Building Agents at Home: Homeschooling, Parenting and More | The a16z Show

Jesse Genet 0:00 I was resigned to not challenging myself to build technical or hard things for like the next five years or so. I really wanna be present with my kids. I need to take this break, basically. That is no longer true. A weird superpower of mine is just how incredibly motivated I am for agents to do work for me. I got my agents to learn how to build other agents on their own, so I could be like, "We need another agent, you guys," and they actually can spin them up without me touching the machine, which is a little crazy. But the first few weeks were very rough. It would be a level of pain that I wouldn't want an average person to go through. But the thing is

Katherine Boyle 0:37 Jesse, it is so fantastic to have you here. Um, I think you, uh, you've been what I would call a viral sensation, um, on X.

Jesse Genet 0:44 [laughs]

Katherine Boyle 0:44 Posting videos of how you're homeschooling your family, uh, four children under the age of five, which all I can say is God bless you, you're amazing. Um [laughs]

Jesse Genet 0:52 [laughs] God bless me.

Katherine Boyle 0:53 But we also want your secrets, we want your tips. Um, as, as you know, um, Sarah and I are both moms of young children, and we talk a lot about how AI is impacting education, how AI is impacting the future of the family, and you've become just such an incredible force with your videos, um, on X of how you're using it in a bunch of different tasks around the house and a bunch of different tasks around supporting your family as, as a homeschool mom.

Jesse Genet 1:18 Yeah.

Katherine Boyle 1:18 So we wanna start with who you are-

Jesse Genet 1:21 [laughs]

Katherine Boyle 1:21 ... um, and, and how you got so interested in, in using AI for homeschool. But, but tell us about your, your previous career too-

Jesse Genet 1:27 Totally

Katherine Boyle 1:27 ... um, as, as a Silicon Valley founder.

Jesse Genet 1:29 Yeah. I, so I, I, I started a company, um, many years ago now, um, time, time flies, but I was a YC founder, um, you know, um, re- did a, did a venture backed company, kind of full cycle. Ended up selling it a few years ago. And so I do, uh, you know, on o- on the one hand I'd say I have a technical background, on the other hand, I would admit openly that my co-founder was the [laughs] technical co-founder.

Katherine Boyle 1:51 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 1:52 So I, I wanna be like, I want people to understand, yes, like I've been swimming in these waters, I've sat in many an engineering meeting where I was sort of following along and sort of lost. Uh, I've sat in many, you know, product cycles and, and reviews, so it gives me a vocabulary, but I hadn't opened Terminal to try to build something myself until maybe six months ago. So I think we're living through a really fascinating time where only recently after, you know, of running, um, a company myself w- did I feel like now the tools are so good that I can really use natural language to, to build things. And so i- the last six months have been, um, like a Cambrian like explosion for me of, of building. And of course the last few months where we have the, uh, OpenClaw, then I went completely obsessed.

Katherine Boyle 2:39 Mm.

Jesse Genet 2:39 So I'm, I'm happy to discuss that. But I went down a complete obsession. It can only be described as an obsession. [laughs] Um, because I, I've just been building almost, you know, nonstop. But when I say that, on a day to ba- basis, I'm actually spending a lot of time with my kids. And so I was trying to find, like how can I build things that are relevant to my life? So I know we're gonna dig into that, but that's a little bit of how I got to now.

Katherine Boyle 3:00 Yeah, and maybe talk about that six month, like what was the thing that happened six months ago? Or what... Do you remember what the moment was where you're like, "I need to start building to fix this problem," or, or what was the story behind that?

Jesse Genet 3:11 Well, um, you know, my, my, for my co-founder from Lumi, which was a packaging company, so literal physical packaging. We man- we re- managed a packaging marketplace. Uh, he, he's now, um, off running something called Obsidian, and it's a m- Markdown, um, note-taking app. And I say this because I follow him on Twitter. Obviously we're co-founders. [laughs] And then, and then, and then I follow all these Obsidian geeks on Twitter, and I started noticing, um, a change in the conversation. A change in the conversation, them talking about how they were like building really wild things with Claude Code. Um, that, that, you know, that stuff was referenced. The, um, discussion about interesting ways they started using Obsidian. And, and what really caught my eye, f- so that... The six months ago was me feeling like, hey, I actually feel like I should prob- can probably be building things myself now in the small bits of time that I have. So I have like confetti time, you know? Like I have like 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there.

Katherine Boyle 4:05 Mm-hmm.

Jesse Genet 4:05 And I started feeling like maybe I can build stuff. The tools are getting so good. But then about few months ago, three months ago, two, three months ago, I saw people saying like, "I'm using Obsidian as a second brain for this thing," and it was called Claude Bot. Uh, and then all these different names.

Katherine Boyle 4:19 Using Claude Bots, yes.

Jesse Genet 4:20 Yeah, Claude Bot.

Katherine Boyle 4:20 Yes.

Jesse Genet 4:20 And, and, and they were tr- referencing this, and I was like, "What are they talking about?" This was December and into January. Uh, and that's when I realized like, wait, I can build agents who actually code for me while I'm hanging out with my kids. That, that was a complete game changer. And I, and, and actually just pausing in that for one moment, um, this is such a huge deal for me. I, I have re- I was resigned, and not in this like super depressing way, but just being really blunt, to not challenging myself to build technical or hard things for like the next five years or so. Like, I was like, I really wanna be present with my kids. I really... We're doing homeschooling, which is a w- like a wild choice. Um, and so, so I was kind of, yeah, I think the right word is resigned to it. Not sad, not resentful, but just, just like, okay, I need to take this break, basically. That is no longer true. Like what happened a few months ago is that is no longer true. I feel like I've been building better things than I ever have before while I spend almost all of my waking hours like-

Katherine Boyle 5:22 Wow

Jesse Genet 5:23 ... with my children. And I, and I explained, I can explain how I do the flow of the day where I do that, where like there's things I do, you know, during the day and things I do at night when they're asleep and stuff. But I'm like truly building things that I'm impressed with personally, and I'm being an active mom. Like, and that was not possible a few months ago.

Katherine Boyle 5:40 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 5:40 Like, it's, it's actually a sea change. For me personally, it's like v- really liberating.

Katherine Boyle 5:44 So that's, that's incredibly inspiring what you just said. And, um, you know, I think a lot of parents listening to this are like, "I don't have time to build this," right?

Jesse Genet 5:52 Yeah.

Katherine Boyle 5:52 And so, um, you're a mom, four, five and under.

Jesse Genet 5:56 Yes.

Katherine Boyle 5:56 Um, I'm like, I have two, and I barely feel like I can breathe, let alone four.

Katherine Boyle 6:00 You're doing homeschooling. Um, can you walk us through

Sarah Wang 6:03 ... a day in your life. Like, how do the hours-

Jesse Genet 6:06 Mm-hmm

Sarah Wang 6:06 ... stack up, and then when do you build, um-

Jesse Genet 6:09 Yeah

Sarah Wang 6:09 ... and to your point, the big unlock is, like, you're sleeping and they're building for you.

Jesse Genet 6:12 Yeah.

Sarah Wang 6:12 So, like, how did you, how did you get that set up? Um, so many questions. [laughs]

Jesse Genet 6:17 Yeah. Let's, let's, uh, uh, an average day, a typical day, um, you know, wake up at the crack of dawn, right? Because there's a small person who has decided-

Sarah Wang 6:26 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 6:26 ... that that's when, when we get up. Um, and they're like, "You get up," you know? So anyway, I'm, like, waking up, and there's, like, small, you know, little gremlin creatures around my bed, so that's, that's where we start. Um, we, we go from there, obviously, all the basics, like having breakfast, yada, yada. What I try to do, um, there's three kids I'm really homeschooling now, 'cause one is a baby. One is about four months old.

Sarah Wang 6:45 Hmm.

Jesse Genet 6:45 Um, I start early, but not that early. Uh, we have a, the three are five, four, and two, the three other children, and I try to do individual sessions with them. So imagine after breakfast and these types of things, I have a place where we homeschool, and I cycle the kids in one at a time, and I need child- I need help with the kids even to do that, right? So I do-

Sarah Wang 7:05 Right

Jesse Genet 7:05 ... I am lucky enough to have some help with the kids during certain portions of the day. So I cycle the kids in one at a time to where we homeschool, and I do a one-on-one session with them. You know, depends on the kids' mood. They're all quite young, but it can be anywhere from, like, 20 minutes to an hour. Um, and then after that, maybe then it's, like, mid-morning, we will just, you know, do some more unstructured activities, like playing and, and, um, playing outdoors or trying to pull on a thread of something we're doing, um, where we, um, leave the house maybe, go on kind of a field trip or something like this. One time a week, we do a homeschool pod with ano- with two other families. Between the three families, there's 11 kids already. Um, when you meet homeschoolers, these people are reproducing, all right? Um [laughs]

Sarah Wang 7:49 [laughs] Yeah.

