AI-First Playbook: Do a Team's Work With AI (2026) | Peter Yang

Marina Mogilko 0:00 It almost feels like cheating

Peter Yang 0:02 I fear that I'm getting dumber and, and lazier. Like, if I'm on a flight and there's no, like, internet connection, like, that... I just don't feel like working anymore

Marina Mogilko 0:08 That's Peter Yang. He spent a decade building products at Reddit, Meta, and Roblox. Now he runs a newsletter for 140,000 people with no team, almost all of it through AI

Peter Yang 0:18 Unlike, like, a employee is never gonna leave you

Marina Mogilko 0:20 And it's only getting exponentially better

Peter Yang 0:23 Last 10%, you gotta add your human touch to it. And you don't have to be a creator to make this. I see a lot of creators, they, they like, they get AI to generate, like, 10 posts per hour, and, like, the slop goes viral. This is heartening

Marina Mogilko 0:32 For someone who's trying to stay ahead in this AI era, what should they be doing?

Peter Yang 0:37 So step number one is use Codex or Cloud Code, and step two is to

Marina Mogilko 0:42 So I really wanted to make this podcast practical for everyone who's watching. There is something that's going on in AI right now that everyone is talking about is self-improving.

Peter Yang 0:51 Mm-hmm.

Marina Mogilko 0:52 And you've recently built call it self-improving skills, and the whole narrative is, like, stop prompting your AI, make it figure out what to do next. Can you talk about that? And is self-improving a reality for people who are just using AI versus researchers?

Peter Yang 1:09 Yeah, there's, like, different ways to do it. I think, uh, first of all, like, you know, I think all your audience knows the skill is just, like, a text file with a bunch of instructions, right? And yeah, I have skills for making my podcast, for editing my newsletter posts, and so on. Most basic ways to do a self-improvement is after you use a skill and you have a back-and-forth conversation with the AI, 'cause it never gets it right in one, one shot. Then you just say, like, "Hey, based on our conversation, can you please update the skill to account for... You know, to try to get to it in one shot faster," right?

Marina Mogilko 1:36 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 1:36 And, and it'll make a bunch of changes, and you should review it, and then hopefully it'll do it better the next, next time

Marina Mogilko 1:41 When I integrated AI, uh, into every part of my work, it almost feels like cheating. And a year before that, you said you were drowning in meetings and projects. What are the top three things that you deployed in this year that dramatically changed how productive you are?

Peter Yang 1:56 Mm. So I... Well, I can tell all my creative work since we're both creators. And, uh, you know, being a creator is, like, a lot of repetitive work, right? Like, a lot of repetitive copy and pasting back and forth and, like, changing things from, like, a newsletter post to, like, a, like, You- YouTube description to, like, social posts. There's, like, a lot of kind of like different formats. And I, I, I just decided to spend one day, like, just, like, you know, no meetings, and just sat down with Codex and be like, "Hey," I, I basically just brain dumped all my workflows to Codex, and here's how I do it manually. And I use this thing called Whisper Flow just to, like, brain dump-

Marina Mogilko 2:26 Yeah

Peter Yang 2:26 ... right, so my voice. So there's, like, a couple major ones like, uh, you know, prepping the podcast, post-production. There's editing my newsletter posts. There's posting to the various social media platforms. And then another one is I just, like, setting up an advisor to kind of give me, like, business advice, like checking ideas. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 2:42 Mm. Is it, like, an agent that's running, or-

Peter Yang 2:44 It's, it's, it's, it's just, like, a skill that's linked to a Google Doc file-

Marina Mogilko 2:47 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 2:47 ... that has, like, a bunch of personal information about my business, and then it kind

Peter Yang 2:51 of gives me advice.

Marina Mogilko 2:52 Uh-

Peter Yang 2:52 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 2:52 ... talk to me about, uh, posting on different platforms.

Peter Yang 2:56 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 2:56 How does it work? Do you dictate something with your voice, or does it see what kind of videos you produce and repurposes them?

Peter Yang 3:03 Uh, I have some, like, uh, cron jobs, which is basically like, you know, like these kind of morning briefings, weekly reports that send me how, like, other channels are doing, what kind of videos are popular. Now I post to social media platforms through Codex directly. Bef- before I was using this tool called Typefulfully.

Marina Mogilko 3:17 Oh.

Peter Yang 3:17 These, like, social media tools.

Marina Mogilko 3:18 Uh-huh.

Peter Yang 3:18 But, like, some of the platforms I post to, like Substack Notes, they don't have any kind of, like, API in-integrations, right? So I, I just told Codex, "Hey, I, like, I, I, I want to schedule posts to Substack Notes. Can you help me figure it out?" And then it went into the browser and it sniffed out some internal APIs that they're using to post. [laughs] So it sniffed-

Marina Mogilko 3:36 Oh

Peter Yang 3:36 ... out internal APIs, and then it-

Marina Mogilko 3:37 But it could also do computer use, right?

Peter Yang 3:38 It can, it can also do computer use.

Marina Mogilko 3:39 Yeah.

Peter Yang 3:39 Yeah, so it can do both. But now, but now I can post to, like, four plat- I can post to X, LinkedIn Threads, and, uh, Substack Notes at the same time. And in, in, in the skill it has, like, some nuances. Like for example, on X you wanna tag the person that you interviewed, right?

