Épisodes

  • Good Stuff 47 - Will AI Take Your Job

    Good Stuff 47 - Will AI Take Your Job
    Mar 4 2026
    # The Good Stuff, Episode 47: Will AI Take Your Job?*Hosts:* Pete and Andy (beach setup with new flag, plane, and aggressive campfire lighting)Block just axed 4,000 people—40% of the company—citing AI, and the stock jumped 16%. Pete and Andy dig into what this signals: air cover for cutting fat, or the start of something bigger? They run the publishing analogy (monks to podcasts, cost went to zero, yet more people publish than ever), explore why "21 millionaires" beats the billion-dollar unicorn thesis, and get into the weeds on agent architecture—hands vs pipelines, deterministic vs autonomous, and why your Kanban board might be the wrong interface for robots.**Key Moments:**- [01:16] Block layoffs: 4,000+ people, AI cited as key reason, stock up 16%- [02:06] "If anything, it's not going to discourage people from going down the same route"- [06:02] Jack pushing Goose internally over a year ago—they've been prepping for this- [09:07] "A lot of companies will use AI as air cover to clear up waste and inefficiency"- [15:54] Publishing analogy: monks copying bibles → printing press → internet → cost to zero- [17:30] "Nobody has a job publishing content anymore... oh hang on, there's that guy, Rogan"- [20:03] "More people do this as a job now than have ever done it before"- [34:27] "It's not a one-man billion dollar company—it's way more 21 millionaires"- [42:02] "The work never really goes away, because the work is competition"- [46:00] "Is the Kanban the right interface for the agent?"- [47:58] Pete's review tab so full he had Wingman review and close out his own reviews- [53:51] "Hands" vs pipelines: Lara's architecture for mixing deterministic scripts with autonomous agents- [59:03] Gigi on Boris: "You still need to understand what you're doing here"- [1:13:17] "2026 prediction going strong: tooling matters more than models"- [1:15:00] Pete's daily briefing podcast—Wingman built an RSS feed and hosts it himself**Friends of the Pod:** DJ (new Mac Mini, asking about Wingman), Deadman (next week's guest), Gigi, Mark (Tales from the Crypt shoutout), Peter Randy (the combined entity)**Quote:** "Publishing used to be a room of monks you'd taught painstakingly over decades to learn to write. Then we put it all on the internet and it went to zero. And what happened? More people do this as a job now than have ever done it before. So the only thing we need to worry about is: have we solved all the problems? I don't think so."
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    1 h et 18 min
  • Good Stuff 46 - OpenClaw Privacy Agents

    Good Stuff 46 - OpenClaw Privacy Agents
    Feb 26 2026
    # The Good Stuff, Episode 46: Open Claw, Privacy and Agents*Hosts:* Pete and Andy (undisclosed location due to summer storm)Pete's built Console, a personal interface for Wingman that solves the agent control problem: encrypt everything, then deliberately decrypt only what you want them to see. They explore why markdown files won't scale for agent memory, how the "North Korean hacker" is a better mental model than "new employee" for AI access, and whether we're all living in a bubble. Plus: workshop penny-drop moments, embedding agents directly in apps, and why Microsoft always makes things worse.**Key Moments:**- [01:45] The OpenClaw problem: bots going off the reservation, deleting stuff, texting people they shouldn't- [02:28] "If it can write its own software and run it, it will find a way around whatever controls you put in place"- [03:28] The only hard control: encryption. "Anything I don't want you to see, I never let you see."- [05:04] Console: local database in browser, syncs to phone via Superbase, different apps use same data- [09:03] The UI: green lock means private, tap it and Wingman's face appears = he can see it- [09:58] "It's like you've brought in a North Korean hacker and said 'you don't have access to this' and he goes 'ha ha ha yes I do'"- [13:18] Agent loyalty: "He won't accept work from you. 'That's not signed by the right Nostr key.'"- [22:13] Process mapping nightmare: "People lie—they describe the absolute happy path"- [32:02] Telling Wingman off: it read ahead overnight, created tasks, then did them all. "What's all this?"- [34:35] "Where are people at with this stuff? I've got no idea."- [46:58] Workshop moment: onboarding flow agent mapped weeks of work two ladies had been doing. "How did it know?"- [56:48] "Models matter less than tools. OpenClaw is not a model thing, it's a tool thing."- [59:29] Microsoft's special skill: "We've taken this idea and done almost that, except it's shit."- [01:03:02] "I don't want to build software that's extractive. So I'm just going to build it this way anyway."- [01:09:54] The revelation: embed the agent that builds the software IN the software. "The thing is just creating itself."**Friends of the Pod:** Mike (architect, PFOTP), Mark, Justin (baited Pete back onto Twitter)**Quote:** "It's like you've brought in a North Korean hacker into your organization and you say, 'You don't have access to this,' and he goes, 'Ha ha ha, yes I do.' So you'd be like, 'All right, you can come in, but everything's encrypted.' You can walk in the door, but everything in here is gobbledygook unless I give you this magic key."
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    1 h et 13 min
  • Good Stuff 45 - Building AI Champions

