Latest / Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield / DMA#40 Recap: The J. Jonah Jameson Editor, Surviving the Tech Deluge, and the Rules of Timeboxing with Jeremy Caplan

Transcript

DMA#40 Recap: The J. Jonah Jameson Editor, Surviving the Tech Deluge, and the Rules of Timeboxing with Jeremy Caplan · Draw Me Anything with Jason Chatfield

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and look, we're going to get started because we have 60 people in.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you to everyone for joining.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Draw Me Anything.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Jason Chatfield.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a cartoonist for The New Yorker and a comedian in New York City.
• 0:12
  And my guest today is the wonderful Jeremy Kaplan of Wonder
• 0:17
  Tools,
• 0:18
  among many other things.
• 0:19
  I mention Wonder Tools because it's a Substack that I have
• 0:24
  subscribed to since...
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: From very early on,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: as soon as I saw that you were on Substack,
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I jumped straight on board.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great newsletter.
• 0:33
  And we met in person in New York City at a Substack meetup
• 0:37
  recently.
• 0:38
  And I was trying to put faces to names and seeing people in
• 0:42
  real life is really fun
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: because I actually get to kind of
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: tell you, hey, I read your stuff.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Jeremy.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for making time.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's a pleasure to talk with you.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: And it was fun to meet in person.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like a lot of us in the Substack world or anyone who's creating
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: independently,
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: we're sitting in our own space or standing in our own space,
• 0:59
  spending time in our silo and looking at our screen or at maybe
• 1:03
  a couple of people
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: around us.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: But
• 1:05
  it's rare that we get a chance to actually talk face to face
• 1:07
  with other creators,
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  SPEAKER_03: especially people outside of our sphere.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like what you do is so different from what I do in many ways,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: even though we're both on Substack.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_03: And so I,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: yeah,
• 1:16
  I just treasure the opportunity to kind of expand my horizons
• 1:19
  periodically and see
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: people draw,
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: do things I can never do.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so yeah, delighted to be here.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: No,
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  SPEAKER_00: and that's a lot of the reason that I want to have you on is that,
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:30
  usually I have artists and writers and people who do similar
• 1:33
  things to me.
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  And I've always found it fascinating your background,
• 1:38
  your approach to things.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: You don't do the same things as me.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm, you know, selfishly just want to learn from you.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: I always, every time I get one of your newsletters,
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you,
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: but I had to do like an audit of all the substacks that I subscribed to.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I have way too many.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And yours,
• 1:56
  it's one of the few substacks that I actually click on the
• 1:59
  title every time so that
• 2:00
  it opens in the browser because I want to see it in full and I
• 2:03
  want to see all the
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: links and all the images and everything so it doesn't cut off in Gmail.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting to me is that you seem to have an ability,
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: this is something I find very difficult,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: an ability to distill things down into a very understandable,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: digestible,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: comprehensible sort of language.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not too esoteric.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not technical.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's very accessible.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a very underrated skill, I think.
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  I think it's very difficult to make some of these complex tools
• 2:34
  that you write about.
• 2:36
  understandable and relevant to people who don't quite
• 2:38
  understand what they are.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a part of your background that you've developed that?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, first of all, thank you so much.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's like what I call a rich compliment,
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  SPEAKER_03: which is just like a specific compliment,
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  SPEAKER_03: which I really,
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  SPEAKER_03: really appreciate.
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  SPEAKER_03: It means a lot to me.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's something I work really hard at, actually.
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  SPEAKER_03: A lot of these
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  SPEAKER_03: the kinds of newsletters that we write,
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  SPEAKER_03: for a reader,
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  SPEAKER_03: it takes three minutes or five minutes,
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  SPEAKER_03: right?
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  SPEAKER_03: Even if you open another window as you described,
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  it's something you can read pretty quickly because there's not
• 3:05
  that many words,
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  SPEAKER_03: maybe a thousand words.
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  And for those five minutes,
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  it might take 500 minutes to create or even more in some cases.
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  SPEAKER_03: I think of it as like a 100 to one ratio often.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: the amount of time we spent.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm guessing it's similar for someone like you too.
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  And a couple of things I think have helped me with that process
• 3:25
  of working at that.
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  SPEAKER_03: I think it's always like a journey.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's always a work in progress.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: But one thing that helped me was working for Time for Kids.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: So as a journalist, one of the jobs I had was at Time Inc.
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  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't get,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: there was no openings that I could see at Time Magazine right away,
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  SPEAKER_03: but there was a job opening at Time for Kids.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: and this was a while back in my career before I was at CUNY.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'm now at the City University of New York.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: That's where I'm standing here,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: the graduate school of journalism where I teach,
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  SPEAKER_03: but before that,
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  SPEAKER_03: I was at
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: Time Magazine.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: But before I was at Time Magazine, I was at Time for Kids.
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  SPEAKER_03: And at Time for Kids,
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  SPEAKER_03: we were writing for children,
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  SPEAKER_03: and we were writing about complicated stories.
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  So it wasn't sort of bears and,
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  you know,
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  and doves and sort of sweet little kid stories.
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  SPEAKER_03: It was actually like news,
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  SPEAKER_03: but written in a way that kids could understand kids from,
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  SPEAKER_03: you know,
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  SPEAKER_03: 8 to 13 or 15,
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  SPEAKER_03: depending on the edition we were working on.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
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  SPEAKER_03: And that was really good practice, really good training.
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  SPEAKER_03: Because you had to really understand the subject to explain it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: You had to write it concisely.
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  SPEAKER_03: Not a thousand words,
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  you had like a hundred words or some small number of words to
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  convey something.
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  SPEAKER_03: So that was really good practice because week after week,
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  you'd have to explain really complicated stuff happening in the
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  world multiple
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  SPEAKER_03: times over and over and refine it,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: refine it,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: revise it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that was helpful.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: I think also the teaching process
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  kind of skill that I've worked at for a long time as a teacher,
• 4:52
  professor,
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  is also related.
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  Like when you're teaching,
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  you're also thinking about how can I explain this more simply?
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  SPEAKER_03: How can I make this more clear?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: How can I get rid of the unnecessary details?
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  How can I try to share this from the perspective of the someone
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  who's reading it,
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  SPEAKER_03: what they would be wondering about?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: What questions would they have?
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  SPEAKER_03: And how can I kind of anticipate and preempt
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  SPEAKER_03: some of those questions.
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  SPEAKER_03: Also, one other thing I would say is a lot of these things are new to me.
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  SPEAKER_03: I look at Walt Mossberg as a mentor for me.
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  SPEAKER_03: For those who don't know,
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  SPEAKER_03: Walt Mossberg wrote a column for a long time for the Wall Street Journal.
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  He famously said that he wanted the job because many of the
• 5:29
  prior tech writers he knew were
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  SPEAKER_03: kind of tech geeks or experts in details of technology.
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  SPEAKER_03: And he was kind of an ordinary guy.
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  SPEAKER_03: And he was just figuring out, you know, what is this internet thing?
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  SPEAKER_03: What are these Apple computers like?
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  SPEAKER_03: And he was writing from the perspective of everyone else.
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  Like he was an ordinary guy trying to figure it out,
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  figure out what we could do.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I feel like that too.
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  SPEAKER_03: Like a lot of these tools I come to knowing nothing about them.
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  And I therefore I think can kind of be relatable to people who
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  also aren't tech
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  professionals and just are trying to figure out is this useful
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  for me and how
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  should I use this and what are three ways of using this that
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  would be actually
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  SPEAKER_03: practical.
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  SPEAKER_03: as opposed to a lot of what's out there,
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  which is announcements about what's new and very technical and
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  very detailed and
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  SPEAKER_03: assume a lot of knowledge.
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  SPEAKER_03: And that's not really my jam.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  No,
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  and I think you really,
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  you write for your reader,
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  but your reader is you.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as you say,
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  SPEAKER_00: like it's,
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  you are coming to these tools cold sometimes and just sort of
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  figuring out like,
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  SPEAKER_00: what would people want to know about this?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want to know about this?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny you mentioned,
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  SPEAKER_00: well,
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  SPEAKER_00: I was,
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  SPEAKER_00: Mossberg,
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  SPEAKER_00: Kara Swisher,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think was talking about,
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  SPEAKER_00: one of his contemporaries,
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  like about tech writing and about making it accessible and not
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  too nerdy and,
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: and,
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  disappearing into these wormholes of language that just
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  completely alienate the
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  SPEAKER_00: reader or assume some level of advanced knowledge.