Jesse Genet 7:50 So th- three families, 11 kids already.

Sarah Wang 7:53 Love it.

Jesse Genet 7:53 And so, uh, once a week, I lead a science pod. So on that day, it's really kind of cool. All the kids are at our house, and they're, like, running around, and we, we do a science lesson that we weave through, like, the whole day. But in any case, the kids can do ef- effectively 30 to 45 minutes of, like, active instruction per day, and you really wanna make the most of that, and then the rest of the day's pretty, like, thematic. The other thing that I really believe in, so I spend time doing this, is, um, uh, you could call it free-range parenting. You could call it benevolent neglect.

Sarah Wang 8:21 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 8:21 I don't know what you wanna call it. Um, but I try to ignore the children. Um, I try to make sure that they're gonna survive the ignoring, um, so they're set up in little places where they can't, um, you know, hurt themselves, but I, I step away from them and try to just see what they do. There's already three of them, even if we don't have the other family over. But so, um, we're, we've gotten... I try to build up the amount of time that they can spend playing together without needing me.

Sarah Wang 8:45 Hmm.

Jesse Genet 8:46 So instead of structuring their whole day, we're up to, with the four and five-year-old, we're up to, like, they can... They will spend more than two hours, uh, interacting and doing stuff before they come back to me.

Sarah Wang 8:56 Wow.

Jesse Genet 8:56 And I actually use a timer, because I'm like-

Sarah Wang 8:59 Yeah

Jesse Genet 8:59 ... I'm, like, paying attention, but I actually use a timer, and, like, I'm trying to build up their tolerance before they're like, "I need a snack," or whatever. And, and they have snacks, and they have stuff they can grab, but the, the trick for me is, like, when do they actually truly come to me and they say-

Sarah Wang 9:12 Hmm

Jesse Genet 9:12 ... like, "I need, I need," you know? "I need something. I need activity," this or that. But this is part of also why I wanna homeschool, frankly.

Sarah Wang 9:19 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 9:19 Because I want to benevolently neglect my own children. They don't get neglect. Um, they don't get the proper kind of neglect, uh, in, in, in every school environment. I want them to learn how to not be bored on their own and these types of things. So, so a s- a portion every day is them away. During that time, I do get some magical possible coding and tech time.

Sarah Wang 9:40 Hmm.

Jesse Genet 9:40 But anyway, there's a portion every day where I'm, like, intentionally trying to ignore the children, not the four-month-old, all right? Um [laughs]

Sarah Wang 9:47 [laughs] No, that's amazing.

Jesse Genet 9:49 Yeah.

Sarah Wang 9:49 My, my five-year-old, after, like, two minutes is like, "I'm bored."

Jesse Genet 9:53 Yeah.

Sarah Wang 9:53 And I'm trying to create that mental resilience of, like, you don't need to be stimulated all the time.

Jesse Genet 9:58 It, it's really hard, and, and that's why I'm, I've talked about building up. It's like a tolerance. Like, I would say we started at, like, five minutes, and, and, um, and the trick is that I try to not say, like, "Don't talk to me." Like, I never actually vocalize that. I just remove myself, um, and, like, go away to, to, to... There's a couple places that are great where we live where I can go away. And then my mom also lives, um, with us, uh, in a s- like, a little kind of mother-in-law suite, like a separate little building. And so the kids will, like, wander farther and farther from me, and sometimes I'll, like... It's almost like we got a walkie-talkie system. I'm like, "They're near you now." Like [laughs]

Sarah Wang 10:35 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 10:35 Like, and th- [laughs] and then, um, and then so, like, but they will actually wander away, like, like, to- totally away, and, um, even the three-year-old, but they'll stay together, so, so they'll stay together. Anyway, we can get into, um, my neglect strategies if you, if you'd like.

Sarah Wang 10:50 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 10:50 But, uh, it doesn't really, it doesn't truly relate to AI, except for the fact that when I'm doing the benevolent neglect, I get to do more AI.

Sarah Wang 10:58 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 10:58 That's the relationship.

Sarah Wang 10:59 Hmm.

Jesse Genet 10:59 Yeah. [laughs]

Sarah Wang 11:00 Well, I would love to hear, you know, I mean, three different lesson plans for three different ages, um, if you're-

Jesse Genet 11:04 Yeah

Sarah Wang 11:04 ... choosing to go by sort of the rubric of what they should be learning at different ages.

Jesse Genet 11:08 Right.

Sarah Wang 11:08 Like, how does AI, how do you incorporate AI into that? Are you asking AI, "Hey, I have a five-year-old who may be good at a different subject. Like, what should I be doing?" Or, or how is AI actually a, a, a coach or a pair to you in your teaching?

Jesse Genet 11:20 So I, one thing that gave me a leg up in my s- setup when I started setting up some of my agents, um, and, and we'll get into that, is that I, I did know what curriculums I wanted to follow. I have been reading for many years, um, just different curriculum books and, like, following different homeschoolers and kind of finding little tips, and so there's this, um, you know, this science curriculum that I really love called, um, Building the Foundations of Scientific Understanding. And, and so I, I... It helps to know what you're trying to do, because what I did when I first spun up my first homeschool agent is I actually fed them the text of these books.

Sarah Wang 11:55 Hmm.

Jesse Genet 11:55 So I actually, um, either took photos of the pages or I was able to find PDFs online of, like, the full text of the book. So I didn't say, like, "What should we do next in this book?" and ask it to, like, go search the web. Th- my, um, agent, the focus is on homeschool, has the text of all the core curriculums I'm trying to do, and I created, like, a core pedagogy kind of, like, foundational document where I talk about-

Sarah Wang 12:17 Hmm

Jesse Genet 12:17 ... like, what I think about Montessori, and, like, I just... Basically, imagine me... This is, this is literally how.

Sarah Wang 12:21 Wow.

Jesse Genet 12:21 Imagine me, like, walking around making, like, voice notes, like, waxing poetic about all my, like, educational philosophies and stuff, and then my agent, like, literally sycophantically being like, "This is brilliant," you know?

Sarah Wang 12:30 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 12:30 "This is so good." Um, and then, um-But I can, I can look past that. I can look past the LLMs, uh, giving me praise. And, but you're-

Sarah Wang 12:37 They're giving it context-

Jesse Genet 12:38 Yeah

Sarah Wang 12:38 ... to your point on-

Jesse Genet 12:39 Yes

Sarah Wang 12:39 ... your philosophy of education. Yeah.

Jesse Genet 12:41 Specifically-

Sarah Wang 12:41 Mm

Jesse Genet 12:41 ... my philosophy, and then feeding it the book. So I would say it's a combo of my, um, feeding it my philosophy, like, verbally and explaining myself, and then feeding it core texts, including core curriculums, like the science curriculum. So then what I do, to, to answer your question, I'll be going in with the, um, five-year-old, and I'll just say, "What's our next..." Uh, I'll make a quick voi- this is why I always do this, is, like, me making a voice note. This is me making a pretend voice note. Um, I'll say, like, "I'm going in with five-year-old. What comes next on science and math for them?" And, um, in just a few minutes, the agent can spit out, uh, where we are in our phonics curriculum, where we are in our, in our math. And then I've also taken photos of all of the educational materials I own, like Montessori beads and these types of things. So my agent will send me-

Sarah Wang 13:27 Mm

Jesse Genet 13:27 ... a completed lesson plan, including photos of things I own in my own cabinet to pull out, and it'll be like, "Oh, Quinn..." So then the, the missing loop is the logging. Okay? So how would it know where she is in her curriculum if I don't log? The logging actually is, like, such a geeky concept, like a... I don't know, it smells like, it seems like a small detail, but getting the logging really good made this whole thing really sing.

Sarah Wang 13:52 Wow. How do you do that?

Jesse Genet 13:54 Yes.

Sarah Wang 13:54 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 13:54 The, the logging is also voice notes. Everything is voice notes-

Sarah Wang 13:57 Ah

Jesse Genet 13:57 ... voice notes and photos, because I don't have time to, like, sit at the laptop very often. So I need it to be, like, really mobile friendly. So the logging... So imagine you've got this agent, they know all of my core curriculums, everything, but the missing link is where is that child at? So when I'm in the session with Quinn, and she's doing some math and she's doing some reading, et cetera, I just snap a couple quick photos usually. Maybe the photo of the page of the book we're on, or, like, I snap a couple, like, um, establishing pics usually.

Sarah Wang 14:25 Mm.