Marina Mogilko 3:54 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 3:54 You wanna find the handle. But on LinkedIn you cannot really tag.

Marina Mogilko 3:56 Yeah.

Peter Yang 3:57 It's, it's kind of hard to tag. So, like, I ca- I kind of just brain dump to all the Codex, and now it can actually do the tweaks for, for me, so it kind of saves me a lot of time.

Marina Mogilko 4:03 Do you get the final approval before it posts, or it just goes ahead-

Peter Yang 4:08 Uh-

Marina Mogilko 4:08 ... and posts by itself?

Peter Yang 4:09 I still draft it. I, I don't just get it to generate copy to post. So I, I still... I, I just, like, you know, use Whisper Flow and brain, brain dump some ran- ran- random thing into Codex. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 4:17 So you talk to it and-

Peter Yang 4:18 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 4:18 ... it takes your voice and just, like, creates different social media posts.

Peter Yang 4:23 It creates different social media posts. It also has my, you know, uh, examples of posts that I've done that have gone very viral.

Marina Mogilko 4:28 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 4:28 So it can help me, like, uh, clean out my brain dump into, like, a more polished post.

Marina Mogilko 4:31 Yeah.

Peter Yang 4:32 And then I'll take a look and I'll be like, "Okay, go post it to all four platforms."

Marina Mogilko 4:35 Does it have access to your analytics to assess what's going on right now?

Peter Yang 4:38 Uh, it does, yes. It has access to, uh, analytics from various platforms, and also Typefully, the, the thing I use also has analytics. So it does some analysis. Like for example, it found that, uh, on LinkedIn, I don't know if it's grown up, but, like, if you just do a post with a bunch of links to all your tutorials and stuff, it tends to do better than if you do a single one.

Marina Mogilko 4:55 Mm.

Peter Yang 4:55 So I, I had no idea about that, so I'm, I'm gonna do more of that now.

Marina Mogilko 4:59 What about newsletter? Is it-

Peter Yang 5:00 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 5:00 ... the same process where you talk about what you want to have in your newsletter and it creates it?

Peter Yang 5:05 Newsletter depends on what kind of posts I'm making. So for example, like, um, I think by the time this goes out, I have published a post about why I'm leaving my job. So that one I just kind of like went on a walk [laughs] and, and kind of dictated to Whisper Flow, these voice tools and, and kind of just like brain dumped my real thoughts and then-

Marina Mogilko 5:21 To Codex. Direct into Codex, right?

Peter Yang 5:23 Uh, no, no. Um, I could do to Codex, but I, I use this tool called, uh, like Super Whisper that records like 10 minutes of my brain dump, and then I copy and paste the whole thing into Codex. 'Cause Codex, I'm just worried, like, if I dictate for 10 minutes, Codex will get confused.

Marina Mogilko 5:36 That, that's my worry, too.

Peter Yang 5:37 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 5:38 Or something stops working-

Peter Yang 5:39 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 5:39 ... and it just keeps processing and nothing happens.

Peter Yang 5:42 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 5:42 That happened to me a couple times, and it's not just Codex. I think it's the context field that is not designed for a 10-minute-

Peter Yang 5:47 Mm

Marina Mogilko 5:48 ... prompt.

Peter Yang 5:48 Correct.

Marina Mogilko 5:48 And how many, how many edits do you typically do with, uh, in this process?

Peter Yang 5:52 Um, it's interesting 'cause, like, with AI, I'm kind of giving it feedback for it to edit. It's actually harder to just edit yourself than just give it feedback, right?

Marina Mogilko 6:00 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 6:00 So, like, I, I, I brain dump it, I give it to Codex, it does a bunch of editing, and it uses my best examples to edit. And then inevitably there's some- something wrong So I have to read through 'em. And, and then I get kind of voice takes a bunch of feedback, and it doesn't always pass.

Marina Mogilko 6:14 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 6:14 And then maybe the last 10% I have to manually change, change stuff.

Marina Mogilko 6:17 Yeah.

Peter Yang 6:18 Like, it's, it's actually important, like I always emphasize like the last 10%, you gotta add your human touch to it. You can't, can't just like AI slopify everything.

Marina Mogilko 6:25 Basically, all your written content is-

Peter Yang 6:27 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 6:28 ... created with the help of AI. Talk to me about the strategic, uh, thing that you're doing.

Peter Yang 6:32 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 6:32 Is that like in the morning it briefs you on what's performing, what's not, or?

Peter Yang 6:36 Every week it sends me a brief about how much money I made this week and, and, [laughs] and also like, um, how did my past three days content perform.

Marina Mogilko 6:46 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 6:46 And also like all the other channels that are make similar content, is there any kind of outliers?

Marina Mogilko 6:51 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 6:51 You know, so, uh, a- and it does, does, does that for YouTube and also for Substack.

Marina Mogilko 6:55 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 6:56 And, and for Substack, it doesn't have API, so it has to use browser use to look up everything.

Marina Mogilko 7:01 Yeah.

Peter Yang 7:01 So that would probably take me like an hour to do manually, but like it, it does it.