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  SPEAKER_00: Your sub stack,
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: for anyone who doesn't subscribe to it,
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: there's a button up in the top left here.
• 7:00
  If you click subscribe,
• 7:02
  Jeremy Kaplan has a wonderful Substack called Wonder Tools.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I find interesting about...
• 7:09
  your approach is it's not just new tools,
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  it's new features to existing tools.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I do want you to describe to the viewers sort of what your newsletter is,
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: essentially,
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: because when I first came to it,
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: like many of your readers,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was just so overwhelmed with like all of the different tools,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: the different models,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: the different software and all of these things that were just like...
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was like drinking from a fire hose.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just when I thought I had my sort of workflow down pat,
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  there'd be this whole new tool that just came in to blow
• 7:45
  everything else out of the
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: water.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And since,
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: say,
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: like October,
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: November 2022,
• 7:50
  it's just been nothing but a freight train of new material and
• 7:54
  this explosion of
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: AI.
• 7:57
  And I talk about and write about AI a lot in my Substack and its
• 8:00
  effects on the
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: economy,
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: on society,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: on the arts,
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: which is my area of experience.
• 8:08
  And what's fascinating to me is you seem to cover a lot of
• 8:13
  angles on this.
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  You're not just staying in the lane of here's a tool,
• 8:17
  here's how it works.
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  SPEAKER_00: You kind of show how you're using it and
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And how it's relevant, how it fits into the whole ecosystem.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love you to explain,
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: first of all,
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: just what your newsletter is,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: but then sort of go into that detail about that.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thanks for that question.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: I see this not just as a list of tools or links, right?
• 8:36
  There's a lot of places you can find 50 new AI things that have
• 8:39
  been launched in
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: the past couple of weeks.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_03: It just sort of adds to the pile.
• 8:42
  I think what we need is more curation and more guidance and
• 8:49
  some independent analysis.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: And also what you mentioned about not just pointing to the tools,
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  but to the features within the tools and the workflows and the
• 8:58
  use cases is the way
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: I think about it,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: which is like,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: when would I use this particular feature and for what purpose?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: So Gemini, right, has so many different things.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: I just wrote about Gemini as an example.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_03: That was a great post.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_03: And my goal in those,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: and Notebook LM is another example of this,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: where,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: okay,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: so you know about Notebook LM,
• 9:15
  but how do you actually use it in a way that's useful for your
• 9:19
  day-to-day work?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like we're all sitting in front,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: most of us,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: many of us,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_03: are sitting in front of a computer a lot of hours a day,
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: right?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: And we're punching out email,
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_03: we're taking notes,
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_03: we're on Zooms,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: we're doing various things we do for work.
• 9:30
  And knowing that there's a tool out there that does 10,000
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  things and that
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: someone's,
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
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  SPEAKER_03: using for their particular work doesn't necessarily help you.
• 9:40
  So my aim is to help people who are reading this to find a few
• 9:44
  specific ways they
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: can use a tool,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: whether it's Gemini or Noble Galem or a methodology.
• 9:51
  So sometimes I write about,
• 9:53
  like I wrote a piece recently about timeboxing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_03: I heard that term thrown out on the lot.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: I know people kind of,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: reference it,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: but I felt like,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: okay,
• 10:02
  do people actually know how to do this or what tools to use for
• 10:05
  it or how it works
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: or why it would be useful?
• 10:08
  And I wrote another piece about finding great books because I
• 10:11
  was in a mode where I
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: was like,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to watch the news.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_03: I don't want to read the daily news and the screaming back and forth.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: I want to read some deep books to learn, to educate myself on things.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of my favorite posts of yours.
• 10:27
  And so those are actually not necessarily specifically about a
• 10:31
  tool per se.
• 10:32
  There's a bunch of different tools that I use to find really
• 10:34
  cool books or to
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: highlight stuff in books that I'm reading.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that reflects my interest in
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: how we integrate these tools in our actual lives.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: Because as you mentioned, there's so many tools coming at us, right?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: Any given day,
• 10:48
  you can go on Product Hunt or other sites and you'll see 10 or
• 10:51
  50 different tools,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: depending on which list you're looking at,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: that are coming out that day.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then, as you mentioned, it's not just the tools.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: Each tool has new features, right?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_03: ChatGPT is launching new features.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_03: Gemini is launching...
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: New features.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: Notebook LM is launching new features.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: Claude just yesterday announced this thing called Dispatch,
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: where you can now text your Claude code setup from your phone.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_03: There's just things blasting at us every day.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: And so my goal is once a week to offer people a curated guide to one
• 11:22
  specific kind of thing that they can use with reference to how
• 11:26
  I use it in my own life.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: So it's real examples and templates,
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: or for example,
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_03: when I wrote about deep research,
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: I shared like a bunch of the deep research reports generated Google docs.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason is that you might see deep research and you're like,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: okay,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_03: but what does that research look like?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: Is it actually useful?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: Is it very technical?
• 11:46
  And then if you want to try it yourself,
• 11:49
  that's going to take you 20 minutes.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: You may not have an account that has that feature enabled.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so then you'd have to buy it to figure it out if it's useful.
• 11:57
  So my goal is just to kind of give people a little sense of
• 11:59
  that and a few different examples.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: They can look at the examples and say, oh, that is relevant for me.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, no, I don't really need that.
• 12:06
  or I didn't realize it had that capability or I didn't realize
• 12:09
  it was 40 pages and
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: it had the links and references,
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: that makes it more credible to me.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: So basically people can get beyond just saying like,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: oh,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: there's this deep research thing to saying,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: oh,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: I see how it works.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: I see a few different use cases.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: oh,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: and here's a few tips for when you do it,
• 12:25
  make sure the query is this kind of query and has some length
• 12:28
  and specificity to
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: it.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't realize that.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: I thought I should just type in like a Google query.
• 12:33
  And so hopefully people come away with something that is
• 12:35
  relatable and actionable,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: like useful for them.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: And it also for me is about a little bit of being evergreen.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of things are about what happened today.
• 12:46
  This tool came out,
• 12:47
  that tool made some announcement,
• 12:48
  this person was fired,
• 12:49
  whatever.
• 12:50
  And that kind of is disposable in the sense that you can turn
• 12:54
  it on tomorrow and
• 12:55
  you're going to see another group of people who are fired or
• 12:57
  another new tool that
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: was launched.
• 12:59
  And what I want to do,
• 13:01
  what my aim is,
• 13:02
  is to create things that people can return to
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: partly because people don't have time to read it every time anyway.
• 13:08
  I know one of the most common comments I hear is people are
• 13:10
  like,
• 13:10
  well,
• 13:10
  I save it for later.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: Which might mean that it's too long.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: It probably does mean it's too long or it's too frequent.
• 13:15
  But it also means that hopefully that it's evergreen in the
• 13:20
  sense that Gemini is
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: still going to be Gemini two weeks from now.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: They might offer some new features.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure they'll have updates next month, for example.
• 13:28
  But the core elements of Gemini,
• 13:31
  the interface where you can choose a tool and you can choose
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: But whether you're going to voice dictate or whatever,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: those basic structures typically stay at least for a while.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: So anyway,
• 13:43
  that's another part of what I'm doing is trying to create some
• 13:45
  resources that
• 13:46
  people can use on their own time when they're ready to and when
• 13:50
  they want to,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: as opposed to kind of disposable news that's going to disappear tomorrow.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's an interesting insight.
• 13:56
  The green nature of your posts,
• 13:58
  the fact that they do archive well and they do sort of hold...
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: if someone does save it and read it three weeks from now,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: it's still going to be relevant to them.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is that,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: that may be your,
• 14:07
  I don't know if that's your journalistic background sort of
• 14:09
  tapping into the idea
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: of something being,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: having more of a life to it so that it's not only part of,
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: capturing the zeitgeist at the moment,
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: but also being relevant in a longer,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: larger picture.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I,
• 14:21
  I have been in my sort of experimentation and writing about
• 14:27
  everything digital and
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: tools and AI.