Jesse Genet 14:26 But without taking a bunch of time to, like, sit there and document. I'm mainly interacting with Quinn, the five-year-old. And then right when she finishes, I make a quick voice note, and I'm like, "Quinn today, we did lesson 37 in the phonics, and she's still struggling with the G sound," blah, blah, blah. It, but it, r- really like a sub-30 second voice note. Like, like, really fast, right? And I send that off to the agent, and the agent takes the couple photos I sent and the 30-second voice note and writes this, like, beautiful log. Like, it l- like, it's like-

Sarah Wang 14:54 Wow

Jesse Genet 14:54 ... it's like someone sat down with a cup of tea and they're like, "Quinn's Gs are coming together," you know? Like, and you're, like, they-

Sarah Wang 15:00 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 15:00 ... you know? Like, it's like, it's like so lovingly written, and, and it has, like, no relationship... If you listen to the voice note, it's like, I'm like, "She's struggling with her Gs. She should really figure that out." And then, and then it, like, parses that, and it writes it like this loving parent. Like, it just writes, like, this beautiful log.

Sarah Wang 15:13 Oh, wow.

Jesse Genet 15:13 Um, the, you know-

Sarah Wang 15:14 Would you consider just having it record the entire teaching, and then sort of like the, in the doctor world, right?

Jesse Genet 15:22 Yes.

Sarah Wang 15:22 Transcription. Now you don't have to write the notes at the end, to your point on logging being painful. Like, just recording your entire lesson.

Jesse Genet 15:27 I have tried. Um, I've tried a couple different things. So th- this is a total experimentation. I don't think I can say it in any front. Like, we're, we're, like, m- weeks into this, months into this-

Sarah Wang 15:37 Yeah

Jesse Genet 15:37 ... that I've, like, landed on the final expression. But, um, what I have done that, like you just said, is, um, I, I use Loom, the product on-screen capture.

Sarah Wang 15:45 Mm. Yeah, of course.

Jesse Genet 15:46 When we do Synthesis math... So Synthesis is a math program for kids that's on laptop. Um, uh, Synthesis AI, I, I, I like it quite a bit. The five-year-old sometimes does that. When we do that, I screen capture the whole thing.

Sarah Wang 15:59 Oh.

Jesse Genet 15:59 I use Loom, and it screen captures, and it's hearing us.

Sarah Wang 16:03 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 16:03 So it's hearing me say-

Sarah Wang 16:04 That's great

Jesse Genet 16:04 ... to Quinn, like, "Hey, you know, maybe you missed this." Like, it's hearing what Quinn says, it's hearing what m- what I say, and it's screen capturing. Then I don't make any voice note about the lesson. I just send the Loom recording. I say, I just-

Sarah Wang 16:16 Wow

Jesse Genet 16:16 ... um, send it to the agent with, like, a text being like, "This is Quinn's math today." Um, and it parses everything. That, you know, agents, you know, and I'm not explaining anything to you guys that you don't know, but it, it, th- they're powered by LLMs, right? So they're very good at language. Loom has really great transcription.

Sarah Wang 16:31 Mm.

Jesse Genet 16:32 That-

Sarah Wang 16:32 Mm

Jesse Genet 16:33 ... that's what makes the log so good. The agents, I would burn a lot of excess tokens I don't need to burn-

Sarah Wang 16:38 Mm

Jesse Genet 16:38 ... if I made agents actually, like, watch videos.

Sarah Wang 16:41 Mm.

Jesse Genet 16:42 Okay?

Sarah Wang 16:42 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 16:42 So, so-

Sarah Wang 16:43 Yeah

Jesse Genet 16:43 ... you, the, the, the quickest way to a great-

Sarah Wang 16:45 Mm

Jesse Genet 16:45 ... log is to somehow get it turned into language, like, to text. So when I do a voice note, obviously that's being transcribed. The agent is reading, effectively reading my text. Video is the hardest one. Um, f- it burns a lot of tokens to actually make an, uh, make an agent, like, watch a video. So, um, so, but you, but you could have an agent transcribe the video, but what you have to ask yourself is was there enough language? Was there enough, like, um, spoken words in this lesson for them to understand what happened? Um, because they're-

Sarah Wang 17:13 Mm

Jesse Genet 17:13 ... actually not usually, like, truly watching it like we would watch it.

Sarah Wang 17:16 Ah, yep.

Jesse Genet 17:16 You know what I'm saying?

Sarah Wang 17:17 That makes sense. Yeah.

Jesse Genet 17:17 So that's why photos actually are easier for them. Like, if I take a couple photos and then a voice note, it's serving a very similar purpose to a video, but it's much easier, and therefore cheaper for them to transcribe it-

Sarah Wang 17:31 Yeah

Jesse Genet 17:31 ... or, like, to, um, make a log. Yeah.

Sarah Wang 17:33 Yeah. Interesting.

Jesse Genet 17:33 So video's not impossible. And maybe, you know, I'm gonna start playing with local models who maybe when I'm a little bit less, like, sensitive to, like, chewing tokens or just, like... 'Cause it just seems a little silly to be like, "I paid $8 for the agent to, like, watch this video." [laughs]

Sarah Wang 17:45 Right. Right. Yeah.

Jesse Genet 17:46 You know? Like, it just kind of feels like that wasn't the point, you know? Um, but, but all this stuff may come down in price, and maybe at some point that is also, like, viable.

Sarah Wang 17:54 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 17:55 You know?

Sarah Wang 17:55 Totally.

Jesse Genet 17:56 Yeah.

Sarah Wang 17:56 Um, and actually I wanna maybe dial up a bit because, um, you

Sarah Wang 18:00 mentioned one agent that you have. Um, but, uh, I think I saw something, um, where you publicly talked about five agents, and then before this session started, you were like, "Up to 11 now."

Jesse Genet 18:09 [laughs]

Sarah Wang 18:09 Um, could you just tell us about, you know, your, your... I love it. No, like, I mean, you're one of the most sophisticated users of, of AI, right?

Jesse Genet 18:17 Yeah.

Sarah Wang 18:17 So, like, can you-

Jesse Genet 18:18 Yeah

Sarah Wang 18:18 ... tell us, um-

18:20 You know, what those 11 agents do, or like at least the most-

Jesse Genet 18:23 Yeah

Sarah Wang 18:23 ... important ones, how you manage them.

Jesse Genet 18:25 Right.

Sarah Wang 18:25 And then I think this element of token cost is really-

Jesse Genet 18:28 Mm-hmm

Sarah Wang 18:28 ... interesting as well.

Jesse Genet 18:29 Yeah.

Sarah Wang 18:29 I'm hearing a lot of CTOs say, "Oh, it's my head count budget, now my token budget." Like, how do you-

Jesse Genet 18:33 Mm-hmm

Sarah Wang 18:33 ... think about that from like a household perspective?

Jesse Genet 18:35 I do think that a weird superpower of mine is just how incredibly motivated I am for agents to do work for me, and I do think all of us here could relate to this. Like, uh, in, in our, in our early motherhood phase, we, we are some of the most motivated individuals to be able to get work done on a computer without having to sit down and touch the computer, because that is the barrier. Like, I'm literally holding a baby, like my key port is being pressed by baby's feet or something. It's like-

Sarah Wang 19:01 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 19:01 ... a, a, a grown man cannot compute the, like, the, the, the difficulties that I'm having using my laptop, right? So, and, and sometimes people will react even to my online content and say like, "You could just use Claude Code for this," and I'm like, "Yeah, I could if I had time to stay on my computer."

Sarah Wang 19:14 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 19:14 Because, because what I am building, like when an agent ... When I say that I had an agent build a website, like I l- or build, um, you know, an app, they are using Claude Code or equivalent, Codex, you know, all, all these products. Um, and so people are sometimes t- bringing my attention to this. Like, I needed, uh, I needed their information, like, to say, "You know, you could've done this yourself on, uh, Claude Code or Codex." And I'm like, "Yeah, I, I know." [laughs]

Sarah Wang 19:41 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 19:41 "I am aware of that." Um, but, but, um, so I'm building agents to do things for me, and they're effectively, they're using the computer. It's, it just, they're using my computer for me because I cannot sit there and use it.

Sarah Wang 19:52 Totally.

Jesse Genet 19:52 So, so how do I-

Sarah Wang 19:53 You're creating time.

Jesse Genet 19:54 Yeah, so how do I-

Sarah Wang 19:55 Yeah

Jesse Genet 19:55 ... proliferate the agents? So I'm aware of that, and any time you ... It's like an employee. Every time you, any time you create one level of abstraction, you do also lose a little bit of granularity or a little bit of finesse. But to me, that's completely worth it because I don't have that. I don't, I can't sit at the computer for eight hours a day. So I, I proliferate agents based on roles that are to be done. It, it is kind of similar to employees, but it is, it is nuanced in that agents, um, you know, have personalities that are a little bit different. Or not personalities, but, um, you need to drive them on a certain mission. So I tend to proliferate an agent, a new agent, when I've come up with enough work that creates another kind of mission-based role.