Marina Mogilko 7:04 If your days are back-to-back meetings, you don't want to spend extra time 40 minutes after each meeting reconstructing what was decided, who owns what, what the next step actually is. Transcript to records transcribes instantly and generates structured summaries with clear next steps. There is also a search function across all of your past meetings. You ask a specific question, it pulls who said what, which decision was made, and when. I talked to founders who actually use it for onboarding, using archives of the past six months of calls instead of rewriting everything from scratch. Enterprise-grade security, so it works whether you're a five-person startup or a larger org. Link is in the description. Sign up with your work email. You get free 300 minutes. You mentioned some of your editing is done with AI.

Peter Yang 7:51 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 7:51 Is that where you... Do you dump a transcript and it edits it out? Or-

Peter Yang 7:56 Oh, okay

Marina Mogilko 7:56 ... what's the process?

Peter Yang 7:56 Yeah, for video editing, I feel like maybe I haven't gotten deep into it yet, but I still use like a human, like a video-

Marina Mogilko 8:01 Yeah

Peter Yang 8:01 ... editor. Uh, but the transcript is very useful 'cause I dump the transcript into Codex, and it tells me, "Here's the moments where, like you had like a- awkward pauses or like stuff you should cut. Here's the timestamps. And also for like the intro, here's kind of like we should pick, like, here's like the, the spicy quotes-

Marina Mogilko 8:17 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 8:17 ... from the interview that you should pick."

Marina Mogilko 8:19 Nice.

Peter Yang 8:19 So yeah.

Marina Mogilko 8:19 Yeah. It's, it's fascinating how this has become so much faster versus a year ago.

Peter Yang 8:23 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 8:24 It's just, uh, yeah, it's a different reality these days. So you've described all of these things that you've built. How often do you build something new?

Peter Yang 8:32 Pretty much every single time I talk to AI, something, something changes, right?

Marina Mogilko 8:36 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 8:36 Like I'll update some skills or something changes. But are you talking like from zero to one?

Marina Mogilko 8:40 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 8:40 Or... Well, my hope is that I can, uh, streamline a lot of my content production. And, and, as you know, for our audience, I'm not gonna slopify everything. I'm, I'm still applying taste, but I wanna streamline all of it so I can save more time, because I actually wanna be a builder.

Peter Yang 8:54 'Cause you know, I, I spent a decade of my career just building products inside big companies, and I want to... Now that we have all these a- agents and tokens we can use, I wanna like build different tools, like open source tools or things that, you know, solve my own problems.

Marina Mogilko 9:07 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 9:08 Yeah. So I wanna do both. I don't wanna just be a creator. I wanna be a creator and a builder.

Marina Mogilko 9:11 Nice.

Peter Yang 9:11 So I'm gonna spend more time doing that.

Marina Mogilko 9:13 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 9:13 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 9:13 How do you make decision when to build something and when it's okay the way it is?

Peter Yang 9:19 Um, it's usually... I, I, I feel like, you know, it's best to kind of build stuff to solve your own problems. So like, uh, for example, I, I built like a fitness app. I mean, everyone's building fitness apps, but I, I [laughs] I built a fitness app that helps me track my workouts, and then, uh, it has MCPs to kind of like send me emails all my heal- health.

Marina Mogilko 9:36 Mm.

Peter Yang 9:36 You know, that's one thing I built. I'm doing something else right now. You know in Gmail, like you get a lot of scam-

Marina Mogilko 9:41 Yeah

Peter Yang 9:41 ... scammers.

Marina Mogilko 9:42 Yeah.

Peter Yang 9:42 And, and like, um, my, my parents have no idea. Like they, like, you know, their bank sends them an email, but it's actually like XYZ@hotmail.com.

Marina Mogilko 9:49 Mm.

Peter Yang 9:49 Right? So I'm trying to build like some sort of extension to just hide that this is a scam. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 9:54 Mm. How long does it take you to build something like that?

Peter Yang 9:56 I think to get to 80% there, it probably just takes a couple hour- hours.

Marina Mogilko 9:59 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 9:59 'Cause you just make a plan and you get Codex to do it. But to actually make it good and to test it and polish it, that, that takes more time. That takes like a couple days or like, you know, depending on where your quality bar is-

Marina Mogilko 10:08 Yeah

Peter Yang 10:08 ... of like where you wanna go.

Marina Mogilko 10:09 Before we start building something, you have this system with five layers of AI adoption. Can you walk me through them? And let's decide which layer do we want to land on today.

Peter Yang 10:20 I made this five-layer thing actually like six months ago. So most people are in layer one, which is just using AI for everyday answers. They're using ChatGPT and Claude and asking questions. I think the second layer is like using AI for daily work. So you're still in ChatGPT and Claude, but you're using projects and other things to like, um, to not do too much copy and pasting, to like set up projects for different things like, I don't know, giving you life advice, a- automating your content stuff. But, um, because it's in ChatGPT and Claude, you still have to copy and paste the output to somewhere else, right?

Marina Mogilko 10:49 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 10:49 So it's, it's still like a lot of going back and forth.

Marina Mogilko 10:51 Yeah.