• 14:31
  Every now and then I get confused about how to articulate it
• 14:36
  because I can be
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: accused of being a Doomer or a Luddite.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm quite the opposite.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been an early adopter.
• 14:42
  I was one of the first cartoonists to start using Wacom tablets
• 14:45
  and digital drawing tools.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you taught me about that when we met.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: I was interested to learn about that too.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've never shied away from folding digital tools into my workflow.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have an iPad with Procreate.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: I have a big Cintiq.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I use Sense Labs tablets.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: I get sent tablets to test out and review by different companies.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm very honest.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm usually very honest if they're not good and if they're good.
• 15:08
  But the reason I am always kind of keeping my antenna up for
• 15:13
  new technology and
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: tools is that I'm not allowed.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that there is a lot of utility and...
• 15:19
  and use and value in finding tools that help you either
• 15:24
  automate the things that
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: are drudgery,
• 15:26
  that can free up your time and your mind to do the things you
• 15:29
  actually want to do,
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: to invest your time and energy into the things you do want to focus on.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, yes, there are drawbacks.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are always drawbacks.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to kind of find your own sort of ethical boundaries.
• 15:42
  I wrote recently about the tools that I use,
• 15:44
  the AI tools that I use because...
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like,
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 15:49
  as much as I talk about AI and how it's affecting everything
• 15:53
  from the economy and
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: society and the arts and everything,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I still use some tools and I'm very deliberate about it.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I use Grammarly AI.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I have for a long time.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've used different kinds of tools for editing, for proofreading.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Deep research with Gemini is really fascinating.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm finding that really interesting and pro.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I have obvious misgivings about the technologies,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: about the environmental factors,
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: about the ethical factors.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't trust some of these founders and CEOs at some of these companies.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I just,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: in the same way that I opt not to shop at certain stores,
• 16:28
  I opt not to use those tools if I disagree with the ethics of
• 16:31
  the people building
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: the tools.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, I don't use Meta AI.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it could do.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't use Grok.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Same reason.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I use Gemini largely because,
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've been using all the Google products,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: the G Suite for as long as I can remember.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I...
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: I do feel like they're winning the race in a way,
• 16:54
  but they're doing it in such a way that doesn't completely
• 16:56
  compromise their
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: integrity.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: They have more data than anybody.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: The models are super impressive.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: The last release was just extraordinary.
• 17:03
  I do still have misgivings about the environmental factors of
• 17:08
  these tools and the
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: data centers and what they're doing,
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: but...
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think there is a sweet spot there.
• 17:13
  And I think there is,
• 17:14
  as you say,
• 17:14
  the utility is different for different people.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for instance,
• 17:21
  and I'm going to throw to you in a second about this because I
• 17:23
  do want to get your
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: take on this.
• 17:25
  But I wrote a post about 10,
• 17:30
  12 years ago about timeboxing,
• 17:31
  of all things.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: people ask me how I do all the things that I do,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: and it's because I work from a calendar and not a to-do list.
• 17:39
  You know,
• 17:39
  it's okay to make a to-do list,
• 17:40
  but then you've got to plug it into the calendar.
• 17:42
  And then when I timebox,
• 17:43
  I kind of predict how long something might take,
• 17:46
  that chunk of time.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then what I do is, if it took longer, I adjust it in the calendar.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: If it took shorter, I adjust it as well.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next time I do a similar task,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I will copy and paste that chunk and put it in my iCal.
• 17:58
  And that tool,
• 17:59
  that one post,
• 18:00
  I put it on Medium back in the day and made like,
• 18:02
  $2,000 on the media partner program just from that one thing
• 18:05
  going viral.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I didn't know this was an interesting new thing.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I thought Cal Newport talked about this in Deep Work ages ago.
• 18:12
  But it just feels like sometimes there are tools that can
• 18:15
  really help people that
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: they just,
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: or workflows or processes that don't
• 18:22
  necessarily occur to people what's been the most valuable thing
• 18:27
  for you the most
• 18:28
  valuable tool that you've found personally because you're as
• 18:31
  you say you're
• 18:31
  teaching in journalism you are you're working on your Substack
• 18:36
  you you have these
• 18:37
  skills you have this you're you're a busy person and you have
• 18:42
  all these different
• 18:42
  things that you that you need to get done in a day what are the
• 18:46
  most useful tools
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: that you're using and and
• 18:49
  To what degree do you do the sort of mental arithmetic on sort
• 18:53
  of the ethics of the
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: people creating the technology and all that kind of stuff?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know it's just this ever-moving target.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to keep track of.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think there's separate buckets of concern or buckets of focus.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when we are...
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: in a restaurant, we're sometimes eating for pleasure.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_03: We're sometimes eating for, you know, to satisfy ourselves.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um,
• 19:18
  we sometimes have ethical concerns about the way food is grown
• 19:22
  or animals are
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_03: raised,
• 19:23
  but we're not necessarily thinking about all those things at
• 19:26
  the same time every
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: day.
• 19:27
  We sometimes are just at a meal to have enjoyment or we're at a
• 19:30
  meal cause we have to be fed.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_03: And we are, um, I think, um,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: all of the different things we do in our lives,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: like we fly on airplanes,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_03: we stream on Netflix,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_03: social streaming platforms,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: TikTok,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: et cetera.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: All of those have environmental costs.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_03: All of them have environmental impact.
• 19:49
  The food we eat,
• 19:50
  the cities we live in,
• 19:52
  the transportation we use,
• 19:53
  all that stuff matters.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so I do think those are important considerations,
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_03: especially in our contemporary world,
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: like given the climate crisis.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm not dismissive or in denial about those issues in any way.
• 20:07
  especially as someone with children who are going to inherit
• 20:10
  this society and this world.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: However,
• 20:13
  I don't find it constructive to make each and every
• 20:17
  productivity-related decision
• 20:19
  or functional decision on a day-to-day basis based on those
• 20:22
  macro questions.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_03: My personal approach is
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: separate them out.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think there are people,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: for example,
• 20:29
  who are doing really good reporting and analysis and research
• 20:32
  on environmental
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: issues,
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: environmental considerations,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: alternatives to common LLMs,
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: et cetera.
• 20:39
  And there are different views and there's different
• 20:41
  perspectives on this as well.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: Andy Masley is someone,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: for example,
• 20:45
  who's kind of taken a counter view a little bit to some of the
• 20:47
  thinking on
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: the data usage and data centers and water usage.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: And in many areas,
• 20:53
  there seems to be a broad consensus around this is a
• 20:58
  particularly problematic
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: situation,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: but there's some counter views that say,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: look at this a little differently.
• 21:04
  I don't want to get too deep into that because it's a whole
• 21:06
  other subject.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: My point is that I do think those are important issues.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: I personally don't feel like that's my area of expertise.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there's a place for different kinds of journalism.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: And what I do, I consider to be kind of service journalism.
• 21:21
  And other people are going to do the investigative journalism,
• 21:23
  Karen Howe's book,
• 21:25
  Empire of AI.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: There are many others.
• 21:27
  We're actually launching this new book group for the Wonder
• 21:29
  Tools community focused
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_03: on 10 AI books,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: 10 AI-related books in 2026,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: one a month.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 21:36
  First one we're starting with actually next week is AI Snake
• 21:38
  Oil by a couple of
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: Princeton profs.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a book which is really interesting.
• 21:43
  And it's a critique to some extent of some aspects of AI,
• 21:45
  particularly predictive AI.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: When,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_03: people,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_03: either hospitals or prisons or other institutions,
• 21:52
  employers use AI to kind of predict how someone's going to
• 21:55
  perform or to evaluate
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_03: AI.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: someone based on a video interview,
• 22:00
  and those have a lot of problematic aspects as well that aren't
• 22:04
  necessarily just
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_03: the environmental aspects or data center aspects.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: They're kind of the flaws in the system themselves and how they function.
• 22:11
  So anyway,
• 22:12
  there's a lot of issues,
• 22:13
  but my focus is primarily on the service journalism and
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: I periodically like to step back and sort of,
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 22:20
  read what I can and learn what I can about some of the broader
• 22:22
  macro issues to try
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: to be as educated as I can.