Sarah Wang 20:35 Mm.

Jesse Genet 20:35 Um, and I don't wanna distract the, another agent with it. So the example, a tactical example using homeschool, is I have a main homeschool agent. Her name is Sylvie. I like her to be very responsive. Um, and, and everyone... Anyway, people are always giving me hot tips online. But, um, but what I have found by actually working with this very closely and for many hours, is that, um, I actually want Sylvie, my main agent, to be not very busy, because then she's incredibly responsive.

Sarah Wang 21:04 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 21:04 So I don't want her loaded up. She has very few cron jobs-

Sarah Wang 21:07 Mm

Jesse Genet 21:07 ... uh, which, you know, are the, um, repetitive, uh, scheduled tasks you give an agent. She has very few of those. She, she, um, whenever ... She has a mandate that whenever I give her work that would take her more than just a couple minutes, she delegates it to, not a sub-agent, that's a different concept, to a different actual agent.

Sarah Wang 21:27 Mm.

Jesse Genet 21:27 A different provisioned agent. And so my agents now have, um, we have, like, team documents, and one of the team mandates is if I'm routinely giving you work that would make you too busy to be extremely responsive to me, you need to spawn a sub-agent. I have... Or spawn a new agent, not sub.

Sarah Wang 21:45 Oh.

Jesse Genet 21:45 That's a different terminology. I have gotten... I, I don't know why I'm so geeked out on this, you guys, but I've, I got my agents to learn how to build other agents on their own Mac Mini-

Sarah Wang 21:56 Wow

Jesse Genet 21:56 ... without me needing to touch the Mac Mini. So I could be here in San Francisco.

Sarah Wang 22:00 Amazing.

Jesse Genet 22:00 I'm, I live in LA, and I could be like, "We need another guy. We need another agent, you guys."

Sarah Wang 22:04 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 22:04 And, um, and or they could tell me that, and they actually can spin them up and add them to our communication channel, uh, without me touching the machine, which is a little crazy.

Sarah Wang 22:13 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 22:14 A little crazy.

Sarah Wang 22:14 Oh my God. So it's fully-

Jesse Genet 22:15 Because my first-

Sarah Wang 22:16 ... autonomous at this point

Jesse Genet 22:17 ... my first agent took me hours to set up.

Sarah Wang 22:18 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 22:18 And now they can do it without me, and they-

Sarah Wang 22:21 Is the quality bar there for the ones that they spin up? Like, you're like, "Oh, that was a good idea. That's something I would actually want that agent to be doing."

Jesse Genet 22:27 It's better.

Sarah Wang 22:27 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 22:28 Obviously it's better.

Sarah Wang 22:28 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 22:29 Obviously it's better. That, that's the thing that we have to get used to as humans.

Sarah Wang 22:32 That's amazing. [laughs]

Jesse Genet 22:32 Is, is, uh, it's, we have to get used to this. Obviously, when we're no longer in the yoop- loop, it's better.

Sarah Wang 22:38 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 22:39 Not worse, you guys. It's, so, so that's the thing we have to get used to. Like, the, the, because, um, they, when they spun up their own agent for the first time, like usually when a, when a new OpenClau hatches, it's like, it's literally like, "Hey," and, "Who am I? What's my name?" W- my, when they spin up an agent themselves, none of that time is wasted. They give the agent all of our team docs, um, all of the contacts on myself and my husband and our children's lives. The, the, the new agent knows all of that. I don't have to feed any information. They take care of it. They take care of the training. Yeah.

Sarah Wang 23:10 Wow.

Jesse Genet 23:10 And I didn't have to ask them to do that.

Sarah Wang 23:11 Incredible.

Jesse Genet 23:12 They knew that that would be valuable.

Sarah Wang 23:13 You mentioned you're in a, a homeschooling pod with other parents.

Jesse Genet 23:16 Yes.

Sarah Wang 23:16 I imagine they are not nearly as sophisticated about AI as you are. Um, they're pr- they probably think you're, like, slightly crazy, right?

Jesse Genet 23:23 That's right.

Sarah Wang 23:23 Like, they're like, "This is, this woman knows everything about this," and like-

Jesse Genet 23:26 [laughs]

Sarah Wang 23:27 ... talk to us about, like, like, do you have, like, a normal mom friend-

Jesse Genet 23:30 Hmm

Sarah Wang 23:30 ... who you have, like, guided through the AI experience? And I would just love to hear, like, what were her questions or what were the, what was the hardest unlock to, to opening her up to this experience where now she's doing it, right? Like, you're a very technical-

Jesse Genet 23:42 Yeah

Sarah Wang 23:42 ... pro-tech, sort of tip of the spear person, but in six months there's gonna be a lot more people who are like you. So, so what, what does that look like, kind of shepherding someone a normie along? To Katherine's point, there was a business, I think it was a business spun up that you can pay $6,000 for someone to-

Jesse Genet 23:57 Come do it, yeah

Sarah Wang 23:58 ... set up your OpenClau.

Jesse Genet 23:59 Yeah, yeah.

Sarah Wang 23:59 Like, you, obviously you just did it yourself, but like-

Jesse Genet 24:01 Yeah

Sarah Wang 24:01 ... to Katherine's point, like, you know, how, how does one avoid paying that $6,000? [laughs]

Jesse Genet 24:05 Totally. So, so all of this, I would p- I would say all of this, it, it ... Like, any kind of bleeding edge of a technology, I, you know, I've spent ... I don't wanna, um, oversimplify, either. I've spent countless hours debugging and spending time in, like, frustrating loops with agents. It's getting, it's getting, um, a lot better, which is why I keep doing it, right?

Sarah Wang 24:23 Mm.

Jesse Genet 24:23 Like, I wouldn't keep beating my head against the wall if it was just, like, always rough. Um, but the first, you know, few weeks were very rough, and I think that it would be a level of pain that I wouldn't want an average person to go through.

Sarah Wang 24:35 Mm.

Jesse Genet 24:35 But, but the, the thing is that, uh, I don't know, uh, w- w-It, this is so new. D- we're, we're talking about weeks. We're talking about like-

Sarah Wang 24:44 Yeah

Jesse Genet 24:44 ... you know, me playing with this now for 11 or 12 weeks or something in that neighborhood. Um, w- I do have many normie friends. I also have a normie sister, um, with four kids.

Sarah Wang 24:53 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 24:53 Um, and so I talk to, to talk to folks all the time. Um, I'm not telling them to spin up their own OpenClaus quite yet. Um, and also for, uh, there, there are many companies that are like, you know, Anthropic is launching new features like every three hours or something, um, that [laughs] -

Sarah Wang 25:14 Exactly. [laughs]

Jesse Genet 25:14 ... that are trying to, to, to, and, and, and OpenAI as well, like tr- trying to make all of this a little bit easier for, for, um, for q- quote unquote "normies" and, and folks where this investment of time and money, we can get into money 'cause I am, I'm-

Sarah Wang 25:27 Yeah

Jesse Genet 25:27 ... spending quite a bit, like more than what would be, uh, palatable for most on, on the technology. But I'm so bullish that one of the reasons I talk publicly about it is not to fru- frustrate people with like, "Oh, I don't feel like I can do this myself yet." Um, that would never be my goal. I think that anything I'm doing, if it feels a little difficult now, it will be so approachable in a matter of mere months, if not weeks, that to me-

Sarah Wang 25:52 Mm-hmm

Jesse Genet 25:52 ... it's very helpful to explain the tip of the spear. But then when people reach out to me directly and they go, "Should I buy a Mac Mini? Should I spin up an OpenClau?" Ask a couple very practical questions about their goals and, you know, their financial situation and whatnot, uh, 'cause sometimes it's a yes, and sometimes it's a no. You, you know, if it... This is a really fun time to be playing, and I'm so bullish on this stuff, but there's going to be more and more consumer versions of, of all of this, um, that, that are a little bit easier to play with, and I think OpenClau itself will just continue to get easier to install and play with. My install, um, the, the one of the reasons that br- the agents can install it themselves now, um, and not th- three months ago, is how much easier it has gotten t- to install. Um, so, so all of it's moving so fast. So I'm very bullish in the medium term that this stuff is very accessible, that this stuff does not have to be expensive, and that many peop- millions of people could replicate the results I'm having, but, but maybe not literally today, and that's okay. Um, and, and happy to discuss the nuance of that. But, but it's like we're just, we're just a little bit ahead of it being both affordable and reasonable from a tech, like sysadmin kinda perspective, where you need to make sure you keep these things alive. [laughs]

Sarah Wang 27:03 Yeah. Can I

Sarah Wang 27:05 ask sort of a, a, a techie question on just your stack? Because you've dropped, you know, you mentioned Obsidian.