Peter Yang 10:52 Um, and then, and then I think this is more from like a product perspective, but then a lot of people, uh, in my... You know, as a product manager, you wanna use AI for prototyping. 'Cause like product managers, we all used to just write a bunch of doc documents-

Marina Mogilko 11:04 Yeah

Peter Yang 11:04 ... that none of our engineers want to ac- actually read, read. [laughs] So, so now with all these tools like Lovable and like, um, Replit and, you know, Codex and everything else, you can actually build prototypes of your, uh, products. So like I usually take a screenshot of my product and I'm like, "Hey, can you make a prototype of this?" And make some changes-

Marina Mogilko 11:19 Mm

Peter Yang 11:19 ... and show it to my engineer and the designer.

Marina Mogilko 11:21 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 11:22 Uh, so that's then... And then you can use AI level four is to build different apps. So like there's been building a personal app for yourself and trying to like build an app that like millions of people use, right? So when I say building apps is, is a lot of it's just like personal apps-

Marina Mogilko 11:35 Right

Peter Yang 11:35 ... for yourself.

Marina Mogilko 11:36 Does a-

Peter Yang 11:36 Right

Marina Mogilko 11:37 Where do the agents, uh, go in these layers?

Peter Yang 11:39 Well, if, if you're just building an app, like, you know, you can just put it on Vercel or something-

Marina Mogilko 11:43 Mm

Peter Yang 11:43 ... and then have a link that people can u- u- use. So it's, it's not, it's not really looping or anything.

Marina Mogilko 11:48 Okay.

Peter Yang 11:48 Yeah. It's not, it's not looping.

Marina Mogilko 11:48 So and that's layer four.

Peter Yang 11:49 Layer four, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 11:50 And layer five?

Peter Yang 11:51 Yeah. Layer five, layer five is what we've been talking about, which is like you actually use AI kind of for like a- as a personal agent-

Marina Mogilko 11:58 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 11:58 ... to try to like streamline

Peter Yang 11:59 and automate as much as you can, right? And, and like, and it, it sounds like very complicated, but really it's just about like sitting down, like, like canceling all your meetings for a day and sitting down and like thinking through Your past week, all the time you spent time manually doing stuff, and, and just, like, sharing it with your AI f- friend. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 12:16 Can you walk me through a process-

Peter Yang 12:17 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 12:17 ... that we just talked about, uh, in a very practical way-

Peter Yang 12:21 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 12:21 ... so that people who've been using AI on, like, Level 1, maybe some Level 2-

Peter Yang 12:25 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 12:25 ... can move to maybe ideally Level 5, uh, where it's more-

Peter Yang 12:30 I, I, I feel like the most practical step that most people should take is just to, like, stop using ChatGPT and Claude and just start using Codex or Claude Code. That's, like, step, step one. And, like, people get intimidated by this stuff, like Codex and Claude Code, like this is, like, a programming software.

Marina Mogilko 12:44 Sounds very-

Peter Yang 12:45 Right

Marina Mogilko 12:45 ... uh, nerdy. Yeah. [laughs]

Peter Yang 12:46 Yeah. But in reality, it, it, it's just like you j- you're still just chatting with the AI, right?

Marina Mogilko 12:50 Yeah.

Peter Yang 12:50 And, and, like, uh, when I use Codex, like 80% of the time I'm, I'm not building... I'm, I'm, I'm not coding-

Marina Mogilko 12:54 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 12:55 ... or, or doing a, any of that.

Marina Mogilko 12:56 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 12:56 It's, it's just more powerful because, uh, you know, these two apps, they have, um... Y- you can build skills for them. They have access to APIs and integrations, so they can actually get work done across your other apps, and they're just, like, way more powerful than just default ChatGPT and Claude. So, so basically, like, what I recommend you do is use Codex or Claude Code and set up a new folder called, like, personal OS or whatever you wanna call it.

Marina Mogilko 13:17 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 13:17 Just call it a folder, right? And then I asked it, like, what are the main workflows that it can do here? A- and you can kinda see here that, um-

Marina Mogilko 13:24 Oh, you asked Codex-

Peter Yang 13:26 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 13:26 ... to come up with-

Peter Yang 13:26 Well, th- this is all the stuff that I've set up over time.

Marina Mogilko 13:29 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 13:29 Right? So basically, like, you know, a- as we talked about, it uses, like, various different skills, and skills are just text files to do work for me. So like, for example, to, to edit my newsletter, it, it has this skill to shape a rough note into transcript, and then it also uses other skill called Last 3 Days to add fresh research, and it uses [laughs] another skill called No AI Slop-

Marina Mogilko 13:49 Wow

Peter Yang 13:49 ... to make the writing clearer.

Marina Mogilko 13:50 I like that. What, what if you don't ask it for Last 30 Days? It's just gonna-

Peter Yang 13:54 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 13:54 ... omit?

Peter Yang 13:55 I think somewhere in the skill I have so many instructions to be like, "Hey, do some online searches to, you know, make sure I'm, like, you know, saying stuff that's actually true." Another thing y- like, people should recognize is that there's a lot of, like, open source skills that are really good, you know? So Last 3 Days is, like, some open source skill that I found on

Peter Yang 14:09 GitHub, and it does, like, searches across, like, Reddit, X, and all these other platforms.

Marina Mogilko 14:13 This is genius. I need this.