• 22:27
  But I think that sometimes we need to take a little bit of a
• 22:30
  longer view as opposed
• 22:32
  to some report that was in the news about yesterday about what
• 22:35
  so-and-so said or
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: did.
• 22:36
  I just find that to be overwhelming and it's hard to really
• 22:41
  develop a deep
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: understanding,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_03: for me at least,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: that way.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 22:48
  and I think your background in journalism and your background
• 22:51
  just in general,
• 22:52
  I feel like you do contextualize a lot of these things as far
• 22:56
  as like these,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: the tools and what they're,
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: how they're made.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: You do have...
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: There was a post that you did.
• 23:09
  I was talking to a friend of mine,
• 23:12
  Alex Hallett,
• 23:13
  who's a cartoonist in the UK.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: We did one of these DMAs.
• 23:16
  And she was watching another one that I had done with Liza
• 23:19
  Donnelly from The New Yorker.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And Liza said that she had used AI as a brainstorming partner.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: So just sort of to...
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: throw ideas around,
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: punch up gags,
• 23:31
  kind of come up with like concepts or premises or just kind of
• 23:35
  brainstorm in
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: general.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so then Alex wrote a post today
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: She does a great subset called Cartooning in the Age of AI,
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: which I think you would really enjoy.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Any of your subscribers,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: in fact,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: anyone watching,
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Alex Hallett's Cartooning in the Age of AI,
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: really good,
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: really good subset.
• 23:52
  She heard us talking and said,
• 23:55
  you know,
• 23:55
  oh,
• 23:55
  I didn't think to use it that way.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: So then she started brainstorming.
• 24:00
  And sort of going back and forth with an LLM about some
• 24:03
  premises for her cartoons.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: She put some notes,
• 24:09
  she took some photos of some notes that she made while she was
• 24:11
  on a walk and then
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: kind of,
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: started,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: the foundation was those notes and then started building on that.
• 24:18
  And what I found really interesting when I was reading it was
• 24:20
  that there was a
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: point where it was really helpful and it was really,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: it was a great utility until a certain point where it said,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: do you want me to draw this for you?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so two things happened.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think the panic set in where she was like, oh no, my job is in peril.
• 24:33
  But also she was like,
• 24:34
  I need to know where the beginning and the end,
• 24:36
  where my line is.
• 24:37
  I think everyone has a different line of where they're
• 24:40
  comfortable using these tools.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that really fascinating how and where people draw those lines.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And as you say,
• 24:48
  there were great people doing really in-depth reporting about
• 24:51
  everything from
• 24:52
  environmental factors to social and economic factors and sort
• 24:56
  of the ethical bounds
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: of using tools like this.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then you see every five minutes,
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: as you say,
• 25:04
  there's a new story about Dario Omode saying all white-collar
• 25:08
  jobs are going to
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: disappear within three years.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then kids graduating who learned to code who are now just like,
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: floating going, well, what do I do now?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: There are all sorts of effects on industry and on people's,
• 25:25
  everything from the industry to people's creative process with
• 25:28
  these tools.
• 25:28
  But I think when it really comes down to it,
• 25:32
  we have to understand and accept the
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: that they will always be developing.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing's going to stop them.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't going to be a pause.
• 25:40
  It doesn't matter how many signatures are on that list that's
• 25:43
  been added to for how
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: many years now.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: The race is similar,
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: akin to,
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: but not the same as a nuclear arms race with,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: other countries like China,
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: DeepSeek.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And especially domestically between,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: between Meta,
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: between Alphabet,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: OpenAI,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Anthropic.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean...
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is just,
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: the train's out of the station,
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: it seems to be this inexorable race towards what some are calling AGI,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: but whatever finish line they're looking at,
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: it's not going to stop.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's folly to kind of put your head in the sand and think...
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: well, let's just completely ignore this altogether.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's wiser to sort of,
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: as you do,
• 26:25
  kind of keep abreast of it and just sort of keep tabs on what's
• 26:30
  happening.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: You read a lot about this, I know.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: So what are your sort of sources?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do you find these tools?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: How do you read about them?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: What do you read?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm aiming to read this collection of books.
• 26:42
  I mean,
• 26:42
  this set of 10 books is one that we're going to read together
• 26:45
  as a community.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: I really believe in collecting
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_03: I believe in collective reading.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_03: As a teacher and as a learner,
• 26:51
  I like learning in community with other people and teaching in
• 26:54
  community with other
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: people.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so we're going to read these 10 books together as a community.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: And hopefully,
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: having read 10 books about AI from lots of different perspectives,
• 27:04
  we'll have a little bit of some different perspectives that are
• 27:07
  not necessarily the
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: day-to-day perspectives.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: And
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: I think,
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: a lot of the,
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: back to the pronouncements about,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: we're going to have AGI in this amount of time or whatever.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: I mean,
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: if you look back historically,
• 27:18
  I think about AI as like one of a series of technological
• 27:23
  developments that have
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_03: been important to journalism,
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: have been important to computing,
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: have been important to artistic fields and other kinds of,
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: white collar fields, whatever you want to call them.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, there's patterns, right?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: They rhyme with, these developments rhyme with one another.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: There's differences each time.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_03: And there's always a debate about,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: well,
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: is this similar to other things or is it completely different?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_03: And people will rage on about both of those perspectives.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: But I think what we definitely see in each of these cases is
• 27:52
  is people making grand pronouncements about how quickly the
• 27:54
  world will never be the
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: same,
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: right?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_03: On the one hand, or people saying, you know, this is going to go away.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't really mean anything, right?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: No one's going to have a computer, was the famous comment.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: No one's going to have a computer in their house.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, why would you need a computer in your house?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_03: You have a computer at your workplace or in a database center, right?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: People aren't going to use the internet at their home.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: People aren't going to use the internet on their phone.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like,
• 28:15
  there's all these pronouncements that people aren't going to do
• 28:18
  something or that
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: everyone's going to do something tomorrow or in a few years.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: And I think my feeling is a lot of it tends to be overstated.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of it's in the grayer area, more complicated, more nuanced area.
• 28:29
  I wanted to go back to one of your other questions about the
• 28:32
  sort of daily stack or
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: the daily tool.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: And also to make a point about, for me,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_03: it's not always the most complicated or new tools, right?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like there's definitely a kind of frenzy around what's new, right?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like what's brand new.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's always the case, right?
• 28:52
  That's like a classic societal tendency is like we're very
• 28:56
  fascinated by the newest
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: actor and actress and newest.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: Newsworthy, right?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, newest car, whatever.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's just the way we're wired, I guess.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: But in the case of tools, I find a lot of the things that,
• 29:10
  have been around for quite a while are actually still quite
• 29:13
  useful and sometimes
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: they're upgrading.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: For me, one of the things I like to do almost every year is Google Docs.
• 29:18
  I write something about what's new with Google Docs or what are
• 29:21
  new ways to use
• 29:21
  Google Docs because it's basic infrastructure and plumbing for
• 29:24
  many of us or for
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_03: the internet.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: And so it's super,
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: super useful,
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: even though it's been around for quite a while,
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: a couple decades now.
• 29:35
  And so some of the tools that I really rely on are not
• 29:38
  necessarily the most sexy
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: ones or the most powerful ones.
• 29:40
  Yes,
• 29:40
  there are 20 different word processing tools that do all sorts
• 29:42
  of different things.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: And by the way,
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: there are some new ones that I think are really interesting,
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: and I'm experimenting with those,
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: and I'll write about them when
• 29:49
  when I feel like they're useful enough that other people might
• 29:51
  find value in them.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_03: Because writing is something a lot of us do in one way or another,
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: so I do think writing tools are really important.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: But sometimes the simpler ones for me are preferable.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I like IA Writer.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_03: I still use Google.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: I like that, yeah.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: Quite a lot.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: In terms of other core tools,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_03: I do rely heavily on Claude projects.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: I find that having context,
• 30:14
  like a lot of context around the work that I'm doing in terms
• 30:17
  of background
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: material that I've produced in the past,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_03: my own notes,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_03: my own research,
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: my own thinking,
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: my own writing,
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: and having a style that I've kind of pre-coded,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: having
• 30:30
  an understanding of the kind of tone and the expectations I've
• 30:33
  given Claude through
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: the instructions.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: That to me is a helpful thinking partner and a kind of assistant.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: I see it as a way to check my biases,
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: check my assumptions,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: expand my perspectives,
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: all of those things,
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: and also to help me with some technical tasks.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: Getting SEO text,
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: getting alt text,
• 30:53
  getting alternative headline ideas or subject lines as we think
• 30:57
  of them in the
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: subject world.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_03: All of those things are quite useful.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then getting copy editing input.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: Where can I make this...