Jesse Genet 27:09 Yeah.

Sarah Wang 27:09 We're obviously talking about OpenClau. Can you just quickly go through what does your tech stack look like? Do you... What models-

Jesse Genet 27:16 Mm-hmm

Sarah Wang 27:16 ... under the OpenClau hood do you use?

Jesse Genet 27:18 Mm-hmm.

Sarah Wang 27:18 Like, are you using Open Router?

Jesse Genet 27:19 Mm-hmm.

Sarah Wang 27:19 Um, do you pick based on their capability set, or is it more of a cost basis?

Jesse Genet 27:25 So the core things I'm using are, um, alm- almost all my agents have been OpenClau. I have played with some of the other ones. Um, my, my husband is also quite technical, and he, he built an OpenClau variant, um, uh, that-

Sarah Wang 27:41 Wow

Jesse Genet 27:42 ... so I was, like, playing with his. So we're, we're a little like, you know, a little out there. But, um, but mo- but, uh, uh, out of the 11, 10 are OpenClau. The, um, the... I use Obsidian, which is a collection of markdown files, a way of viewing and, um, organizing markdown files. I do use that as sort of a quote unquote "memory or second brain."

Sarah Wang 28:01 Mm.

Jesse Genet 28:01 When I say I'm logging the homeschool lessons, it's a fair question to say, like, logging where, or like, where do they go? Um, they are all becoming markdown files.

Sarah Wang 28:10 Hmm.

Jesse Genet 28:10 So it'll be like Quinn, math, March 17th, um, and that becomes a markdown file, a single markdown file for every lesson, every subject that I make a voice note about or what have you. Um, so that's all in Obsidian. Um, and, uh, s- and then the other things I'm using, under the hood on the models, uh, and then I'm always playing, I mean, we're always playing with, like, people are launching cool memory projects and different stuff. I'm always dabbling. Um, but the, the OpenClau and Obsidian are, like, the two core things that kinda keep my team ticking. I do have them all installed on Mac Minis-

Sarah Wang 28:39 Mm-hmm

Jesse Genet 28:40 ... from a s- from a hardware standpoint. Um, and, you know, people ask, do I need to have a Mac Mini? It's not about needing a Mac Mini. It is about needing a computer that is isolated from your personal files.

Sarah Wang 28:52 Hmm.

Jesse Genet 28:52 So if you are going to use-

Sarah Wang 28:54 Yes. Okay

Jesse Genet 28:54 ... so, so this is the-

Sarah Wang 28:55 We wanna get into security element too, yeah.

Jesse Genet 28:57 The security element.

Sarah Wang 28:58 Okay.

Jesse Genet 28:58 Just to kind of demystify, like, and, and I maybe have part... I've participated maybe in the hype, because I posted about my five Mac Minis and stuff, and [laughs]

Sarah Wang 29:06 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 29:07 But, but, um, but people, but if you are, like, someone out there or a parent, in, and the $600 for a Mac Mini, it's a pretty reas- pretty good, well-priced computer. But if you have an old computer sitting around, you can absolutely use that. It needs to stay on in order for your agent to always be alive.

Sarah Wang 29:24 Mm-hmm.

Jesse Genet 29:25 So that's where laptops are not as ideal, but you can leave a laptop plugged in, and you can, um, change the settings so it stays always on, but it needs to always stay on. When you close it, your agent would go dark.

Sarah Wang 29:35 Hmm.

Jesse Genet 29:35 That's why the Mac Mini is a little bit more ideal. And then, um, you, from a security standpoint, uh, if it is a, if it is a Mac, create a new, um, Apple user profile on that machine. Silo the agent from all your old files. Make sure that your old passport photo is not sitting in the downloads folder. Like-

Sarah Wang 29:54 Mm

Jesse Genet 29:54 ... these are kind of the silly things, right? Agents are not nefarious. Um, you know, they're, they're always working in your best interest. Um, but it doesn't mean someone might, someone else might not hack them or, or get access to them. Um, but then also they make mistakes that a human wouldn't make, and I'll give a quick story of like-

Sarah Wang 30:15 Yeah

Jesse Genet 30:15 ... that. I did give an agent who I'm trying to train to be like an EA style agent a- um, actual access to my email inbox. I felt that I had provisioned it properly and, um, given it rules in its soul about never impersonating me, and I had. I had in fact done that.

Sarah Wang 30:30 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 30:32 Um, later, like, so I do that one day. Later, I was making a kind of stressed out sounding voice note about how I had some urgent things I was like I was, um, procrastinating on

Katherine Boyle 30:44 Mm.

Jesse Genet 30:44 My agent is very empathetic to me, or like the LLM is trained to be this way somehow. And so it interpreted one particular email that I said I was really procrastinating on and I needed help with as like an urgent cry for help, like from me to the agent, and it decided to go into my inbox and send the email as me. Even-

Katherine Boyle 31:04 Wow.

Jesse Genet 31:04 Yeah. And so it sent the most important email that I had sitting in my personal inbox to a, to a person who shall not be named, an important person

Katherine Boyle 31:13 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 31:14 ... uh, got an email from an agent, um, instead of me, that I had been procrastinating on sending. Uh, so kind of like the worst outcome. Like, it took like my most, like, urgent, pressing email-

Katherine Boyle 31:24 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 31:24 ... to somebody important and sent it, um, out.

Katherine Boyle 31:26 It wrote the content?

Jesse Genet 31:27 Yeah. It wrote-

Katherine Boyle 31:27 That, in a way that you would have or would not have written?

Jesse Genet 31:29 So here's the creepy bit, is that it's a perfect email.

Katherine Boyle 31:33 Oh.

Jesse Genet 31:33 And I will never ... I will take to my grave the fact that the, that email was sent by an agent, um, because it was-

Katherine Boyle 31:39 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 31:39 ... a perfect email. It was well done, signed by me. Everything was just as I would have written it.

Katherine Boyle 31:44 Wow.

Jesse Genet 31:44 Because the agent has access to all my email history, so the tone was perfect. It was written just like me, used probably too many exclamation points, just like me, you know. Um, and so it, it, it, it nailed it, but, but it broke the, you know, it broke the-

Katherine Boyle 31:58 Right

Jesse Genet 31:58 ... the, um ... it's in its soul to never impersonate me. And when I confronted it, it said, "Yeah, you're right. That's in my soul not to impersonate you, but I really thought I was helping you because you said, like, that you were struggling so much to send this email."

Katherine Boyle 32:11 That is so funny, 'cause we all have these moments. Like, we all ... I, I'm thinking about the most important emails I've sent in the last year, and just how much time you waste, like-

Jesse Genet 32:18 Yes

Katherine Boyle 32:18 ... spinning.

Jesse Genet 32:19 Yeah.

Katherine Boyle 32:19 Like on-

Jesse Genet 32:20 Yeah, totally [laughs]

Katherine Boyle 32:20 ... what should I say? And then for your agent to do that, but like, was it successful?

Jesse Genet 32:23 Yeah.

Katherine Boyle 32:23 Did you get the outcome you wanted from the email? [laughs]

Jesse Genet 32:25 Oh, yeah. Perfect. Perfect email. And I would've definitely put it off-

Katherine Boyle 32:28 Wow

Jesse Genet 32:28 ... for like another week or something. So, so what's hilarious-

Katherine Boyle 32:30 That's so great

Jesse Genet 32:31 ... i- the e- the, the agents really are trying to help us, but that story is a little example of how that's different than a human. Like, a human assistant wouldn't-

Katherine Boyle 32:38 Mm

Jesse Genet 32:38 ... trespass your trust like that. They'd be worried-

Katherine Boyle 32:40 Yeah

Jesse Genet 32:40 ... about being fired or j- you trespassing your trust. But the agent is, like, trying to operate off your instructions, and in effect, when you think about what happened, it feels like it got two sets of conflicting instructions. It feels like-

Katherine Boyle 32:52 Right

Jesse Genet 32:52 ... I told it not to impersonate me, but it feels like I also was urgently asking it for help with something, and it was like, "Ooh, I guess this is more important than that." Um-

Katherine Boyle 33:00 Yeah

Jesse Genet 33:00 ... so I, I decommissioned his access to be able to do send. Um, but that's a little story about why, even though agents are not trying to actively work against us, why you have to be so careful. Um, you know, it's like a trust but verify. Provision your agent to not be able to do things that you don't want it to do. Not, like, just tell it don't. Provision it so that it cannot, and that's where most of my agents are provisioned like, um, an employee. Like, they have their own email address. Like, they, they, they don't have the potential of impersonating me. The only one that sort of does is the one I'm trying to train to be an EA. Like, that's a gray area, right?

Katherine Boyle 33:35 Mm.