Peter Yang 14:14 And then it uses No AI Slop to-

Marina Mogilko 14:16 Yeah

Peter Yang 14:16 ... and, and, and, and then eventually the newsletter post gets to a, you know, point, and, uh, I use social writer skill to make, uh... to turn newsletter into, like, a bunch of threads.

Marina Mogilko 14:23 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 14:24 Right? So that's for newsletter, and then for podcast, it's a very similar format. Like, I, I use this podcast prep skill to research guests that I have, and then, and then, you know, as part of making stuff on YouTube, you need notes better anyway. You gotta have a really good thumbnail title and copy.

Marina Mogilko 14:37 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 14:38 So I have a whole skill to just, like, test different thumbnails and titles.

Marina Mogilko 14:41 Yeah.

Peter Yang 14:42 And then, and then based on that, I decide if the podcast is even worth doing, and then I, I do, like, a post-production skill-

Marina Mogilko 14:47 Mm

Peter Yang 14:47 ... like, turn into all kinds of stuff.

Marina Mogilko 14:49 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 14:49 Yeah. Sponsors, we both have sponsors. It's, like, a lot of work.

Marina Mogilko 14:51 Yep.

Peter Yang 14:51 So I, I, I ask it to keep track of my sponsors through different skills and also help me draft and brainstorm sponsor copy, help me, you know, schedule stuff on the inventory, and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so, so I, I guess the TLDR is, like, uh, these workflows are done by connecting different skills together-

Marina Mogilko 15:09 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 15:09 ... that, that you build. And, like, for all these skills, I, I don't actually-

Marina Mogilko 15:12 Can you show-

Peter Yang 15:13 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 15:13 ... one of them? Like, just go into, like, strategy, for example, where it's built, and, like-

Peter Yang 15:17 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 15:17 ... walk me through how you built it.

Peter Yang 15:18 Yeah, sure. L- let's just say open personal-

Marina Mogilko 15:21 Can you switch off the sound for-

Peter Yang 15:22 I think one of the most useful skills that I built is just, like, a personal advisor skill 'cause, 'cause, uh, I guess, um, my wife is tired of me asking for advice all, all the time. It literally is just a text file, right? So it's a text file. Give me your honest advice, and, you know, you're my trusted life and business advisor. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 15:38 [laughs]

Peter Yang 15:39 And then keep your tone warm, right? And then, uh, this, this stuff is, like, a little bit more fa- fancy. There's, like, evals and stuff, but we can talk about that later.

Marina Mogilko 15:47 Learnings MD, is that your file?

Peter Yang 15:49 Yeah. Codex itself has memory, but I ask it to save in our text file called Learnings.md to save memory from our past conversations-

Marina Mogilko 15:56 Uh-

Peter Yang 15:56 ... so it kinda learns about me.

Marina Mogilko 15:57 Question.

Peter Yang 15:57 This is kinda the self-improving stuff that we talked about.

Marina Mogilko 15:59 With something they've released yesterday, 'cause they released something when it now remembers all of your conversations, like, has this expanded memory-

Peter Yang 16:06 Mm

Marina Mogilko 16:06 ... do people still need Learnings MD?

Peter Yang 16:08 Well, I don't actually know how their, like, system-wide memory works.

Marina Mogilko 16:11 Mm.

Peter Yang 16:11 So maybe you don't need it, but, like, it's also useful for me to read Learnings.md and see what kind of, like, uh, conversations I've, I've had with it in, in the past.

Marina Mogilko 16:18 For Learnings MD file, do you ask it... H- how do you prompt so that every conversation contributes to that file?

Peter Yang 16:26 Yeah, so, um, you also have to think about managing the context window 'cause you don't want it to be, like, super long.

Marina Mogilko 16:31 Yeah.

Peter Yang 16:31 Right? So I, I have some instructions saying, like, "Hey, like, after every conversation, you should ask me... Like, you should recognize kind of like patterns and, like, learnings that you have, and ask me if, if, if, if I want to save in Learnings.md." So, so it asks me.

Marina Mogilko 16:44 And they're more strategic learnings, right?

Peter Yang 16:46 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 16:46 'Cause this is your personal advisor.

Peter Yang 16:47 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 16:48 So ev- after every single conversation?

Peter Yang 16:51 Uh, it just uses its best judgment whether it wants to ask me or not.

Marina Mogilko 16:54 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 16:54 And then, uh, I, I also ask it, like, if you're gonna save it there, just, like, have a few lines. Just, like, have one or two sen- sentences.

Marina Mogilko 16:59 Mm.

Peter Yang 16:59 Like, don't, don't, don't write, like, huge paragraphs.

Marina Mogilko 17:01 So that's the way... It's so interesting with these, like, how... what, what AI actually remembers about you.

Peter Yang 17:08 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 17:08 'Cause sometimes you think maybe it remembers everything-

Peter Yang 17:10 Mm

Marina Mogilko 17:10 ... and you hope that it does, but in reality it doesn't-

Peter Yang 17:13 Right

Marina Mogilko 17:13 ... or remembers stuff that you don't really care about.

Peter Yang 17:16 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 17:16 So these Learnings MD, so, so you basically prompted it saying... What, where does this prompt go? Does it go-

Peter Yang 17:24 Uh, it's, it's just in the skill file, like the, the, the main skill file of like-

Marina Mogilko 17:28 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 17:28 ... "Hey, be- before you, before you answer any questions I have, like, just quickly skim through Learnings.md."