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: Weak set of verbs a little bit more tight.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: How can I avoid these cliches or this redundancy?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: Those kinds of copy editing things are really helpful.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: Almost every time it catches something,
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 31:21
  I've had a double comma or I have a period where I meant to
• 31:24
  have a comma or...
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: I left out a quotation mark or something somewhere.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: It just glitched because it's,
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_03: late at night and I just am like,
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: my eyes are glazing over and I missed something.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: Working at Time Magazine, we had an amazing team of copy editors, right?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: And so they would
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: markup my copy and make sure it was clean and nothing was sloppy.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't have that now.
• 31:46
  It's me and then it's going to be the reader and I'm going to
• 31:48
  have typos or errors
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: unless I have some clawed assistance in this case.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so that to me has been a really, really big help.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: Not to mention
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: you know, tough input, like a tough critic.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like you don't need that third paragraph about this feature.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: You've already explained it.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like get rid of that.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: Just be more concise.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: That to me is also super helpful.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: When you came up in journalism, you had great editors, right?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: You had, you know, human, like very direct editors.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:22
  I use this analogy sometimes when I do sometimes do guest
• 32:25
  lectures at FIT and I did
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: one at Stanford last year about tools and about learning.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you had a great episode about learning,
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
• 32:33
  that I recommend everyone go and subscribe to Jeremy's Substack
• 32:36
  and watch the live
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: that he did about learning and teaching.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing that I say when students ask me,
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: should I learn to draw on an iPad or on a tablet?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: I say no.
• 32:51
  I say learn to draw by hand first and then port those tools
• 32:54
  over to your digital
• 32:56
  toolkit such that you don't rely on the digital tools too much
• 33:00
  like the undo
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: button.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you draw a line by hand, you can't hit undo.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to draw that line 45 times until you get it exactly right.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want that to be a part of your skill set.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: You really want to understand the fundamentals,
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: the elements,
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: and the principles of design,
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: of art,
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: and then use those tools
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: using, you know, use those skills on those tools.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: To that end,
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: I find,
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you,
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: but I find writing extraordinarily difficult.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like passing a stone for me.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I sit down to write,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: it's just,
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I have my strunken white,
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: I read every book I can on writing,
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: you know.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I read a lot of David Sedaris to try and get,
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: information sort of on how to structure essays.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: John McPhee, I read a bunch of about, you know, structure and language.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I sort of developed those,
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say hard skills,
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: but like skills without any augmentation,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: skills without any help.
• 34:04
  Because I noticed that when I learned them and those neural
• 34:07
  pathways start to
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: really strengthen,
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: I have that skill that I can then build on.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then what I did,
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: and I wrote about this in my sub-stack last week,
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: is I tried to replicate my first newspaper editor.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: I came up in newspapers.
• 34:21
  And when I was like 18,
• 34:23
  19,
• 34:23
  I was working at this newspaper where I had a real
• 34:26
  cantankerous...
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: J. Jonah Jameson type newspaper editor.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was this big, he was a big fat guy.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's not fat anymore.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: He lost his weight.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: But he was this big fat guy behind a desk.
• 34:36
  And he would have absolutely no compunction about telling me if
• 34:39
  my work was shit.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I needed to go back and do it again.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he had very strong opinions.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time, I was such a precious little darling.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, oh, no.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was so...
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: you know, hurt by the feedback.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: And as I kept working with him over the years,
• 34:54
  I realized just how valuable it is to have someone like that
• 34:58
  because you learn so
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: quickly.
• 35:00
  And I guess it is because if he was being nice and constructive
• 35:04
  and very like,
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: this is great and very like,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: sycophantic,
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I would have learned much at all.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I built a J. Jonah Jameson editor in Gemini.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: I built this really hard-assed journalist,
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: this ink-in-his-veins chain-smoking editor in an office.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when I finished doing my writing by hand...
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: I throw it at him and I say, what do you think?
• 35:32
  As you say,
• 35:33
  grammar,
• 35:34
  sentence structure,
• 35:36
  does this paragraph even need to be in here?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: What are you trying to say?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Are you trying to be funny here?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't very funny.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't take all of the suggestions.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them I'm like, no, I want to keep that.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's something I do.
• 35:48
  I know there's a right and a wrong way to do things according
• 35:50
  to EB White,
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm going to go ahead and just leave that in.
• 35:55
  But I do find it helpful to have that because I don't have an
• 35:59
  editor anymore.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I did.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, I could probably pay...
• 36:03
  to have someone read my work but it's time consuming and fairly
• 36:07
  laborious and let's
• 36:08
  be honest it's not cheap so yeah i think that that's a great
• 36:13
  use case your use case
• 36:15
  of you know of having this um thing trained on your your voice
• 36:20
  your tone your
• 36:21
  structure but also you know picking you up on just the little
• 36:23
  things like grammar
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: and spelling it helps with um
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: I guess,
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: the legitimacy of your,
• 36:28
  like if someone reads your work and there's typos and grammar
• 36:33
  errors and stuff,
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: it just kind of,
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: people aren't necessarily as inclined to trust or believe you or,
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: your authority on a thing if it looks like it's kind of scrappy writing.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: Do you find the same thing?
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I do.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 36:45
  I think the other danger is if you read something and you feel
• 36:48
  like it's an
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_03: AI-generated thing,
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: like if it feels...
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_03: and feels either there's too much jargon or just feels generic,
• 36:55
  that also is sometimes a turnoff or just might indicate there's
• 36:59
  less thought.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_03: It still might be useful on occasion, especially information value.
• 37:04
  If someone's planning the three steps you need to take to
• 37:07
  complete this insurance
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: policy thing or whatever,
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_03: but if the intention is to be creative or to give you a human insight,
• 37:16
  um that's a a little bit of a of a turnoff to me um in some
• 37:21
  cases although i've
• 37:22
  talked to a couple people who have a different view on that
• 37:24
  where they say you know
• 37:25
  they're not writers and they find this a way to you know enable
• 37:28
  them to write in a
• 37:29
  way that they couldn't which i i i'm i'm not judging people for
• 37:33
  their decisions
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_03: it's just as a reader you might react differently um i in terms of the um
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: the process,
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: the editing,
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_03: I also have the view that it's not just that it's cheaper or that,
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have a human accessible to me.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: I have a little bit of a provocative view on that,
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: which is that I think in some cases,
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: this is going to be better than many humans would be.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_03: So there are great editors and I don't take anything away from them.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: And if I could have
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: One of the best editors, that would be great.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_03: That would be optimal.
• 38:01
  But the average person is going to read something and either
• 38:04
  not be willing or not
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: be able to say some of the tough things about a piece of writing.
• 38:09
  Or they may not just have the bandwidth to spend the time to
• 38:11
  really get into the
• 38:13
  weeds on paragraph four and the four different verbs that
• 38:16
  you've used in that
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_03: paragraph.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_03: That's just not realistic.
• 38:20
  And AI can do that in a way that you're just not going to have
• 38:23
  an editor,
• 38:23
  generally speaking.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_03: Most of us have an editor who's going to do that on a day-to-day basis.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe if you're writing a book and certain special cases.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think books are different.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think posts, essays, sub-stack.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to flip the camera,
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
• 38:37
  because we're more than halfway through and I like to sketch
• 38:39
  while I'm talking.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: But don't think I'm not paying attention.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually paying more attention.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more focused when I'm drawing.
• 38:45
  I find that interesting that you talk about books because I'm
• 38:48
  currently on my
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: second of three books.
• 38:51
  And I find that having an editor is incredibly helpful,
• 38:55
  especially on long projects like this.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Projects where there is an overarching...
