The Every Podcast

Subscribe to Every (free for 14 days): every.to/podcast-every-offer?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio&utm_campaign=companyagentepisode On this week's episode of The Every Podcast, Dan Shipper sits down with Willie Williams, Every's head of platform and one of the driving forces behind the Every Agent, which launched this week. They discuss how Every went from everyone running their own OpenClaw to relying on one shared company agent—and where they think personal agents belong in everyday life. Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Willie Williams on X: https://x.com/bigwilliestyle The Every Agent: https://every.to/agent?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast&utm_content=1006companyagent OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai Tend, Dan's open-source feed app: https://every.to/tend?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast&utm_content=1006companyagent Every’s Vibe Check on Dots: https://every.to/vibe-check/vibe-check-dots-always-on-agents-in-chatgpt?utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=podcast&utm_content=1006companyagent Dot from OpenAI: https://openai.com/index/introducing-dots/ 0:00 Introduction 5:58 How OpenClaw spread through Every 11:13 Why everyone's personal agents eventually died 14:51 The difference between building for builders and building for operators 16:20 Why work will run on company agents while personal agents will stay personal 19:56 How engineering management has changed in the age of AI 21:43 Using an AI-powered feed to see everything happening across a product launch 23:53 Why Willie's token usage fell off a cliff 29:05 The benefit of having separate AI coaches for each part of your life 31:45 How Every is building its agent to surface information unprompted

Sam Altman's Dot, OpenAI's new always-on agent, gave him back the most productive part of his day. The OpenAI CEO would lose his early mornings—his window of "maximum creativity"—to whatever fire needed putting out. Now, his Dot triages those issues and flags only what's truly urgent. It's also gotten him building again: In spare moments, he gives his Dot ideas for a feature, and his Dot builds five or six versions for him to review. On the first episode of The Every Podcast (formerly AI & I), Dan Shipper interviews Altman at OpenAI's DevDay. They discuss how Altman uses his Dot to protect his time, why he only prompts on Ultrafast, and his belief that AI will spark a new Renaissance. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Go to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off your first year. To hear more from Dan Shipper: • Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe • Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Chapters: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:00:55 Why AI hasn’t replaced developers 00:04:45 OpenAI’s platform bet on the rise of small-team companies 00:05:45 Why the AI era is more “Renaissance” than “Industrial Revolution” 00:07:40 How Sam’s Dot, OpenAI’s always-on AI agent, gave him back his mornings 00:12:00 Sam’s process for building new features with his Dot 00:16:00 Inside OpenAI’s “live documents” that agents and humans can build together 00:20:55 What bring-your-own-subscription changes for app developers 00:24:00 Why “OpenAI just killed X startup” never comes true 00:27:55 Sam’s life on Ultrafast and the push to make speed as cheap as intelligence Links to resources mentioned in the episode: • Sam Altman on X: https://x.com/sama • Codex: https://openai.com/codex • Space: https://help.openai.com/en/articles/20001549-getting-started-with-space-in-chatgpt • Every's Vibe Check on Dots: https://every.to/vibe-check/vibe-check-dots-always-on-agents-in-chatgpt?utm_source=podcast • Every's Vibe Check on OpenAI DevDay 2026: https://every.to/vibe-check/vibe-check-openai-devday-2026?utm_source=podcast