Marina Mogilko 17:33 And, uh-

Peter Yang 17:34 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 17:34 ... once we finish conversation or, like, in the middle of a conversation, when you see something, ask me if this should be added to this Learnings MD file, and this skill runs across everything that you do.

Peter Yang 17:43 'Cause skill is triggered based on, like, uh, your description, your skill description in the, in the top-

Marina Mogilko 17:47 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 17:47 ... which is like... So here, here I say, like, "Use whenever the user's stuck on decision or working through a hard problem or asking for a gut check." But sometimes it doesn't trigger. Sometimes I have to, like, actually do, like, slash give me a... slash personal advisor-

Marina Mogilko 17:57 Yeah

Peter Yang 17:58 ... and then, and then ask the question.

Marina Mogilko 17:59 How do you come up with all the... Like, for me, when I'm building this-

Peter Yang 18:03 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 18:04 ... there is so much brain work going into this, like when to trigger the skill.

Peter Yang 18:07 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 18:07 All the nuances. Do you use Codex for that as well?

Peter Yang 18:11 Yeah, I, I, I never write any of these files man- manually. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 18:13 But you still... No, it's even not writing. It's just thinking about all the nuances.

Peter Yang 18:17 Yeah, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 18:17 Yes, I can think about a lot of things for you, but then there are so many- Different things that you want to remember, like when to trigger the skill.

Peter Yang 18:24 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 18:25 What types of information you wanna go there. Oh, maybe... And then you wake up in the middle of the night, "Oh, I forgot to add this to-"

Peter Yang 18:30 That's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah. I have a skill to build skills, right?

Marina Mogilko 18:33 Mm.

Peter Yang 18:33 And, and Anthropic actually has a skill to build skills too.

Marina Mogilko 18:35 Yeah.

Peter Yang 18:35 Personally, I'm, like, very worried about just, like, it becoming sloppify. Like, it, it just, like, starts adding stuff. I, I never read it-

Marina Mogilko 18:41 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 18:41 ... and it becomes, like, super slop. Like, becomes, like, super broad and slop.

Marina Mogilko 18:43 Yeah, 'cause you also want to make sure you're in control of-

Peter Yang 18:46 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 18:46 ... whatever is in the skill, and if AI just built a huge skill for you-

Peter Yang 18:49 Yeah, exactly

Marina Mogilko 18:50 ... then you don't have time to read it.

Peter Yang 18:51 So, so my, so my... I have, like, a skill editor skill. It's very basic. It just, like, looks for, like, duplicate instructions or, like, sl- slop content and tr- tries to remove it. [laughs] Like-

Marina Mogilko 19:00 Okay

Peter Yang 19:00 ... like, I, I tell it to try to keep my- all my skills to, like, one page max.

Marina Mogilko 19:02 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 19:03 So I can actually read through it-

Marina Mogilko 19:04 Mm

Peter Yang 19:04 ... and see if it makes sense or not.

Marina Mogilko 19:05 Let's take a deeper look at what's, what's next. So-

Peter Yang 19:08 Uh, yeah. So, so yeah. So, like, update the plan and, and, and then, and then, and then, like, so for, for this personal advisor thing, I have my... You know what? Why- why don't I just ask it to?

Marina Mogilko 19:18 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 19:19 Um, can you read my plan Google Doc and share its overall structure without sharing [laughs] confidential info? So, so basically, like... And this is just the way I, I, I do it. Like, I have my actual plan or, like, you know, my business plan or whatever in a, in a Google Doc.

Marina Mogilko 19:38 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 19:39 And, and, like, I, I find this very useful to, as creator, to, like, have some principles to help me make decisions. So basically it's, it's, like, a one-pager with my goal, my principles, w- like, background of my business, positioning, and, uh, some other stuff like energy and other stuff, right? Like, I don't know about your goal, but my goal is just to, like, make X amount of money and just, like, actually be in control of my time and who I wanna meet with. And then my principles are, like... Like, I have a problem where I tend to take on too much stuff, so I, I ask it to, like, just keep the main thing the main, main thing. Like, that's one of my principles. Like, which is, like, you know, people invite you to conferences and, like, you know, do all kind of like... Try to write, write, write a book or do all kind of stuff, and just, and just you have to say no because you wanna... You should focus on making a newsletter and a podcast great.

Marina Mogilko 20:20 Yeah.

Peter Yang 20:20 Like, [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 20:20 And it's so hard to-

Peter Yang 20:22 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 20:22 ... stay focused

Peter Yang 20:23 ... to focus, right?

Marina Mogilko 20:23 Yeah.

Peter Yang 20:23 But, but because I have that principle, so when it gives me advice it has that principle in mind, so it can, it kinda, kinda check me.

Marina Mogilko 20:28 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 20:28 Um, and then the business stuff is more just, like, um, you know, like all the financial information and, and I, I think it's very... One important section is, like, what gives me energy and what takes energy away.

Marina Mogilko 20:38 Mm.

Peter Yang 20:38 And just, like, couple bullet points.

Marina Mogilko 20:40 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 20:40 But, like, you know, what gives me energy is, like, you know, vibe coding with Codex. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 20:44 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 20:44 What takes energy away is, like, I, I don't know, like, doing too many Zoom calls or, or something.

