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.

Why Everything Feels Like a Fight Right Now (AI, Energy, and the Shift)

00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome to Slow Builds.
Lately, when you watch the news and see everything going on — when you go online — everything feels like there's a fight happening for something.
There's always a conflict.
Energy. Cost of living. Inflation through the roof. Groceries cost a ton. Gas is crazy priced.
Governments have a grant or program on, then it's off, then it's back on again — constantly changing based on the political climate and the financial struggles happening in the world right now.
Everything just feels kind of unstable. Very unpredictable.
And when you take a closer look at it, it feels like people are trying to grab their piece of the pie. Trying to hold on to something.

01:30 — What it feels like

When you look at how the world is working today — the resources, the things we use — it feels like there's not enough to go around.
Not enough stability. Not enough margin. Not enough room for everyone.
So people begin pushing and pulling.
Companies do the same. Countries do the same. Governments, political groups, businesses.
Everyone's trying to secure as much of what they think they need.

03:30 — The pattern

It reminds me of a farm trough.
When the farmer throws in the bucket of food — the animals come running.
They're not trying to cooperate.
They push each other. They bang into each other. They grab as much as they can.
And they're not doing it because they're overly greedy.
They do it because they know there's a limited supply.
If they don't get it — they don't get any.
And they don't know if there's more coming.

05:30 — Apply it to today

That's energy right now.
Oil. Gas. The infrastructure around it.
That's what people are grabbing at.
There's a limited supply. Certain people control the majority of it. A certain group refines it.
And when something matters that much…
people compete over it.
At every single level of the process.

06:30 — Where we put the effort

And something else I keep thinking about…
It's not just that energy is limited.
It's also where we put our effort.
For decades — money, lobbyists, big corporations — it all focused on oil and gas. The entire world runs on it.
So we put a lot of technology and research into it. We found better ways of finding it, more efficient ways of extracting it. The whole system got really good.
But it also means other paths didn't get the same push.
Solar. Storage. Wind. Water.
Not completely ignored — but not backed the same way. Because it wasn't as commercialized. It didn't have those large groups pushing it or controlling it.
And I've always said — if we had put the same amount of effort into those things earlier…
when we put our minds to something and start tinkering with it, things get better. We figure out how to capture it, store it, use it, be more efficient with it.
I wonder how different things might feel right now.

08:30 — Transition starting

And now it feels like that shift is starting.
Not all at once. But enough to notice.
The tools are better. The pace is faster.
AI is speeding up how we test and iterate.
The sun alone — we're using like one trillionth of the energy it provides. It's essentially an infinite supply. And now with AI and better technology, we're outpacing the old ways of refining and capturing it.
We're starting to see all those things coming together.

10:30 — The tension (core idea)

And this is where it starts to feel messy.
Because for a long time, we built everything around one system.
The old system is still here. Still what most people are using. And it's going to be for a while.
But it's slowly slipping away — and the people higher up, they see that. What once made them rich, gave countries leverage and power — that's going to shift.
Because AI is helping us more efficiently capture energy from the sun. And that starts to replace a system controlled by a handful of people… with something no one owns.
No one owns the sun.
People will own storage systems. Factories. Grids. That's still real. But as AI keeps pushing breakthroughs, there's going to be a situation where people could live off the energy grid entirely.
Power their home. Their vehicle. Their devices. Their activities.
There's no reason why that's not possible.
And I think people see this shift happening — and that's why those last groups are holding on harder than ever.

12:30 — Why it feels like fighting

It's like the trough analogy again.
The animals are going for those last bits because they don't know there's another bucket coming.
They don't want to be left without leverage.
And that's why everything feels like a fight right now.
Not because people are worse.
But because we're between systems.
Still relying on something that took decades to build… while something else is starting to become possible.
That middle part — that's where things feel tight.

13:45 — Personal / your voice

And this is something I've said for years.
To my wife. To people around me.
At some point, we're going to look back at this.
We're going to look back at fighting over something we drill out of the ground — something limited, something people have been hurt and killed over — and we're going to say…
Why?
We have an abundance now. Energy that isn't destroying the environment. Energy provided by the solar system itself, collected through devices that don't produce pollutants.
There'll still be minerals to mine. Still things to build. I'm not naive about that.
But I really believe we're going to look back and say — we really fought and hurt each other over something that now is just… there.
Not taken for granted. But just there.

15:30 — Bring it back

Right now, everything feels like a fight.
But maybe that's not just how people are.
Maybe it's the environment we're in.
The systems we built.
The transition we're going through.

