messy. Back and forth. Sometimes it feels like things are getting lost.
But that's still better than never starting at all.
I'm about three months out from wanting to have some version of this out — at least on Kindle. Something that can breathe. Something my kids can actually get to.
I'm excited for this one.

15:00 — Final line

AI isn't writing the book.
It just made me sit with it long enough to actually work on it.