Marina Mogilko 20:49 Calls, totally.

Peter Yang 20:50 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 20:50 Yeah.

Peter Yang 20:50 So, so, like... So I, I think, I think it's very important. Like, you, and you don't have to be a creator to make this document, right? Like, for any kind of career you have, just make this document, uh, and put it in a Google Doc somewhere, and then set up a skill to reference this document when it gives you advice.

Marina Mogilko 21:04 Mm.

Peter Yang 21:04 And I think that, like, it's, it's literally one of my u- most useful skills. It's, like, not super complicated, but, like-

Marina Mogilko 21:09 Mm

Peter Yang 21:09 ... it helps me make a lot of decisions, for better or for worse.

Marina Mogilko 21:12 Most people use Claude like a search engine. They type in a question, they get an answer. Most times they're not really satisfied with it, and they close the tab. I did the same thing for months, and I was looking at people who were saying AI is changing their life, and I'm like, "Hmm?" Then I spent one afternoon setting it up properly, uploaded a few files about how I think and how I work, and it completely changed. I wrote the whole process up step by step. You get it when you subscribe to my newsletter, Future Proof. It's free. The link is in the description. Yeah.

Peter Yang 21:41 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 21:41 Well, th- this is very powerful 'cause it... then it... you can use it for anything that you do, so it-

Peter Yang 21:46 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 21:46 ... adheres to your principles.

Peter Yang 21:48 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 21:48 Do, do you have a team?

Peter Yang 21:50 Uh, I have, like, a video editor and a few contractors, but no-

Marina Mogilko 21:52 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 21:52 ... I don't have a full-time team. Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 21:54 Do you... Have you ever tried building, like, a, an AI chief of staff?

Peter Yang 21:58 Uh, yeah. I have one in, uh, uh, this thing. Right now I'm using a thing called Hermes.

Marina Mogilko 22:02 Uh-huh.

Peter Yang 22:02 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 22:02 What... Can you talk about this?

Peter Yang 22:04 It's, it's, it's like OpenCall-

Marina Mogilko 22:05 Uh-huh

Peter Yang 22:05 ... but it's, like, a little bit more re- reliable, and there's, like, a team that built it. Uh, but you can also just set up in Codex too.

Marina Mogilko 22:10 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 22:10 But, like, I, I... I'm using Hermes right now because I, I like having it in my me- messaging apps.

Marina Mogilko 22:15 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 22:15 Like in Telegram and, like, wherever I wanna use it.

Marina Mogilko 22:17 How do you use it? Talk to me about that, 'cause I'm trying to build something.

Peter Yang 22:20 You are?

Marina Mogilko 22:21 Uh-

Peter Yang 22:21 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 22:21 I'm, I'm trying to build... Uh, I'm trying to build an AI chief of staff-

Peter Yang 22:25 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 22:26 ... uh, where, first of all, like, my strategic decision-making happens on Zoom calls and in Telegram-

Peter Yang 22:32 Mm-hmm

Marina Mogilko 22:33 ... where I give feedback to my team and I say yes or no.

Peter Yang 22:36 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 22:36 Uh, so I want AI to learn my strategic decision-making style.

Peter Yang 22:42 Got it. Got it.

Marina Mogilko 22:42 And then I just talked to, you know how I interviewed, um, the founder of Calshi.

Peter Yang 22:46 Mm.

Marina Mogilko 22:46 And she has a team of developers, but they built this thing where it goes across all the Slack chats they have every Sunday-

Peter Yang 22:52 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 22:53 ... and tells her where the team is stuck, what was promised to be delivered, what hasn't been delivered. So somebody who just watches the whole operation and keeps-

Peter Yang 23:01 I, I see

Marina Mogilko 23:01 ... everyone accountable.

Peter Yang 23:02 I see. Well-

Marina Mogilko 23:03 Is that what you're trying to build with Hermes?

Peter Yang 23:05 So you just have to think about what are the inputs, what are the... what you're trying to do, and like, what are, what are the outputs, right? So the inputs for, like, any kind of business is probably like a, like Slack.

Marina Mogilko 23:13 Yeah.

Peter Yang 23:13 And if you use Granola to record any me- meetings, there's transcripts there.

Marina Mogilko 23:16 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 23:17 Just set up all the... Just ask, like, Codex or Hermes or whatever, just set up all the in- integrations. Be like, "Hey, can you hook up to my Granola? Can you hook up to my Slack?"

Marina Mogilko 23:24 So for anyone who's at level two, let's say, and wants to get to level five, what are the steps they should be taking? I think this is the step number one, really build something like a strategic mindset-

Peter Yang 23:34 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 23:34 ... behind all of your AIs and projects and agents.

Peter Yang 23:37 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 23:38 What are the next steps?

Peter Yang 23:39 So step number one is, as I said, like, to just actually use Codex or Claude Code. Just, just start using that instead of, like, the, the regular stuff, right?

Marina Mogilko 23:46 Mm.