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: sort of tone or there is an overarching sort of theme.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: It helps keep things consistent.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: But also, he teaches me as I go.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not an editor.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a book publisher.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in the book industry my whole life like he has been.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is his area of expertise.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I respect his 10,000 hours.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I take his notes.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate that he has, you know, a skill set that I do not have.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think with books, it is different.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, you can use AI differently.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: to write a book or to edit a book.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I do find that having a human in the loop that you develop a,
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: I guess a relationship with over time.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And yes,
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know you can do that with an AI too,
• 39:49
  but there's something about the conversation and the learning
• 39:53
  that goes on and the
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: relationship that you build with an editor that is,
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's unique,
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: especially with books.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: You've written books.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've written a lot over the years.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: Do you tend to feel the same way about that?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: I think I would frame this as like a macro editing and micro editing.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: Micro editing is the copy editing.
• 40:13
  It's the,
• 40:14
  you know,
• 40:14
  what about a more punchy way to end on the last sentence?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe you can remove that cliche in the third paragraph.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's like micro editing.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: Macro editing is kind of,
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think what you're talking about with this editor,
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_03: book editor,
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_03: who says like looking at the big picture of this book,
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_03: hey,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: there's this other topic that you've written about in the past,
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: or they know you as a person,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_03: or they know this market is really,
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: these days,
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: let's say they're an agent.
• 40:40
  Like,
• 40:40
  they know what the book buyers are talking about at the moment,
• 40:45
  right?
• 40:45
  In a way that an example might not have that same kind of level
• 40:48
  of insight.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_03: I,
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_03: again,
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_03: would have the provocative view that even on the macro level,
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_03: AI tools can be quite helpful in
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_03: identifying big macro structural weaknesses,
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: let's say,
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_03: or blind spots,
• 41:01
  or kind of giving you 10 different possible types of anecdotes
• 41:06
  you could use in
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_03: this concluding message.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: I still think,
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_03: even on the macro level,
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: that AI can be useful,
• 41:14
  but I also totally take your point and agree with you that the
• 41:18
  human editor has
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_03: capabilities that are...
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: irreplaceable in many cases on that macro view.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point with the book club,
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea,
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: just getting back to the sort of human element of things,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: that
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: I do like the idea of community and human relationships as well.
• 41:40
  The idea that learning together is a really interesting and I
• 41:46
  think important thing.
• 41:48
  There's these Gotham writers group where people get together
• 41:51
  and they share their
• 41:52
  essays that they're writing with each other and give
• 41:54
  constructive feedback.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a really great way to learn.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: Have you been part of drawing groups like that?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_03: Are there drawing groups that do that similarly?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact,
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of,
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: after doing that,
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 42:06
  with a couple of different places like the Society of
• 42:09
  Illustrators and things like
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: that,
• 42:10
  I actually just informally created this little brains trust of
• 42:15
  artists that I send
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: stuff to for feedback.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they send stuff to me for feedback, you know.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I consider them,
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: as much as their contemporaries or their colleagues,
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: I consider them to be...
• 42:27
  mentors in that way you know i i i have people for whom i know
• 42:32
  uh this certain
• 42:34
  elements of this come easier to them than than i do and they
• 42:37
  have a a large um area
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: of expertise and uh and experience so i i tap them for that you know i i
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: have these,
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 42:46
  groups of artists who specialize and then I reach out to them
• 42:51
  if I'm going to be
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: doing an editorial illustration,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: a gag cartoon for the New Yorker,
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: writing a stand-up bit,
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: if I'm,
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: if I'm doing a long-form piece like a graphic novel style thing,
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: it really depends on
• 43:04
  on what it is but I can't express enough the value of having
• 43:09
  people like that in
• 43:10
  your in your life in your in your sort of sphere because I
• 43:16
  think I've learned more
• 43:17
  from other people giving me feedback on the work I'm doing than
• 43:21
  any book I've ever
• 43:22
  read any class I've ever taken I didn't go to college I didn't
• 43:26
  go to art school
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a really valuable thing to have.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: I totally agree with you.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think having a partnership of people,
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_03: some people call them mastermind groups,
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_03: where you get to work regularly.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_03: I started doing that a while ago,
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: and I'd love to have you part of it,
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: if you're interested,
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_03: with sub-stack writers,
• 43:45
  where we get together periodically and just talk about the
• 43:48
  sub-stack craft in a
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_03: way,
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_03: even though our subjects are different.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_03: And part of it is just kind of hearing from other people about their
• 43:57
  victories and their challenges and their learnings and kind of
• 44:01
  being in community
• 44:01
  because you know in many workplaces you're in community with
• 44:04
  your fellow doctors or
• 44:06
  fellow you know business people or lawyers or wherever you are
• 44:09
  um if you're a
• 44:10
  creator you're not necessarily surrounded by those people um
• 44:14
  yeah having a
• 44:14
  community periodically is is helpful ideally in person although
• 44:17
  the realities of
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_03: our modern lives it's it's harder to
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_03: harder to do that.
• 44:23
  I want to tell one other point related to something you
• 44:25
  mentioned earlier about writing.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_03: I also think of writing as a broader...
• 44:30
  I guess I think of writing as part of like structuring people's
• 44:34
  experiences of
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: consumption,
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_03: if I can put it on some sort of jargon.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_03: But what I'm getting at is like I saw your video.
• 44:40
  You have a video on your site,
• 44:41
  on your sub stack,
• 44:42
  kind of introducing who you are.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_03: I guess it's your like about me video.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's about three minutes, right?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's relatively short.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: And to me, like that's a piece of writing.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's a video.
• 44:52
  But it's a piece of writing in the sense that it's like a
• 44:54
  structuring of someone's
• 44:56
  experience of getting to know who you are in three minutes and
• 44:59
  how to make that
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_03: experience useful,
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: interesting,
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: engaging,
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: informative,
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_03: all those things.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's a...
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_03: a type of writing in the context of something like Substack,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_03: where part of the experience is the individual post,
• 45:14
  but part of the experience is like the whole Substack or the
• 45:17
  about me plus all these
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_03: other elements.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's something you do actually really, really well.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_03: And I think there are elements to the writing process,
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_03: if we want to call it that,
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: that have elements of art,
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_03: that have elements of design and sort of presentation and experiential
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: architecting people's experience, if you want to put it that way.
• 45:41
  And some of that stuff is also tricky to have the AI kind of
• 45:47
  handle because it's a
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_03: lot about the human experience of that.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: And
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
• 45:55
  so I guess I think of writing as more broad than just the
• 45:57
  individual posts and the
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: writing of the posts themselves.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: and I think,
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you feel the same way,
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: but I've always thought in the same way that,
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: and I didn't coin this term,
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard many different people use it,
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: including Pat Burns from The New Yorker,
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: saying drawing is thinking.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in another sense, writing is thinking.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Writing is a way of organizing thought.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: I work through all kinds of things with writing.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: I journal.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm having a difficult time, I will write.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: I will brain dump.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'll do morning pages.
• 46:32
  If I'm having difficulty consolidating any kinds of thoughts or
• 46:38
  feelings or thoughts,
• 46:40
  Just ideas on a topic,
• 46:42
  I will write them out just to kind of have them on paper.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I tend to do it by hand.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll often type,
• 46:48
  but I'll tend to do things by hand because of the relationship
• 46:50
  between the brain
• 46:51
  and the hand and what happens when you write by hand and how it
• 46:54
  slows you down.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I think writing is thinking.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as you say, it's a part of this experience.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do that too?
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do you use writing in that sense as well?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: By the way,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: there's a great book about that exact subject,
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_03: which is called More Than Words by John Warner.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_03: One of the books in this book,
• 47:13
  AI book group that we're reading this year for the Wonder Tools
• 47:15
  book group.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_03: And he talks a lot about that.
• 47:17
  He's a writer and he's talking about why it's important that we
• 47:19
  still do our own
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_03: writing in the age of AI.
• 47:22
  And he talks about how we often clarify our own thinking by
• 47:26
  starting to put words
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_03: down and realizing,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: okay,
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: actually,
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: this is what I think.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't quite have that idea clear in my mind until...
• 47:34
  I wrote it down or I tried to write it down and then realized I
• 47:37
  had to think
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_03: through it further and then refined it.