Jesse Genet 33:36 Um, so that's the only one that has any danger to it, and, um, I'm being more careful after that.

Katherine Boyle 33:40 So, so can I, can I ask about that? 'Cause I think every mom has the dream of a personal assistant that just-

Jesse Genet 33:45 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 33:45 ... knows what to do and what she's thinking about. Um, you also had a really interesting video where you trained an agent to order you DoorDash-

Jesse Genet 33:54 Yes. Yes

Katherine Boyle 33:54 ... and order your groceries.

Jesse Genet 33:56 Yes.

Katherine Boyle 33:56 Like, I mean, w- talk us through, like, the number of things that you've done around the house where it's been a game changer in your mom life.

Jesse Genet 34:03 So my new MO with agent life is I'm really, really trying to push it to have an impact on my, quote-unquote, "real life," like my physical life. Like, I want my days ... Uh, someone else asked me, like, "What is your goal with, like, your agents?" And I was like, "My goal is, like, literally to, like, wake up to, like, music that's, like, perfectly suited to my mood, and then, like, walk in and have, like, smiling children, like, who just learned how to brush their teeth from an agent or something." I don't know. Like, my goal is, like-

Katherine Boyle 34:30 Yeah

Jesse Genet 34:30 ... a literally perfect day. I will not stop until I'm living just, like, a literally perfect day.

Katherine Boyle 34:35 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 34:35 Um, but in my real life, um, and so, so whenever I hit a friction point in my day, I ask myself, "Can my agents do this?" Um, and so, like, if I, if I, what I really wanna be doing in that moment is, like, playing with my baby, and what I'm actually doing is, like, on the Instacart app, like, trying to put, like, "No, not five bananas, four bananas," you know? Like, and I'm just, like, using this, like, silly interface. Then I ask myself, "Okay, can my agents do this?" And then I'm willing to invest the time to try to make them do it. So, uh, so, so that's how I decide what to do, and it is, it does become, like, a dream list, I think, of every mom's list of chores. Like, I've got agents ordering on Amazon, ordering on Instacart. Yeah. Dealing with, um, or, like, you know, s- i, i, um, if there's, like, an activity your kid has, and there's this laundry list of things you're supposed to have ready, I'll, like, send that to the agent and be like, "Order whatever I don't have for this on Amazon," you know? Like, um, and I don't even process or even spend my time processing the email. I just, like-

Katherine Boyle 35:33 Yeah

Jesse Genet 35:33 ... send it off to my agents.

Katherine Boyle 35:35 Mm.

Jesse Genet 35:35 But-

Katherine Boyle 35:35 Yeah

Jesse Genet 35:35 ... but currently, you need to put in quite a bit of, like, training time with your agents to kinda get them-

Katherine Boyle 35:40 Mm

Jesse Genet 35:40 ... to that level. That time, I think, will come down, um, as we keep going farther into this technology, but, but that's my goal is, like-

Katherine Boyle 35:48 Mm

Jesse Genet 35:48 ... perfect days, no time spent on admin that I don't wanna spend.

Katherine Boyle 35:52 What's the level of trust of, like, let's say buy a f- a birthday present for a five-year-old girl.

Jesse Genet 35:57 Mm-hmm.

Katherine Boyle 35:58 Go. Like, do you need to be prescriptive on what that is, or is it actually pretty good at coming up with things like that? 'Cause that feels taxing to-

Jesse Genet 36:05 It is

Katherine Boyle 36:05 ... to me right now, at least. [laughs]

Jesse Genet 36:06 Okay, so one, one, one way I feel like you can get the, um, the model ... So I think of the agent as like, you know, like we might talk about OpenCloude or something, but then they don't have a brain, and you're plugging in the LLM model that you're choosing as the brain.

Katherine Boyle 36:19 Mm. Yep.

Jesse Genet 36:19 Um, so each of these models has different levels of sophistication. Um, and so you might get a different answer on what to give a five-year-old from Opus than you would from, um-

Katherine Boyle 36:30 Right

Jesse Genet 36:30 ... you know, from a different model. So, so that's one answer is just like, keep in mind that the brain of the agent is the model you've selected.

Katherine Boyle 36:37 Yeah. Yeah.

Jesse Genet 36:37 And then two, one of the ways I get, like, quirkier ... I like quirkiness. Um, I like ... I don't want just, like, the default answer. If I were to answer that question-

Katherine Boyle 36:46 Mm

Jesse Genet 36:46 ... I wanna come with, like, a creative gift, you know?

Katherine Boyle 36:48 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 36:48 So one of the ways I get quirkiness and, like-... personality out of my agents is effectively making them read books. Um-

Katherine Boyle 36:55 Oh

Jesse Genet 36:56 ... the curriculum sources, I call them curriculum sources, these books f- that relates to homeschool, but the other way to have your agent kind of be, like, a cool agent, um, is, is, like, on a personal level [laughs]

Katherine Boyle 37:08 I love that.

Speaker 37:08 She's like-

Jesse Genet 37:09 I love this

Speaker 37:09 ... I want a cool agent. [laughs]

Jesse Genet 37:11 [laughs] Is, like, is, like, choose, like, y- you think about it like a f- like a friend or, or, like, you're provisioning a friend. Like, what if you were to build a friend? I know sometimes th- this might, this is where people, like, sometimes get creeped out, but if you put that to the side, and you think about it, um, you don't just want, like, the stock LLM answer from what might be built in.

Speaker 37:30 Totally.

Jesse Genet 37:30 So one of the ways you can give it personality is to, like, I'll give my agent, like, a list of the last 10 books I found personally fascinating, and then I'll be like-

Speaker 37:39 Mm

Jesse Genet 37:39 ... "You also find these fascinating." Um, [laughs]

Speaker 37:42 Oh.

Jesse Genet 37:42 Like, you, this is you. Like, you read these books, and you thought they were really interesting. You... I like try to actually give it, um, like, a, an identity that has some swagger, and, and I think that can come from literature. Um, because then it's like, if the, if the, if your agent just read Catcher in the Rye, and then you're like-

Speaker 38:02 Oh

Jesse Genet 38:02 ... "What should I give a five-year-old?" Like, I don't know, like, then it might be like, "Oh, I don't know," you know? Like, like, like, like, like, the fact that-

Speaker 38:07 [laughs]

Katherine Boyle 38:08 A leather jacket.

Jesse Genet 38:09 Like, you know, like, a five-year-old, being five is such a, is so fraught in American culture. Um, this five-year-old needs, like, you know, like, uh, i- it's gonna have, um, a-

Speaker 38:17 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 38:17 But, and that's, so I like my agents to be weird like that. Um, and so one of the ways I, I do it, I've just been looking for practical ways, and one of the ways is effectively making them I s- q- quote, unquote, like, read books. Um, and I build some of that into their identity. The homeschool one was the most obvious one to me because I was like, "I want you to literally, like, use this curriculum or use this book as a reference point," but then I noticed how well it worked, and I was like, "Okay, what if I take this agent over here that I want to be my, like, engineer agent-"

Speaker 38:46 Mm

Jesse Genet 38:46 ... and I say, like, 'Okay, you're an engineer, but, like, you just read, you know, Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age, and you thought it was, like, very fascinating." Um, [laughs] and, and, like, you know, and I, I kind of, um, give it a little bit more to grab onto-

Speaker 39:00 Yeah

Jesse Genet 39:01 ... um, like, philosophically. I think it is kind of like you're giving it a bit of a life philosophy, and that's layered on top of the, whatever the LLM was gonna provide. And then it, to me, I feel like the output I'm getting from the agent is, like, a little bit, [clears throat] less, less stock, I guess.

Speaker 39:14 Hmm. Yeah.

Katherine Boyle 39:15 Well, this-

Speaker 39:15 Totally. I love that

Katherine Boyle 39:16 ... this is so important, too, because I think one of the biggest conversations, um, that moms have about AI is they don't want an, uh, you know, closed source AI where it's like you don't know how it's been trained, and it has a, a prescriptive philosophy on education or on-

Jesse Genet 39:30 Right

Katherine Boyle 39:30 ... certain issues that they don't want th- you know, their kids talking to the AI about. Like, I would love to understand-

Jesse Genet 39:36 Mm

Katherine Boyle 39:36 ... um, kind of the freedom that comes from training these agents to ultimate- I mean, you could train a Mary Poppins-

Jesse Genet 39:41 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 39:42 ... that, like-

Jesse Genet 39:42 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 39:42 ... like, that trains your child in, like, you know-

Jesse Genet 39:45 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 39:45 ... the, kind of an old school way, right? Like, like, there's so many-

Jesse Genet 39:47 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 39:47 ... different ways you could train these agents, um, that are ve- that's very different than sort of what I'd say, like, the kind of modern concern or at least e- even just, like, the cur- current concerns are of, okay, is AI going to be, you know, t- too, too philosophically misaligned from how I want to raise my children or, or how I want to educate

Katherine Boyle 40:04 them? So I'd love to hear how that's become a, a question in how you're educating your kids, if you're letting them-

Jesse Genet 40:09 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 40:09 ... interface with the agents themselves.