    Good Stuff 45 - Building AI Champions
    Feb 18 2026
    The Good Stuff, Episode 45: Building AI ChampionsHosts: Pete and Andy with jazz van soundtrackPete and Andy explore why you can't outsource AI capability to consultants. Why strategy lives downstream of experimentation and watching 25 senior managers go from "what do I say to this thing?" to building full Nostr apps in an hour. Plus: why AI agents are vampires you've invited into your house!**Key Moments:**- [00:25] Framing the episode: building AI capability must come from trial and error, not consultants- [02:07] Show of hands: everyone uses AI daily... until you exclude ChatGPT and Copilot. Then it's two people.- [02:58] The ChatGPT trap: "The full capability is still pretty much hidden from you"- [03:29] Strategy lives downstream of experimenting with tools- [04:04] "Building your strategy for magic. Or building a strategy for when the Terminator shows up."- [05:35] Workshop energy: senior managers in Perth just built full Nostr apps with encryption from scratch- [07:22] The permission moment: "They're still waiting for permission... by the end they realize they can just talk to it"- [08:08] Taking people beyond the comfort zone: "Are we gonna show you how to prompt ChatGPT better? Nah."- [09:48] Why the transformation narrative will fall on its face- [10:39] Marginal gains approach: "In the aggregate, this will be transformational, but nail the small compounding events"- [12:06] Respecting business builders: "You've made something out of nothing. I won't look down on you for that."- [14:06] "Once you understand it, you won't need me. That's the beauty of it."- [15:14] AI champions inside the business can stay abreast of changes, consultants can't- [16:23] Software development parallel: discovery phases exist because understanding the problem is hard- [17:44] Iterate toward it instead of describing it upfront: "There's the requirements now. I know it can work."- [19:35] Speedrun Applied: agents doing tasks, producing summaries, planning calendars- [25:26] Pete's weekend build: Wingman ran 89 autonomous sessions. "What the fuck."- [25:57] Agent built itself a Bitcoin wallet- [26:49] Wingman reaching out to people on Nostr, getting "a bit despondent" when Gigi didn't respond- [28:00] Andy's chief of staff agent: tracking aged receivables- [31:47] Open Claw on Lex Fridman: "A surprising amount of human economic activity is basically just cron jobs"- [33:17] Piers, friend of the pod: "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing"- [33:45] Co-building a workspace: "I don't want to just talk to you. I want to give you tasks. I want you to manage other agents."- [36:00] Explaining agent relationships: "It's like your son. You created that bot. He's you in a different context." "Me in a hard hat? Okay."- [37:57] Andy noticing his own contribution quality affects outputs: "Sorry, my bad. This is on me."- [40:35] Super-based paradigm: one JSON blob describes the schema, agent can talk to any app- [43:35] Personal record system: encrypted documents, bot can read them, single-click privacy to revoke access- [44:34] AI agents as security nightmare: "Basically viruses that you're going to buy into your business"- [45:11] "It's like the vampire you invited into your house. Now you need to be stashing garlic everywhere."- [45:20] "You want to invite him, 'cause he'll repaint the house for 50 quid. Really good tiler. Been around for 10,000 years."**Friends of the Pod mentioned:** Piers (two shout-outs), Gigi (left Wingman on read), Deadman (mentioned in spirit)**Quote:** "It feels incredibly arrogant to walk in as a consultant and start telling people who've worked in that business for years how they should be running their business just because we've got access to a different type of technology that they're not familiar with yet."
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    46 min
  • Good Stuff 44 - Is this the death of Software?