• 47:39
  For me,
• 47:41
  I find that actually talking out loud helps me clarify my own
• 47:45
  ideas.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_03: It forces me to
• 47:48
  boil down something that's sort of vague or abstract into
• 47:51
  something concrete,
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_03: which is one of the reasons why I like the technique of interview me,
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_03: the AI technique where you essentially ask the AI to interview you.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_03: Or you can interview you, right?
• 48:02
  That can be helpful too,
• 48:03
  but most of us don't have the option of that all the time.
• 48:06
  But you can ask the AI to kind of interview you whenever you've
• 48:08
  done something.
• 48:09
  You've been to a conference or you've had a day full of
• 48:11
  meetings or whatever it is
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: and you say like,
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_03: hey,
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_03: interview me and you give it some questions or you have a,
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_03: an interview
• 48:19
  a skill set up or an artifact set up or a Gemini gem or
• 48:22
  whatever tool you're using,
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_03: custom GPT,
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: that does that for you.
• 48:26
  And then it basically allows you to have the ideas and you to
• 48:29
  clarify your own
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_03: ideas because we're used to
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_03: in conversation with humans, right?
• 48:35
  We're used to being forced to put our thoughts together even if
• 48:39
  we haven't thought
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_03: about something before.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: And we don't have the luxury in those circumstances of saying,
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: well,
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: let me think about that for three hours because I have writer's block.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: We just talk, right?
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_03: We just answer a question.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so for me,
• 48:52
  that's more useful than kind of just writing in the sense of
• 48:56
  like looking at the
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_03: blank screen and starting to type.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that's become my new default process.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: So you will do the interview.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's how you... Either interview or I'll just brain dump.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_03: So one or the other.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'll just turn on iOS letterly as the app.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_03: You can use any other app.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_03: You can use Apple Notes for free.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_03: You can use any other app that you like.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I just turn on, it starts recording.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, oh, I got to start talking.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I,
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_03: it's a little bit like a free write or I don't know if drawing,
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_03: there's a similar concept.
• 49:25
  Free write is where you just literally have to keep your pen on
• 49:28
  the paper and keep
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_03: it moving for an amount of time,
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: three minutes,
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_03: five minutes.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_03: And you can write anything and nothing, and it's okay.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_03: But eventually,
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_03: typically,
• 49:35
  you get at least a few ideas out onto paper in a matter of a
• 49:39
  couple minutes.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_03: And for me, it tends to work pretty well.
• 49:44
  And one reason I like to use AI for this,
• 49:45
  by the way,
• 49:46
  instead of just a raw transcription,
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_03: is because when you use an AI tool, it's going to then summarize.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's going to then give you an outline.
• 49:52
  It's going to then kind of get rid of the ums and ahs and
• 49:55
  digressions and the part
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_03: where you're warming up.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_03: And that can be more efficient than when you're taking that material.
• 50:01
  You don't have to then hunt and peck through a raw transcript
• 50:04
  of a lot of verbal vomit.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: You can instead say, oh yeah, these were the five key points.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, now let me frame the second point as an actual paragraph.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like what are the three sub points?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_03: And in some cases, then I'll do another verbal...
• 50:20
  exploration around that so i'll say okay this is the second
• 50:22
  part and yeah these are
• 50:24
  the three things i think i want to mention here and i'll just
• 50:26
  talk that out and
• 50:26
  pretty soon i've got like all the building blocks for the whole
• 50:30
  piece of writing
• 50:31
  yeah now it becomes more of an editing job and that i kind of
• 50:35
  like and it feels
• 50:35
  less pressure yeah it's frictionless it's less there's less
• 50:39
  friction to get started
• 50:40
  as well i guess if you're a bit of a perfectionist or you you
• 50:42
  have issues with
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: procrastination it's it helps um sort of uh yeah um
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: stop with that idea of just the first step, just starting.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's fascinating.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: I never thought to really do it.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely do.
• 50:57
  Sometimes when I don't feel like typing,
• 50:59
  I'll use something called typeless.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar with this tool?
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of these AI kind of like a voice dictation tool.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a dictation tool that kind of learns your vernacular.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually surprisingly accurate.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: For all the,
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_00: whisper board and all of these,
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 51:16
  whisper AI and all of these different dictation tools that use
• 51:20
  AI to transcribe
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: your things,
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: the things you say,
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: it does understand context.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: It will allow corrections midstream,
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: and I definitely think that,
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: as you say,
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 51:35
  if you just don't feel like sitting down and writing out all
• 51:37
  your notes from a
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: conference or something,
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: you can...
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: in that different format,
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: just get started from like just a basic idea from that kind of place.
• 51:49
  And if I'm writing an essay,
• 51:50
  sometimes I will brain dump everything that happened.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 51:55
  via audio and uh i will then have it transcribed just to kind
• 52:00
  of give myself a
• 52:01
  sense of like all right pull out which elements of this you
• 52:04
  actually want to kind
• 52:05
  of write about what's interesting here um what's what's funny
• 52:09
  what's useful uh what
• 52:11
  might be you know entertaining um and these what's interesting
• 52:16
  as well just
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: relevant to this
• 52:20
  that we're doing right now at Substack Live is you do get a
• 52:23
  transcript of the
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: Substack Live once it's processed.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not always great.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have to be honest.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: The transcription on Substack Live, it's not always that good.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty good, but it's not perfect.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I listen back to learn.
• 52:39
  I listen back to these as an MP3 and I listen to write the
• 52:43
  recap the next day.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if I need direct quotes,
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: I will go to the transcript and punch,
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: drop that into something and say,
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: can you find the bit where I talked about,
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: whisperboard or whatever it is?
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: And can you,
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 52:57
  let me know what was the quote that Jeremy said about this or
• 52:59
  what was the quote
• 53:00
  that I said about this so that I can then quote that accurately
• 53:03
  instead of trying
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: to recall it manually?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, this is how I picture him.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is my mean newspaper editor.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: If he was here, I call him Brian.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_03: I really enjoyed that, I have to say.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_03: I enjoyed watching that.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's like watching a magician for me because I cannot draw,
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: as I'm sure many other people can relate to that.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's always something I've wanted to be able to do and I just...
• 53:30
  And so watching you do it is just like watching a magician do
• 53:33
  some tricks.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a pleasure.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_03: As a violinist too, as a violinist.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, that's right.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_03: Or as a journalist.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_03: And also it just reminds me of
• 53:45
  or just gets me thinking about the value of live performance in
• 53:49
  different contexts.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_03: With music,
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_03: we're very accustomed to that,
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_03: but with art,
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_03: at least I'm not as accustomed to experiencing that live.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_03: I've seen Liza do her... Yeah, she does those, yeah.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_03: She does those,
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_03: and I've shared those with my daughter,
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: one of my daughters who really loves digital art as well,
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_03: and seeing her process was really instructive to me,
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_03: and just as it is now seeing you,
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_03: and I think it's really interesting...
• 54:12
  because I always think about live performance in the context of
• 54:14
  music or dance or theater.
• 54:18
  And so it's exciting in a way that this format allows for this
• 54:24
  new kind of visual
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_03: performance of art in a way.
• 54:26
  How is it different for you doing that in a live setting with
• 54:32
  other people watching
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_03: versus doing it for yourself?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, for 21 years, I've been doing live drawing at events.
• 54:41
  So like caricatures or portraits or reportage or whatever it
• 54:45
  is,
• 54:45
  I've been doing that.
• 54:47
  And it's a skill that I've sort of had to develop over the
• 54:48
  years of drawing with eyes on me.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is difficult.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: I found it very difficult, especially the first five to 10 years.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like really nervous about making a mistake.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: But then you have to just be confident in your line.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: You just have a sense of like, all right, I'm doing this live.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's live and dangerous.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: Own the mistakes.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lean into them if there is a mistake.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: Some people won't even know that you've made a mistake.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're the only one who recognizes if you screw up.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's,
• 55:22
  I actually wanted to finish on this because I was really
• 55:26
  fascinated to learn that
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: you're a violinist.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was reading this book, From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was a musician also, French horn, I think.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_00: French horn, yeah.