16:00 — Solar Panels / Timing note

And there's a version of this I see even on the small scale.
Friends who put solar panels on their roofs — I always wonder about the timing.
You bolt something onto your roof thinking the technology won't change much. But I really believe the way we capture energy, the materials we use, how they operate — that's going to change dramatically and quickly.
Sure, you can feed energy back into the grid and get discounts now. But it's expensive, and you might end up dating yourself to an older technology that'll cost you again to replace.
I think the evolution is going to happen so fast — a lot of things we're paying a lot of money for right now are going to dramatically reduce in cost.
And that's going to change the landscape of the world quite a bit.

16:30 — Close

We built a world around scarce things.
And we're still acting inside that.
But if that starts to change…
I don't think we've really thought through what that changes.

17:00 — Outro

I'm not saying this is right or wrong.
Just something I've been thinking about watching everything going on.
This one was a hard one to get out — it's a big idea and it's hard to get across.
But I really wanted to push it out there. The analogy of people holding on to something, fighting over something that in the near future we're going to look back at and say… why?
Why didn't we go down both roads at the same time with equal effort?
Now with AI, we can catch up fast. We can detect patterns, run tests, iterate, push through breakthroughs.
Curious if you see it the same way. I'll take my time to read the comments on this one.
Thanks for watching.

Using AI to Brain Dump and Think Out Loud

00:00 — Opening

I've been noticing something about how my mind works…
It doesn't stay in one place for very long.
It tries to connect dots.
It'll start with something small — it happened yesterday actually. I was looking at how Bitcoin moves… and that turned into an app idea… and then I was like, well, everyone's talking about using Claude or whatever to help them invest and trade — how come I can't get access to that?
And then something random about a product someone mentioned… and then I need to call about my insurance…
And it just keeps going.
I don't have ADHD, I don't think so. But I do have a creative mind. A mind that wonders and likes to explore. And I haven't tried to stop that.

01:00 — What was missing

And for a long time… those thoughts didn't really have anywhere to go.
They'd start, but they wouldn't finish.
Not because they weren't interesting — but because there was no place to let them run through their course. To see what could actually come of it.

02:00 — How it used to work

Every idea used to hit friction.
You'd think about it… then you'd have to research it, write it down, figure out if it already exists, look everything up…
And most of the time? You'd find something similar already out there.
And that was enough to kill it.
Because with all that extra effort and friction, it felt like — it's not worth going deeper. Someone else already thought of it. Someone else is already working on it.
You really had to be in love with something to keep pushing through that.

03:30 — The "fool's gold" moment

It would turn into this thing where you think you had something…
but really it's already there.
So you just drop it.

04:30 — The shift

But now… that part is almost instant.
You think of something, you jump into ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini — whatever — and you say does this exist?
And one of two things happens:
You find it → and you kill the idea immediately. Or you find it → and you realize you still want it → and you can actually build it.
And both of those happen inside the same flow. No break in the conversation. It used to take all that research and friction. Now it happens while you're literally talking.

06:00 — The real change

So now it's not: "Should I spend time on this?"
It's: "Let me just follow this for a minute and see what happens."
Five to twenty minutes. Just see what could come of it.

07:00 — The core realization

And I think what I was actually missing this whole time…
wasn't better ideas.
It was a place to let my brain and my ideas just kind of flow.

08:00 — Conversation as the space

Because when you actually let the thought run — especially out loud — it connects to other things.
That's what this channel is. An out-loud thought process.
You start with a product… it turns into a behavior… then why people buy things… then investing… then systems…
And suddenly you're somewhere completely different from where you started.

09:30 — AI's role

And I think this is where AI changes something for me.
Not because it always gives me answers — it does sometimes — but that's not what I'm always looking for.
It's because it sits right there in the middle of the flow.
I can start talking to it, typing to it, and it's checking stuff for me in real time. Then it expands on what we just found. Then we dismiss something. Then — and this is the part that still gets me — sometimes it's already building it in the background.
Like I'll be in Claude Code with bypass permissions on, going down a rabbit hole, just talking through an idea… and it's already like: here's your prototype.
So there's no break from having the thought, to exploring it, to watching something actually get built. That's kind of crazy when you think about it. You basically have a workforce that doesn't clock out.