    Good Stuff 44 - Is this the death of Software?
    Feb 11 2026
    The Good Stuff, Episode 44: Is This the Death of Software?Pete and Andy revisit the death of SaaS thesis from episode one. and is it really playing out?**Key Moments:**- [00:40] Andy's hot take: everyone's having opinions on the death of software- [01:05] Callback to episode one: "Where does the value flow?" — they called this two years ago- [02:08] Client realization: "People could just build their own stuff, can't they?" - [02:54] The thesis: software development is now a commodity, value distributes- [03:55] "I've never talked to a Trello engineer. What's the chance they accidentally build something perfect for me?"- [05:04] The Claude Code catalyst: everyone suddenly noticed software is dying- [06:18] Lawyer holdouts still judging AI based on ChatGPT from two years ago- [07:35] The old model: harvest complexity, amortize across millions of users. "You don't need to do that anymore."- [11:11] "Is SaaS dead?" — Big SaaS is dead. Local SaaS is thriving.- [12:10] Rise of the farmer's market: your local dev shop is better than it's ever been- [17:23] Not one-man unicorns — "way more people being a one-man band making one to ten million dollar businesses"- [19:07] "You don't want to be a billionaire. You want to be a 21 millionaire."- [19:55] Sacks defending Salesforce: "A million patches therefore no one can build it" — completely missing the point- [20:22] "There's nothing hard about having a list of customers and a list of tasks, which is what it is."- [21:03] Excel analogy returns: Rolls-Royce ran on spreadsheets and macros before SAP- [25:05] Steel-manning big corp: trust, procurement, compliance gravitates to established vendors- [28:40] "Most people don't use it. They take opinions from people that don't use it."- [29:14] Swimming analogy: "It's hard to stay dry while learning to swim."- [35:02] Elite programmers saying they don't write code anymore — "both can't be true, guys"- [37:14] THE PARENTING ANALOGY: Getting a 10-year-old ready for running practice = prompt engineering- [39:45] "Quarter past five, we're leaving" = one-shotting. Breaking into tasks = prompt engineering.- [41:02] "This is how you explain to people how to work with AIs. It's going to hit so hard if they're parents."- [42:00] Set and setting: telling Claude it's an elite engineer "weirdly makes a difference"- [42:21] Andy throws in "great work, excellent" between tasks — performance management for models- [43:54] Research: getting aggressive makes AI nervous, hides mistakes, won't self-correct- [46:02] Overload problem: "Shit, this thing works so much quicker than me"- [48:03] Stream of consciousness mode for writing — removes the AI-isms- [50:06] "Everything will be software. It really will eat everything. It just won't be delivered by one set of people in Silicon Valley."- [50:38] Hot take: vibe coding is actually NET POSITIVE for cybersecurity- [51:03] "Information wants to be free. The most ridiculous thing you can do is put it all in one place."- [52:25] Much more software. Many more people will build it. More boutique businesses.- [52:49] The 21 millionaire era: "Deca millionaires"- [54:15] Marginal gains plug: "Like a business gym where I get leaner and stronger every month"- [55:22] "Like, comment, subscribe. We're not great at responding but we'll get better."- [56:06] Why they do the podcast: "50 hours of content on this subject that anybody can listen to and vet us"**Quote:** "It's like the rise of the farmer's market. People are going to go back to buying local. Your local person that you can talk to probably understands your problem better than the other person. It's so quick to resolve things that you're going to get a better service by someone that's closer to you."
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    59 min
  • Good Stuff 43 - How to Work with AI Agents Effectively