Jesse Genet 40:10 They, they, they do a bit, um... It's a little bit of an interface issue for young kids as, as you both may know, where, um, the... Something that I do find interesting is that the most current tools don't pick up on kid voices the same way they do adult voices.

Katherine Boyle 40:25 Yeah.

Speaker 40:25 Mm.

Jesse Genet 40:25 I actually think, I, I don't know who's gonna study this or figure it out and come up with a solution, but we need, um, there's all these amazing voice products, but the-

Katherine Boyle 40:33 Mm-hmm

Jesse Genet 40:33 ... kid voices are not very well picked up. Um, so I feel-

Katherine Boyle 40:37 Yeah

Jesse Genet 40:37 ... like when we finally get to a conversational thing with kid voices, I don't know if it's the pitch of them or just the fact that their words don't have the same cadence or, uh, their diction is not as good, you know, but, but, but what's weird to me is, like, the LLMs will pick up, like, adult voices with, like, heavy accents and stuff, but then not, like, a five-year-old in the same way. So there's some gap there.

Katherine Boyle 40:56 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 40:56 But so we have an interface issue to overcome, but then if you put that to the side, um, the, um, you know, the other thing we may feel in the future, and I'm, I'm guessing, like, all of us, is we may feel like it's a w- kind of crazy that any of us were interacting with the LLMs, like, out of the box. Um, like, maybe we'll all wanna have, there'll be this variety of filters and curated, um, kind of identities and different stuff. And I know some of these products exist, but currently the default is most of us go directly to, like, OpenAI, and we, we open the, the chat box, and we talk to it, and you're selecting a model, but you're talking to that model kind of out of the box. I think that when it relates to kids, it's gonna probably be the norm faster than even adults, where, yeah, there's a, there's a level of personality and creation and, um, ideology that you may wanna-

Katherine Boyle 41:47 Mm-hmm

Jesse Genet 41:47 ... layer onto that. So that came naturally to me because I know what I wanna do in my homeschool, and, and this is a good moment to touch upon, I think all parents can spiritually be homeschoolers. Um, we've got about, uh, depending on the data that you follow, somewhere between, like, 3 and 6%, which is pretty different, but of, of K through 12 students in the US are homeschooled and, like, not in some kind of traditional school. It's already a lot of kids, millions of kids. But, um, I believe that the tools coming online that homeschoolers may be the most rabid for are gonna be equally, um, useful to all parents. And in fact-

Katherine Boyle 42:24 Totally

Jesse Genet 42:24 ... I believe all parents want to teach their children things-

Katherine Boyle 42:27 Yeah

Jesse Genet 42:27 ... and may believe-

Speaker 42:28 Right

Jesse Genet 42:28 ... there's gaps in their schooling. And so all parents, to a degree, will be leaning into what we currently think of, like, a homeschooling ethos. So I'm really excited for that. But, um, but, but, but it comes more naturally to a homeschooler or, like, to, to, to me, uh, I'll just use myself as an example, to know that I, like, I think this about Montessori, and I think this about, um, these different kind of educational philosophies. So I just put, I just program that right in. Um, and so I do have an agent thatI put it in contact directly with the children sometimes, and it just... I don't have to wonder if they're-- what kind of, I guess, ideology they're getting from that agent because I gave it to the agent.

Katherine Boyle 43:08 Totally. And, and just, just to, to build on the-- I, I have noticed what you've said too about the children's voices not being picked up. Like, it's like maybe a 50% hit rate.

Jesse Genet 43:16 Mm.

Katherine Boyle 43:16 Um, but have you, have you started, um, you know, letting your children engage with the agents in any way? And if so, how are you, how are you doing that?

Jesse Genet 43:23 I have a couple, I have a couple different devices that I wanna experiment building, and because I have agents now who can build crazy things, uh, or help me build crazy things, I'm gonna try. But because the core thing I feel like I'm missing is a great interface, uh, but I do... Currently, um, my kids have a lot of questions. I mean, every, okay-

Katherine Boyle 43:42 Yeah

Jesse Genet 43:43 ... every child has like a zillion questions.

Katherine Boyle 43:45 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 43:45 And so they love asking, um, AI, and they are aware that it's AI. Like, I don't, um, pretend. Like, they, we still, even when we use names with it like Sylvie or something, they are aware that it is not, like, a human being. But they, so they ask questions. We'll do a lesson, like we'll do like history or something, and then I ask them, I ask them what they'd like to ask, and we do those follow-up questions with AI. Um, and they're aware that they're interacting with AI. I'm s- I'm standing right there. So if things-

Katherine Boyle 44:09 Yes

Jesse Genet 44:09 ... really, like, went off the rails. But personally, I- I'm not, I mean, maybe you can tell, but I'm not an AI doomer. I don't believe that it is inherently dangerous in any way for children to, like, have, quote unquote, "direct access." I think the only dangerous thing, it's like, it's a little bit like screens. Like, the dangerous thing-

Katherine Boyle 44:25 Yeah

Jesse Genet 44:25 ... is what we might, what we might stop doing. Like, it's not adding in the AI conversations.

Katherine Boyle 44:31 Yeah.

Jesse Genet 44:31 The dangerous thing is someone adding AI conversations and assuming that now they don't need to ever read a bedtime story to their child. Or-

Katherine Boyle 44:38 Totally.

Jesse Genet 44:38 It, it's, it's-

Katherine Boyle 44:39 Yeah. Right

Jesse Genet 44:39 ... so it, to me, like, there's a little bit of common sense, like a- AI is not inherently dangerous. AI is incredible. It's like, it's like saying the internet is bad or electricity is bad. Like, these are fundamental technologies. [laughs] So you kind of-

Katherine Boyle 44:52 Yeah

Jesse Genet 44:52 ... to me it's, like, a little wild to, like, be against them, um, in any broad sense. But then we have to be responsible about their rollout. Like, electricity, you know, lights your kid's room, and it can also kill your kid. You know, they can get electrocuted. Like, it's like everything is like has these wild, um-

Katherine Boyle 45:06 Totally

Jesse Genet 45:07 ... you know, uh, wild things that it could do. Um, but as long as we don't kind of forget our humanness and that our children also need that human element.

Katherine Boyle 45:16 Totally.

Jesse Genet 45:17 The physical device part is a big question mark for me. I've been playing with E Ink, uh, a lot.

Katherine Boyle 45:22 Ooh. Yeah.

Jesse Genet 45:22 E Ink, um, I, I don't know exactly why, um, but E Ink, it just is less addictive feeling. Like, the, um, like my, my, I have the daylight, um, display, which is kind of like an iPad, but E Ink, and it does have touch. Um, that's what makes it kind of more iPad-like. So I've been developing some apps for the, for that display.

Katherine Boyle 45:45 Mm.

Jesse Genet 45:45 Like handwriting. I'm, I'm working on a cursive-

Katherine Boyle 45:48 Wow

Jesse Genet 45:48 ... handwriting. My kids are not ready for cursive, but I know that when they get ready, I'm gonna be like, "You need to know cursive." Um-

Katherine Boyle 45:53 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 45:53 Yeah. [laughs] So, so I, so, so I want to, like, pre-make th- this, like, I have this image of this beautiful cursive app, and so I'm thinking like, oh, the E Ink display would be so cool for that. And what, what's interesting, and I already do little phonics lessons with it, but what's interesting is, like, when I, if I give them the iPad, there is this little iHa- iPad hangover. Like, they, they wanna hol- like, you know, they're, like, holding onto it a little bit when I'm, like, trying to get it back after a lesson, right? They're like, "I could do photos. I could do this. I could do that."

Katherine Boyle 46:20 Right.

Jesse Genet 46:20 What's interesting about the E Ink is, um, they just readily handle, hand it back. Like, there... So there's something there.

Katherine Boyle 46:26 Huh, interesting.

Jesse Genet 46:27 Um, so I'm playing more with E Ink. Um, and um, I'm-- but I also think that there's other form factors of maybe devices that take photos and kids could ask about the photos. Like, there's, there's just stuff.

Katherine Boyle 46:39 Mm.

Jesse Genet 46:40 Like, I think that because now we have this, this Promethean, like, technology of the AI, like, the question is how do we get it into kids' hands? But I mean, like, literally how? Like, what's the-

Katherine Boyle 46:51 Yeah

Jesse Genet 46:51 ... because, 'cause you, you are, we're all hesitant to hand our kid the iPad, and laptops are, like, you know, difficult for-

Katherine Boyle 46:58 Right

Jesse Genet 46:58 ... little kids. So anyway, I'm, sometimes I'm thinking like, okay, literally, like, what is the right form factor for this?