• 55:36
  And the 10,000 hours thing really fascinates me and also just
• 55:41
  the elements of live
• 55:42
  performance and building these sort of skills in your fluid
• 55:48
  intelligence in your
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: first half.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: And now you're in this crystallized intelligence,
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: you're teaching,
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: you're sharing,
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: you're still learning,
• 55:56
  but you're able to impart lessons and share what you've learned
• 56:02
  and share these
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: skills that you developed.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in that transitional phase,
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: between Act 1 and Act 2 where,
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: this crystallized intelligence up until now,
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: and I think,
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: sorry,
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: fluid,
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: and then I think now I'm starting to realize,
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: okay,
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've really done more than my 10,000 hours,
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: which is what you just saw.
• 56:23
  But watching someone play an oboe or a French horn or a violin
• 56:28
  or a guitar,
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_00: it's mesmerizing to me.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of my favorite things in the world to watch artists.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 56:34
  practice their craft that they've studied and made so many
• 56:38
  mistakes over and over
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: again to learn and get good at.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think that kind of, I'll never get sick of that.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how good AI gets.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think we'll always just have that,
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: we'll always be drawn to,
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to think we'll always be drawn to that,
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: not just the novelty of AI being able to replicate it,
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: just a human doing a thing like that.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you think?
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think,
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_03: yeah, I mean,
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_03: First of all, it's beyond words, right?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_03: AI is great at words.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's a language engine, right, is what these AI models really are.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_03: And music is really beyond words.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_03: And it's something, you know, it's funny.
• 57:15
  Somebody was responding to Timothee Chalamet's comment about
• 57:18
  opera or whatever.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_03: Opera, yeah.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_03: And they were a classical musician essentially saying like,
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_03: hey,
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: they're coming for your jobs,
• 57:24
  but you're not going to see a robot playing Yo-Yo Ma anytime
• 57:29
  soon or in place of
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yo-Yo Ma.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I do think there is something special and human about
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_03: performances of classical music.
• 57:38
  I think there'll be interesting experiments with composition
• 57:40
  and with digital music.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think that can be interesting for people.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah,
• 57:47
  there's something special about a human performance and it also
• 57:51
  gets us outside of
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_03: this
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_03: Race Against Time.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, this music is timeless.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's been around in many cases.
• 57:58
  Some of the great masterworks have been around for a couple
• 58:01
  centuries already,
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_03: and they'll be around far longer than most of us.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: And they move more slowly than our current...
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_03: lives move.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_03: You're sitting in a hall and you're stepping outside of time in a way.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_03: You mentioned deep work, Cal Newport.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_03: I think deep music where you're actually inside the music,
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_03: inside the experience for a period of time,
• 58:25
  whether you're performing or whether you're fortunate enough to
• 58:27
  be in a performance
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_03: as an observer or an attendee where you can
• 58:32
  invest yourself fully in it and engage fully and and the music
• 58:37
  i think that is
• 58:38
  hugely valuable in contrast to like the frenetic pace we're in
• 58:43
  in new york city or
• 58:43
  any other city when we're in front of a computer and like
• 58:46
  typing things out getting
• 58:46
  messages you know one after the other every day so yeah i mean
• 58:51
  tremendous value
• 58:51
  even more value in many ways the faster everything else goes
• 58:56
  like having those slow
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_03: things
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_03: has even more value from my perspective,
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_03: and we need that even more than we needed it in the past.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_03: Unfortunately,
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_03: like many other fields,
• 59:09
  the classical music field is also in a really tough economic
• 59:14
  and financial position
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_03: and social and cultural position in terms of maintaining relevance,
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_03: et cetera.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_03: But that's a whole other challenge.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_03: um,
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_03: yeah,
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_03: but,
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_03: but,
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_03: but,
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_03: um,
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_03: live performance,
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_03: like,
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_03: for,
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_03: for,
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_03: um,
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_03: classical music will,
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_03: will not be going away in my,
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_03: in my estimation.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I agree, and I love that.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think people are gravitating more towards in-person live,
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: music and comedy and theater and things,
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: certainly in New York,
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm noticing,
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: um,
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: there's this,
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: after,
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: it was probably the pandemic that did it,
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: but after everyone being isolated behind a,
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: a little screen,
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 59:52
  I think people are actually enjoying the experience of getting
• 59:54
  out and about,
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: um,
• 59:56
  theaters aren't doing great movie theaters aren't doing too
• 59:58
  great but a live
• 1:00:00
  performance that's not really a live performance but you know
• 1:00:02
  one of the things I'm
• 1:00:03
  excited about this spring is I'm going to do for the first time
• 1:00:06
  be part of a series
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_03: called Lectures on Tap
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm doing that too.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: I will be doing it on the, oh gosh, in April.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm actually posting about it tomorrow morning.
• 1:00:20
  Maybe I'll go to yours first to see what it's like because I've
• 1:00:24
  never been to one
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_03: as an attendee.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe I'll try to go to yours and hopefully do mine in May.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it's about classical music, actually.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's awesome.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'll definitely go to that.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'll be really interested to see it.
• 1:00:36
  And the reason I mention it is because part of what attracts me
• 1:00:38
  to it is like,
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_03: we do so many of these online things.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it really is meaningful to me,
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_03: at least,
• 1:00:44
  to be in a room with people and to learn from them or share
• 1:00:47
  with them or just be in
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_03: community in the physical world.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_03: And especially in kind of like a learning or sharing kind of context.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'm not a bar person normally.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like that event we met at the Substick thing was kind of a bar,
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_03: loud,
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_03: and that's not typically my jam,
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_03: but I like...
• 1:01:04
  things where it's like actually people talking and listening
• 1:01:09
  and thinking and so
• 1:01:10
  that's fun and anyone who hasn't heard of it it's a pretty fun
• 1:01:13
  new kind of
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_03: thing.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know, you could say more about it.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, yeah.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: I probably know about as much about it as you do,
• 1:01:20
  but I've booked mine for April and I just got my promotional
• 1:01:24
  images and stuff
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: through last night.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be posting it on my Substack tomorrow.
• 1:01:28
  So anyone interested in coming along in New York City,
• 1:01:32
  stay tuned for that.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: The tickets are on sale as of tonight.
• 1:01:36
  And it's,
• 1:01:38
  yeah,
• 1:01:38
  as you say,
• 1:01:38
  it's getting together in person in a context of more like a
• 1:01:41
  bar.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: scenario where people are together,
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: they're drinking,
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: they're learning something,
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: they're being entertained by ideas from interesting people.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like a TED Talk with drinks.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_03: A little bit longer.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit longer.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: 45 minutes, right?
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_03: And then questions?
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: 45.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then a Q&A for like 10, 15 minutes.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_03: With your comedy hat on or with your drawing hat on or with your…
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_00: Both.
• 1:02:05
  I'm going to be talking about my experience writing and drawing
• 1:02:09
  cartoons for The
• 1:02:09
  New Yorker and the creative process behind that and some funny
• 1:02:12
  stories that have
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: happened with that over the years.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: But then also,
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_00: yeah,
• 1:02:15
  there's some comedy in there as well just to kind of keep it
• 1:02:18
  light and fun and
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: interesting.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, they're a great organization.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: So anyone who wants to follow them on Instagram, look up Lectures on Tap.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: They do lectures all over, I think, in Chicago, LA, Philly, New York...
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_00: Boston.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think all over the place.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: So really excited about that.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad to hear you're doing it too.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm going to give it a try.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_03: We'll see how it goes.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_03: You're literally a lecturer.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_03: You'll be great.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_03: But this is not my normal subject, right?
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_03: This is outside of my sphere of professional expertise.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's just something I'm passionate about.
• 1:02:49
  The magic of classical music,
• 1:02:50
  essentially,
• 1:02:50
  what we were just talking about.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course.
• 1:02:52
  Well,
• 1:02:53
  Jeremy,
• 1:02:53
  we've blasted past the one hour mark and I really,
• 1:02:56
  really appreciate your time.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for sharing.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your candor.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge and information.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone who's joined us,
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: before I mentioned it last,
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: please click up here,
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: click subscribe and subscribe to Wonder Tools,
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremy Kaplan.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for everything you do.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_00: Great to talk with you.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, have a great weekend.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_00: And guys, we'll see you at the next one.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: See you later, Jeremy.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_02: Bye-bye.