11:00 — Forking paths

So every idea becomes this little fork:
Kill it quickly. Follow it a bit. Build a small version. Or just let it drift.
And none of that feels heavy anymore.
I don't have that extra pressure of — is there something here, or am I wasting my time? The AI does most of that work. I can jump from idea to idea. Maybe they connect, maybe they don't. It helps me find the connections.

12:30 — The tradeoff

But that also means more ideas are getting through.
Not because they're better. A lot of them are garbage.
But the garbage ideas — they get out of your head. They open something up. Like a little connection in your brain starts blinking, and suddenly it's linking to something else. You let it out instead of sitting on it, and now there's space.

13:30 — Personal realization

And I don't think I want to build most of them.
I don't even want to validate most of them.
I just want them out of my head. I want to throw them out there, see what connects, and let my brain expand into something more creative.

14:00 — The part AI missed

Here's the thing the original script didn't really capture…
I like to come up with crazy ideas. Like — what if this thing is connected to that thing, and there's this underlying pattern, and that person over there is connected to this digital thing down here…
Most people look at me like something's wrong with me. That's fine.
But I never had a big group of friends that would sit with me and let me explore. My wife puts up with me — but I can tell sometimes she's not fully listening. Co-workers, most of my friends are already further ahead with this stuff and I feel like an amateur.
So I'm connecting dots they've already dismissed. But I don't want to stop trying. Even if I'm wrong, going through the process of finding those patterns — and then dismissing them myself — is better than being told not to look.
I'm reading Silo right now and there's this thing where a character just keeps asking why. Why are we here, who did this, what's the plan? And the answer is basically: we don't need to know, just survive. But I want to know. I want to find the thing that makes it all click.
That's where AI actually helps me. Not just to validate ideas — but to go back, find patterns, and say: hey, is there a connection here? Even if the answer is no, I needed to ask.
And then sometimes it's something small — my kid needed a mailbox, and ten minutes later I've got a full business plan, growth charts, a lease draft, Alibaba sourced. Full mailbox rental operation. I've got a smash and splash fish tacos and Smashburger concept with a logo, full menu, three different rollout options — backyard Instagram pop-up, food truck, or storefront.
That's where AI allows me to go — the full spectrum — without anyone in the room looking at me like I've lost it.

15:00 — Final line

I think I just needed somewhere for them to go.
Somewhere I can say it out loud, follow it for a bit, see what it connects to — and then let it go if it doesn't stick.
Not every idea needs to become something.
Some of them just need a place to land… and a little space to run.
Alright. Leave a comment. Are you doing this? Are you just picking up your phone and rambling to it? Opening ChatGPT and just… talking? That's where we're at now. Used to be "just Google it." Now it's just… ask.
Have a good one.

Why I Pay a Little Extra for Flexibility

00:00 — Opening

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.
I've been noticing something lately.
I keep paying a little more than I have to.
Not a lot.
Just enough that if you looked at my statements…
you'd probably say I could've saved money.
But I keep doing it anyway.
And I think I finally understand why.

01:00 — The Trip

I booked a Christmas trip almost a year early.
Flights, Airbnb, rental car… everything.
But the important part isn't that I booked early.
It's how I booked.
Everything is flexible.
The Airbnb — free cancellation. Always. Unless it's extremely last minute and I know for a fact I'm going.
The rental car — book it, hold the space. You don't even have to show up.
The flights — I paid more so I could get a full refund. Not just a credit. A refund.
That way I'm sort of locked in, but I gave myself an out.
And this actually came up with one of my kids.
They left recently on a cross-America road trip — just the two of them.
And they booked all their hotels along the way through Expedia.
Instead of paying the extra $20 per hotel to be able to cancel…
they saved maybe $200 total across five hotels.
To me, that just puts pressure on yourself.
What if the car breaks down? What if you want to stay somewhere longer? What if you're making great time and want to push through?
Now you can't.
You saved $200 and lost all your flexibility.
I didn't pick the cheapest options on my trip.
I picked the ones that let me change my mind.

02:30 — The Small Premium

And that's the pattern.
I'm paying a small premium…
not for luxury…
but for options.
The Airbnb is usually a bit nicer anyway.
The flight isn't first class…
but I can pick my seats, bring luggage, not get squeezed into whatever's left.
It's not the cheapest tier.
But it's also not over the top.
It just gives me room.