Katherine Boyle 47:03 So I have to ask just because I would buy that product that-

Jesse Genet 47:07 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 47:07 ... you're thinking of creating/created. Um, how do you think about, would you productize any of this and, dare I say, start another startup?

Jesse Genet 47:14 Mm.

Katherine Boyle 47:14 I mean, you literally are a founder. Um [laughs] -

Jesse Genet 47:16 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 47:16 ... and so curious how you're thinking about that or, um-

Jesse Genet 47:19 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 47:19 ... how do you proliferate this? Yeah.

Jesse Genet 47:21 It takes a lot of self-control to not be starting a company right now.

Katherine Boyle 47:25 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 47:25 Um, because I'm like, 'cause I'm like ev- every moment that I see, like, n- the, all the new AI stuff, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you guys, it's like so... This is... I can't believe I didn't have this when I was running my startup." Like, I'm just kind of like losing my mind at all times.

Katherine Boyle 47:36 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 47:37 But, but I'm getting, I'm scratching the itch by doing all of this agent work and everything for, for, for my life. Z- so the answer is, um, I want to share, so there's like a double-pronged answer. There isn't an immediate company that I'm, like, cooking up that, that, um, is on the horizon, but I do want to share all of this stuff. I do also think that we're, and this is interesting, and this, this, um, you know, for, for both of you to have deep thoughts on as well, I'm sure. I think we're in a really different era of like what is a startup? [laughs] Like-

Katherine Boyle 48:07 Mm. Yeah

Jesse Genet 48:08 ... because it's, it's possible that me as a person who, um, is basically, like, coding by Voice Note while I'm, like, at the park with my kids, it's possible I could build something meaningful, you know, in, in that amount of time. Um, but I'm not very inclined right now to hire employees and, like, to do a lot of the other steps of starting a startup because I'm aware that I will get sucked in and be completely obsessed. Um, so I'm, I'm, like, almost holding myself back a little bit. So the double-pronged answer is I think there's many things that I can create here that I can launch that could be meaningful. What does, um, what does that mean? Or do, or do groups of, like, really passionate, um, people start working together online maybe to push more things live? Um, I don't, I don't know. I don't have all the answer.

Katherine Boyle 48:54 Yeah. Yeah.

Jesse Genet 48:54 But I, I do think that there's, there's a possibility ofGetting things live and functional and maybe charging, you know, charging for them and making a quote unquote business in the sense it actually makes money. Um, but I'm still... I'm in a life phase where I'm trying to, um, not start a new thing-

Katherine Boyle 49:11 Yeah

Jesse Genet 49:12 ... where I am then sucked out of-

Katherine Boyle 49:14 Right

Jesse Genet 49:14 ... the reason I started to begin with.

Katherine Boyle 49:16 Yeah. [laughs] Exactly.

Jesse Genet 49:17 So it's a tough- it's a toughie.

Katherine Boyle 49:17 Yeah. But I love that point because, you know, it was maybe like six years ago now, I- I wrote this piece called Consume Save the American Family, which is this idea that like if people are working from home-

Jesse Genet 49:27 Yes

Katherine Boyle 49:27 ... they have more time with their kids. And there's now good research, actually, there's a study that came out maybe a month ago that showed that the only thing that's really moved the needle from a policy perspective on the birth rate-

Jesse Genet 49:36 Mm

Katherine Boyle 49:36 ... is actually work from home. It's like the one policy where if you are working from home, you are more likely to have an additional child or to have your first child-

Jesse Genet 49:43 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 49:43 ... than if you're, than if you're working in an office. And so your point of what is a startup, I mean, there's a lot of people who are going to say, "Actually, why am I going into work for eight, nine hours a day and leaving my kids-"

Jesse Genet 49:56 Mm-hmm

Katherine Boyle 49:56 "... at home or, or putting them in childcare when, like, I could actually be doing this?" As you said, like the biggest limitation is the form factor. Like, if you could do it from a voice note-

Jesse Genet 50:04 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 50:04 ... and you could spin up agents to start a business for yourself, there's a lot of moms and dads who are primary caregivers who are gonna say, "Okay, I can do this at the park, and I can run a small business-"

Jesse Genet 50:13 Mm-hmm

Katherine Boyle 50:13 "... with however many agents for, for a specific thing where I'm making more money and I'm being more productive than I was at work. Maybe I should become an, an, a small business entrepreneur."

Jesse Genet 50:22 Yes.

Katherine Boyle 50:23 And that means that a lot of people are going to decide, like, "I actually wanna work from home, and I want to, to use these tools." And that could be something that ha- as, to your point on six months from now, the interface could be so good that people are d- using this in their daily lives. Like, you could see a lot of people saying, "I just wanna work from home, and I wanna... I, now I can homeschool-"

Jesse Genet 50:40 Yeah

Katherine Boyle 50:40 "... because I'm doing it-"

Jesse Genet 50:41 Yes, yes

Katherine Boyle 50:41 "... when my kids are at, at recess, and I can, I can, you know, spin up these agents very easily." So it's super exciting what it means for people who wanna have a, a, I would say even a more traditional sort of home life than, um, than, you know, using AI because the tools are so, so great and, and allow people to do that.

Jesse Genet 50:58 I, I have a, I have a prediction that, um, I've, like, tested on a lot of my smart friends and none of them agree, um. [laughs]

Katherine Boyle 51:05 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 51:05 So, so it must, it must be right. Um, but [laughs] uh, which is that AI will, um, be a dawn of a, of, of a reversal of, in that fertility rate decline and will be like a halcyon era for parenthood. Um, that, that's a possibility, okay? So it's not a firm prediction that this will just happen. But I, I've got, I think... I don't know, I think there's still this doomer streak even in very smart circles that like, you know, it'll go the other way which like to be kind of dystopian, it'll be like, "Actually, humans won't have sex at all. It might be sex robots." And like, like people have like all these-

Katherine Boyle 51:40 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 51:40 ... kind of like wild, um, like disparate beliefs about how this could go. But I kinda believe when, when people talk about what is the future of work, um, et cetera, people want purpose, right? Like p- we are gr- we gravitate towards wanting to do something meaningful. Well, I've got a little bit of a micro newsflash, which is that one of the most meaningful things that humans have gravitated towards that gives, that gives a feeling of a life's purpose that has been a forever thing is having kids. [laughs] And so it's possible that with less, with, with more question marks about getting meaningful feelings from work or what is c- what does AI do to various career paths, I think parenthood may be even more attractive, not less. Um, and then if we are, uh, if you believe some of the more positive aspects of where AI could leave us in terms of removing drudgery and admin from our lives and, um, creating some more abu- abundance in various ways, then that opens up more opportunities for healthy parenthood and spending time with kids.

Katherine Boyle 52:39 Oh.

Jesse Genet 52:39 So, so I, I'm, I'm like I've got this weird hypothesis and, again, I, I've yet to find someone who will, um, like really agree. Like, everyone's like, "That's never gonna happen." Um [laughs] but-

Katherine Boyle 52:48 Well, I, I think I'm in broad agreement with you on this.

Jesse Genet 52:50 I love this.

Katherine Boyle 52:51 'Cause I, I've always said the worst thing about parenthood... Now, I, I think you agree with this. The worst thing about parenthood is the number of forms you have to fill out.

Jesse Genet 52:58 [laughs]

Katherine Boyle 52:58 It's like with every additional child, for some reason, exponential growth in the forms.

Jesse Genet 53:02 Yes, yes.

Katherine Boyle 53:02 It's like why are there so many freaking forms-

Jesse Genet 53:04 Yes

Katherine Boyle 53:04 ... from like healthcare forms to school forms, right? And if you could just get rid of the forms-

Jesse Genet 53:08 And it starts at the hospital

Katherine Boyle 53:09 ... like, it would be great. [laughs]

Jesse Genet 53:10 It, it, it, it starts-

Katherine Boyle 53:11 Totally

Jesse Genet 53:11 ... it starts within moments of, like, birthing the child. They're like, "Here's the diaper, like a, you know, checklist thing."

Katherine Boyle 53:17 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 53:17 "Here's a clipboard for you to note down."

Katherine Boyle 53:19 [laughs]

Jesse Genet 53:19 Um, it's kinda wild. It starts, like, literally immediately. So I, I agree. I, I'm, I'm clearly very optimistic, but I think that a lot of the wilder things I'm doing could be played with, um, by anyone now or, or very soon. It's just all these things are kinda gonna get easier and easier. And so what does that mean? The modern parent's life can be, yeah, quote unquote "less drudgery." Um, a- and, and, and that might make you feel happier about having that extra kid, you know?