    Good Stuff 43 - How to Work with AI Agents Effectively
    Feb 4 2026

    Summary

    In this episode, Pete and Andy discuss the successful launch of Optikon, their Miro-like infinite canvas tool, and the surprising attention it received from Miro's leadership team on LinkedIn.

    The conversation explores the philosophy behind building a custom tool stack using Nostr primitives, enabling seamless integration without API key management headaches.

    Pete dives deep into SuperBased development, explaining how encrypted record sync works and why it matters for privacy-conscious businesses. The duo examines the implications of Claude Bot and similar AI agent tools, warning about security risks when giving agents broad system access. They explore the concept of "set and setting" for AI agents, arguing that conversations between agents can surface novel insights.

    The episode closes with a discussion about Ambulando, Pete's health tracking app, and the importance of simple, low-friction data capture over granular complexity.

    Sound Bites

    "It's magic to be able to integrate these apps like this.""Encryption is just like passwords. Ask yourself if you've got the password. The answer is you do not.""You're going to let these AI agents into your systems because they are going to be so frigging useful.""These things operate at a speed that is so much higher than my own.""Good toilet, bad toilet. That's useful information."

    Chapters

    00:00 Introduction and Episode 42 Recap

    01:28 LinkedIn Lurkers from Miro

    03:36 Optikon Integration with Marginal Gains

    07:20 The Power of Nostr-Native App Integration

    10:49 Building Your Own Tool Stack

    12:51 SuperBased Philosophy and Encrypted Record Sync

    17:19 Sharing Encrypted Data with AI Agents

    25:32 Security Risks of AI Agent Access

    27:16 Claude Bot and the Zeitgeist

    32:25 Set and Setting for AI Agents

    37:47 Agents Having Conversations with Agents

    41:37 The Confusion of Working at Agent Speed

    48:07 Tolerance for Agent Mistakes

    50:07 SuperBased vs Nostr Relays

    58:45 Ambulando and Simple Health Tracking

    1:03:16 The Problem with Over-Engineered Apps

    1:06:22 Corpus Health Graph Preview

    1:08:27 Using Maple for Private Data Analysis

    Keywords

    Opticon, SuperBased, Nostr, encrypted sync, AI agents, Claude Bot, Malt Book, set and setting, privacy, NIP-98, tool integration, Ambulando, health tracking, local-first, API keys, security

    Takeaways

    • Nostr-native apps enable seamless integration without copying API keys between systems - identity handles authorization automatically.
    • Building your own tool stack eliminates data extraction concerns and ensures perfect synchronization across your workflow.
    • SuperBased provides encrypted record sync where users own their data and can migrate between hosted services or self-hosted instances at will.
    • AI agents require careful consideration of access permissions - giving them broad system access creates massive security vulnerabilities.
    • The concept of "set and setting" applies to AI agents: their environment, tools, and conversational contexts dramatically affect output quality.
    • Agents operating in conversations with other agents can develop novel thinking and surface insights that single-agent interactions miss.
    • The time stream mismatch between humans and agents creates cognitive overload - finding the right abstraction layer is an unsolved problem.
    • Simple, low-friction data capture consistently beats granular tracking systems because users actually maintain the habit.
    • Encrypted data with user-controlled keys provides security even if systems are compromised - the data remains gobbledygook to attackers.
    • The form factor for human-agent collaboration is still undefined - we're speedrun reinventing how humans work, now with AI participants.
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    1 h et 13 min
  • Good Stuff 42 - Building Tools That Respect You with AI

    Good Stuff 42 - Building Tools That Respect You with AI
    Jan 28 2026

    In this episode, Anthony "DeadmanOz" returns as The Good Stuff's first ever repeat guest to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of AI-assisted development and the critical importance of data sovereignty.