Two years ago, Katie Parrott was laid off from a crypto firm and couldn’t afford a career coach—so she turned to a $20-a-month ChatGPT subscription instead. The Every staff writer’s habit of feeding AI good context eventually became compound writing, a codified system for brainstorming, drafting, and editing with AI. Today, that system is a plugin any writer can use. On this week’s AI & I, Natalia Quintero talks with Katie about turning good ingredients into good writing, borrowing the taste of writers she admires, and why AI helped her fall back in love with the page. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! To hear more from Natalia Quintero: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow her on X: @NataliaZarina Go to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off your first year. Timestamps: 0:00 Start 0:49 Introduction 1:21 How Katie went from being laid off to using ChatGPT as a career coach 8:06 Turning AI into a “content agency of one” 10:59 Building the context files and style guides that make AI outputs useful 14:15 What makes a Claude project actually work 21:18 How AI helped with a mental health crisis and “computer errands” 27:03 Katie’s career coach, now a fully autonomous Codex project 32:27 What compounding means, and building the Compound Writing plugin 38:00 Borrowing Vonnegut, Hitchcock, and Sorkin as AI editing skills 44:49 Katie’s thesis: education and access will matter more than ever Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Katie Parrott on X: @kplikethebird Compound writing plugin: https://github.com/EveryInc/compound-writing⁠ Compound engineering plugin (Kieran Klassen): github.com/EveryInc/compound-engineering-plugin Parrott’s companion piece on compound writing: https://every.to/guides/compound-writing Parrott, “I Hired ChatGPT as My Career Coach”: every.to/working-overtime/i-hired-chatgpt-as-my-career-coach Parrott, “AI Turned Me Into a Content Agency of One”: every.to/working-overtime/ai-turned-me-into-a-content-agency-of-one

Will England is the CEO of Walleye Capital, a hedge fund managing nearly $10 billion in assets. An engineer by training with a math background from Oxford, he has spent his career at the intersection of machines and markets—and has made AI fluency mandatory for all 400 employees. England believes refusing to use AI is like refusing to use the internet in 1995 because it wasn’t perfect. His use of AI is public and effusive, including in a firm-wide email that opened with “I used ChatGPT to write this email. You should be using it, too, and be proud of it.” AI informs how Walleye drafts memos and selects stocks. On Every’s AI & I, Dan Shipper spoke with England about why he’s betting his entire organization on AI, why “results are what matter” more than blood, sweat, and tears, and what the American frontier can teach us about leading through technological change. Like, subscribe, comment, and share! To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow Dan Shipper on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Go to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off your first year. Timestamps: 0:00 Start 0:51 Introduction 3:25 What pushed Will to go all in on AI 15:15 Inside the ‘AI-first’ memo Will shared at Walleye 17:02 Why you shouldn’t be afraid of using AI for work 31:25 How Will uses LLMs to sharpen his thinking 35:57 Walleye’s approach to using AI to reduce risk 39:35 What history can teach us about leading through change 57:10 Will’s first principles for making better decisions 59:23 Why Will journals every day—and how AI makes it easier Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Will England/Walleye Capital: https://walleyecapital.com/bio/will-england Every’s AI tools—Monologue, Cora, Spiral, and Sparkle: https://every.to/studio Every’s AI consulting: https://every.to/consulting

LLMs are a new medium for storytelling. That’s according to the creators of Portola, the company behind Tolan: an embodied AI companion that lives on its own planet and chats to you with a distinct personality. In 2025, Portola's founder and CEO Quinten Farmer and Head of Story Eliot Peper joined Dan Shipper to explain how they’re building this new medium from scratch. Their aim is to help users go from overwhelmed to grounded through conversations with Tolan that feel personal and spontaneous, not scripted. On this week’s AI & I, Dan revisits his conversation with Quinten and Eliot. They discuss why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces, how Portola designs AI personalities users will click with, and why character-driven AI could become a new computing interface. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Go to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off your first year. Timestamps: 00:01:30 - Introduction 00:04:07 - Talking to the Portola CEO's Tolan, Clarence 00:09:11 - How Portola went from building software for kids to AI companions 00:23:40 - Why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces 00:29:54 - Tolans don't use scripted prompts—they're taught to improvise 00:37:23 - How to know which AI personalities your users will click with 00:42:27 - Developing the character traits of an AI companion 00:49:48 - What does it mean to build technology that makes us flourish 01:01:10 - How Portola evaluates whether Tolans are resonating with users 01:11:01 - Inside Portola's viral growth strategy