04:00 — Not Insurance

At first I thought of this like insurance.
But it's not really the same thing.
Insurance is something you add on at the end…
because you're worried something might go wrong.
This is different.
This is built into the decision from the start.
I'm not thinking: "What if something bad happens?"
I'm thinking: "I don't know what's going to happen."
I don't know if we'll change our minds.
I don't know if we'll need more space or less.
And I don't want to trap myself.
Because when you make decisions from a calm place — not from desperation, not from a time crunch — that's when you make good ones.

05:30 — What Happens If You Don't

Because if I wait…
or if I go with the cheapest option…
what I'm really doing is removing flexibility.
Later on, I have fewer choices.
Prices are higher.
Options are worse.
And I'm forced to decide under pressure.
That's usually where bad decisions happen.

06:45 — The Same Thing With AI

This shows up in smaller ways too.
Even with something like ChatGPT.
I pay for the premium version. Not the top tier — but Pro.
Not because I need the best model every time…
but because I don't want to hit limits.
Same with Claude. I hit the limit on Claude constantly. And I pay for that too.
I don't want to be in the middle of something — thinking through an idea, building something — and suddenly get stopped.
That happened to me recently. Had to wait hours before it reset.
And when you break that flow…
yes, you can move to a different tool, move to notes…
but if you were in a great back-and-forth, building on memory, getting good content…
you don't want to lose that groove.
So I pay for it.
Just to remove that friction.

08:15 — The Car Example

Same thing with cars.
You bring it in, maybe it's $900 to fix.
But you don't feel like spending $900.
So you just do the $200 thing you came in for.
But the mechanic's already got it on the lift. He can see everything. The brake's worn, there's rust, something's seized.
He's telling you: fix it all now while I have it, it'll save you money.
And you say: just do what I came in for.
So you save $500 that day.
And then six months later everything's seized up worse, there's a leak in the exhaust, and now you're looking at $3,000.
And now you don't have a choice.
It's either pay it or find a new car.
And you're shopping from desperation. If someone senses that, they'll take advantage of it.
I just went through this with my Jeep.
The price has gone up quite a bit — more than I expected.
But I looked at it compared to what my daughter's boyfriend is looking at: old used cars, high kilometers, no history, and they're asking almost as much as I'm paying to fix mine.
I know my Jeep inside and out.
I have a mechanic I trust.
It makes more sense to just fix it right.
Pay a little more now. Don't pay a lot more later.

09:45 — Paying for the Relationship

There's another version of this that took me longer to understand.
Paying for the relationship.
My accountant. I've had her for years.
I could do my own taxes. I could find someone cheaper.
But I don't.
And what I get back isn't just the return being filed.
It's access.
I can email her. I can ask if a receipt qualifies. I can forward something from the government and ask if it's something to worry about.
She knows my history — the audits, the rental stuff, the complicated years.
I'm not starting from zero every time.
Same with my lawyer. My house builder. My mechanic.
I don't try to grind them down to the cheapest dollar.
I pay their fees. I keep them happy. And because of that, they go the extra mile.
My mechanic gets me in right away when something comes up.
My lawyer helped out when my mom needed to redo her will — sent emails, didn't make it a big deal.
My builder will come over and give me a quick price on something without making me feel like I'm wasting his time.
There have been times I've asked: can you come down a little on this?
And because of the history, they're willing to do it.
They know I'm loyal. I'm going to be back.

11:00 — The Bank

Same thing with the bank.
I've been self-employed for a long time. Money coming in from US clients. I worked with a bank in Malaysia for a while. Wire transfers from all over the place.
And back then, wrong numbers, wrong digits, wrong currency — it happened.
Most banks make you come in. Sign things physically. Go through hoops.
But because I'd been consistently with my bank, built the relationship, stayed involved…
I could do things over email.
Just recently, someone wired money to me but used the wrong account and the wrong currency.
The bank caught it. The manager called me. Told me what happened. Made sure it got put in the right place.
I didn't have to do anything.
That's what the relationship gets you.
Not a better interest rate. Not a lower fee.
When something breaks, it gets handled.

12:15 — What This Really Is

And I think that's the part I didn't see before.
You're not just paying for the thing.
You're paying for how things get handled…
when they don't go perfectly.
When something changes.
When something breaks.
The cheap option doesn't come with that.

13:15 — Closing

So yeah…
I pay a little more sometimes.
Flights. Car repairs. Tools. People I work with.
And it's not about getting something better on paper.
It's about:
not getting stuck… not losing momentum… not having to solve everything from scratch under pressure…
and not being forced into decisions at the worst possible time.
It's the same pattern…
just showing up in different places.
And that small premium…
ends up buying something a lot bigger than it looks.