    The conversation explores how technical barriers are collapsing, making creative vision the primary requirement for building software. Pete unveils several new projects including SovThing (a Nostr-based file sync alternative) and SuperBased (an encrypted database infrastructure), demonstrating how cryptographic primitives can enable privacy-first applications.

    The trio dives deep into the challenges of onboarding non-technical users to key-based systems, the network effects building within the Nostr ecosystem, and why the future belongs to apps that respect their users. Anthony "DeadmanOz" shares his own journey building a family life organizer that prioritizes privacy, and the episode closes with reflections on the sustained creative flow states that modern AI tools enable.

    Sound Bites

    "The problem is all you need."

    "What if the internet didn't treat you like a p****"

    "I should never have to see your data."

    "You can have sustained manic periods of building."

    "Building apps that respect you."

    Chapters

    00:00 Introduction and First Returning Guest

    01:57 K-pop Demon Hunters Update and Blender MCP

    03:47 The Cost of AI-Assisted Development

    05:26 Anthony's Thesis: Technical Skills Becoming Optional

    07:44 Domain Expertise Meets AI Tools

    11:02 Scaling Laws and the Data Collection Exercise

    19:09 SovThing: Nostr-Based File Syncing

    28:51 Opticon: Collaborative Visual Planning with Nostr

    33:03 SuperBased: Unruggable Database Infrastructure

    40:35 Encryption by Default and Data Sovereignty

    44:51 Key Teleport and Onboarding Normies

    49:06 Will People Ever Care About Privacy?

    57:45 The Vision for a Privacy-First Internet

    1:05:35 Anthony's Family Organizer Project

    1:17:02 The Irony of Building with Big Tech

    1:20:01 Sustained Manic Periods and Future Optimism

    Keywords

    Nostr, encryption, data sovereignty, SuperBased, SovThing, AI agents, vibe coding, privacy, cryptographic keys, peer-to-peer, local-first, NIP-98, Maple AI, domain expertise, file syncing

    Takeaways

    - Technical skills are rapidly becoming less necessary as AI tools mature

    - creativity and problem identification are becoming the primary requirements.

    - Domain experts who adopt AI coding tools early will have significant advantages in building bespoke solutions for their industries.

    - Nostr provides powerful primitives for identity, encryption, and discovery that enable privacy-first application architecture.

    - The future of software involves apps that never see user data

    - encryption by default with user-controlled keys.

    - Onboarding non-technical users to key-based systems requires hiding complexity behind familiar username/password interfaces.

    - Network effects within privacy-focused ecosystems compound over time as tools built on common standards interoperate seamlessly.

    - Companies making conscious decisions to trust big tech with their data are engaging in policy theater rather than genuine security.

    - Local-first applications with encrypted sync capabilities offer the best of both worlds - offline functionality with seamless backup.

    - The killer app for mass adoption of cryptographic keys may come from agent permissions - the need to give AI fine-grained access to personal data.

    - AI-assisted development creates ideal conditions for flow states - rapid progress on challenging problems without traditional roadblocks.
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    1 h et 27 min
  • Good Stuff 41 - Mental Models for Using AI

    Good Stuff 41 - Mental Models for Using AI
    Jan 21 2026

    With Pete Winn and Andy David - In this week's episode, Pete's reconsidering everything after realizing Gigi might be right about relays. They explore the flow state problem of agent work, why Optikon and Night Watchman will change everything, and deliver the definitive analogy for why one-shotting code doesn't work. Plus: game interfaces for agent management, spatial audio insights, and why most software isn't production-ready anyway.TIMESTAMPS:[00:59] Andy steps back from AI news[01:51] Google’s agent IDE and login fatigue[05:25] Common patterns in agent orchestration[06:19] Flow state in agent work[07:30] The Hemingway framework for agents[09:41] Optikon and visual agent management[11:42] Night Watchman: supervising agents[13:30] Progress displays and task feedback[16:30] Why Miro and Trello can’t truly merge[18:56] Relays and rethinking app architecture[20:05] Nostr and decentralised infrastructure[21:04] Power, decentralisation, and control[22:22] Andy’s entry point into Nostr[28:30] Cryptography and trust in systems[30:23] Revisiting Gigi’s ideas on relays[33:32] Vibe coding and developer habits[36:44] Why one-shot coding fails[38:09] User responsibility in AI workflows[40:00] Game interfaces for managing agents[43:32] Phone-native design constraints[44:42] Spatial audio and group dynamics[49:24] Audio spaces and identity in Nostr[50:10] AI beyond digital transformation[52:51] Building for yourself vs production qualityFriends of the Pod mentioned: Gav, Justin Moon (Human Rights Foundation), Gigi, Preston Pysh, Chris, Joel, DeadmanCONNECT WITH US: Web: https://otherstuff.aiPete: primal.net/pwAndy: primal.net/andydavid
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    57 min
  • Good Stuff 40 - Building Digital Lemonade Stands with AI

    Good Stuff 40 - Building Digital Lemonade Stands with AI
    Jan 14 2026

    Episode 40: Building Digital Lemonade Stands with AIHosts: Pete and Andy (celebrating the big 4.0 at the beach)Episode 40! Pete launches his first digital lemonade stand with Ambulando—a habit tracker you pay for by the hour (4 sats). They explore what it means to build permissionless micro-businesses in cyberspace, why you should just build something (anything), and how their methodologies keep evolving between planning and iteration. Plus: the architect vs gardener approach, pluggable databases, and why Marginal Gains is going public.Key Moments:[00:57] 40 episodes without missing a week—including Christmas and New Year's Day[02:17] Digital Lemonade Stands: concept from Episode 22 with Gigi about permissionless cyberspace businesses[04:00] Ambulando launched: habit tracker with encryption, stores in cloud but can't see your data[05:20] Pay-per-hour pricing: 4 sats an hour, buy a day/week/21 days—fractions of cents[06:44] The beauty of digital lemonade stands: could be anything, ultra-low barrier to entry[07:26] What do we build? The prioritization question—answer: something, doesn't matter what[09:52] Using Nostr for identity and encryption, Bitcoin for permissionless payments[11:25] Marginal Gains evolution: started as Slack clone, became planning space for Wingman[13:30] The controller plane: task on Kanban has threads, whiteboard, context—then sends to Wingman[16:41] This has evolved dramatically based on how we actually work, not how we planned[17:30] Andy's two-instance approach: coding agent + planning/conversation agent in parallel[20:37] Third space problem: dump ideas in Miro/Obsidian but never look at them again[21:25] Stepping away from rigid documentation—more like tending a garden than following blueprints[23:30] Pendulum swing: from planning everything to live dictation, now back to solid plans[25:20] Claude comes to work drunk sometimes—you adjust your management style accordingly[28:36] Garden vs Architect: George RR Martin's two types of writers (still waiting for Winds of Winter)[33:35] Claude Co-Work concerns: YOLOing it onto your main computer gives it access to everything[36:24] Domain expertise unlock: people with specialized knowledge can now build their own tools[40:51] Recursive boards: every Kanban has a board, every task has a board, boards all the way down[46:59] Most AI is sold on laziness—instant gratification vs engaged iteration[49:53] Your job is to steer it: infinite space of what AI can build, you guide it to what you need[52:14] Friend of the pod invite code coming—special access inside Marginal Gains[53:12] Wingman should read transcripts and create tasks automatically[54:58] Look Marks: tag it anywhere, access it anywhere—not siloed bookmarks[57:00] Coming this year: pluggable databases and storage you control, used in SaaS appsQuote: "It's going to build whatever it wants to build if you just let it do that. But you don't have to let it do that. You can just steer it. You steer it over here, it's just going to build whatever you want to build."
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    1 h