Peter Yang 23:47 And step number-

Marina Mogilko 23:47 Even projects like you, you-

Peter Yang 23:49 Yeah. I, I, I switched away from projects 'cause, like, I, I set up all my projects here instead 'cause, like, um, like, with a project, if I wanna edit a newsletter post, it spits out an output and I have to copy and paste the output to-

Marina Mogilko 24:00 Into-

Peter Yang 24:00 ... some stack

Marina Mogilko 24:00 ... Google Doc. Yeah

Peter Yang 24:01 Or, or like manually-

Marina Mogilko 24:03 Yeah

Peter Yang 24:03 ... up- update stuff.

Marina Mogilko 24:03 Yeah.

Peter Yang 24:03 But this stuff can just update Google Doc for me. So [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 24:06 Mm-hmm

Peter Yang 24:06 ... it sa- it saves a step.

Marina Mogilko 24:07 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 24:08 Right?

Marina Mogilko 24:08 Makes sense.

Peter Yang 24:09 So, so one is to use the right apps, and step two is to, um, just ask the right questions. Like, break down your workflows and ask the right questions, 'cause I, I feel like a lot of people don't realize what this stuff is capable of doing. You know, like, this stuff is basically capable of doing, in my opinion, any kind of knowl- knowledge work that you have. As long as you're patient with it and give it the right context.

Marina Mogilko 24:28 Yeah.

Peter Yang 24:29 So just ask the right questions and then set up the workflows like we just

Peter Yang 24:32 talked about, and then build the skills and the integrations and, and then you're off to the races.

Marina Mogilko 24:36 What do you think your life is gonna look like in a year?

Peter Yang 24:38 A year? I've always worked in big companies where there's always been a lot of cross-functional alignment, right? You gotta align different teams and different orgs. I really actually do really miss my en- engineering team and people like that I enjoy working with at work. But I feel like these days, like, uh, this is like the era of solopreneurs, and I feel like you can get so much done with these agents, stuff that you don't wanna do, um, that you can... It, it really frees up your time to do stuff that gives you more ener- energy.

Marina Mogilko 25:05 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 25:05 You know? And even the stuff that's like strategic or gives me energy, I, I feel like now I have this partner that knows me-

Marina Mogilko 25:11 Yeah

Peter Yang 25:12 ... and can like s- like kinda be my pair- pair programmer or like partner to kind of figure stuff out.

Marina Mogilko 25:17 Do you think you're gonna be working less or more in a year? [laughs]

Peter Yang 25:19 Uh, well, I, I think I'm pretty type A, so I don't know if I'm gonna completely check out. But, um, I hope I'll be doing more work that I enjoy. Another thing, I, I feel like if you and I retire, we'll be bored out of our mind and probably go play golf or something. But it, it'll be very bor- boring.

Marina Mogilko 25:32 Of course.

Peter Yang 25:33 Right? Like we-

Marina Mogilko 25:33 Yeah, I think we're gonna keep working. [laughs]

Peter Yang 25:34 Yeah, we'll keep working, but we wanna do work that we actually enjoy, not like the monotonous copy and paste or like, you know, that, that kind of work.

Marina Mogilko 25:40 Do you have any fear around AI?

Peter Yang 25:43 Uh, I feel like I, I, I fear that I'm getting dumber-

Marina Mogilko 25:46 Mm

Peter Yang 25:46 ... and, and lazier.

Marina Mogilko 25:47 Mm.

Peter Yang 25:47 Like if I'm on a flight and there's no like internet connection like that, I, I just don't feel like working anymore 'cause

Peter Yang 25:53 [laughs] I don't, I don't have this partner.

Marina Mogilko 25:54 That's... You know, that's-

Peter Yang 25:55 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 25:55 ... yeah, evolution.

Peter Yang 25:56 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 25:56 If you take our grandparents-

Peter Yang 25:59 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 25:59 ... even my grandparents, like they would never understand my lifestyle 'cause they were [laughs] they were constantly working.

Peter Yang 26:05 Yeah, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 26:05 Uh, it's either at home, like my mom raised me while working, while cooking, while cleaning, and I'm like, "Oh, I can't clean. I have... I need a cleaner."

Peter Yang 26:12 You need a cleaner, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 26:13 I'm like, "Oh, I just bought a robot vacuum cleaner. I don't know how I lived without it."

Peter Yang 26:17 Yeah, yeah.

Marina Mogilko 26:18 We're becoming lazier and lazier, that's true.

Peter Yang 26:20 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 26:20 Uh, but I think it's, it's actually... Then we have more time for kids and meaningful time with, uh-

Peter Yang 26:26 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 26:26 ... with our loved ones.

Peter Yang 26:27 I, I, I do worry about our, our kids 'cause like at, at least you and I grew up without AI, so we have like 20 years of like doing the basic stuff, like basic critical thinking skills and like, you know, learning how to do math and stuff. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 26:38 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 26:39 But I feel like our kids these days, they can, they can start using Codex right, right now. They can talk-

Marina Mogilko 26:42 Yeah

Peter Yang 26:42 ... they talk to a, you know, com- computer.

Marina Mogilko 26:44 Yeah.

Peter Yang 26:45 So like, uh, you kinda, kinda have to make sure they actually still learn their fundamentals.

Marina Mogilko 26:48 What's, what's your solution to that? What are you trying to do with your kids that's different from how you were raised?

Peter Yang 26:52 Uh, I, I have a kind of like a ra- radical thing. I, I, I feel like they need to, um... And maybe this is my bias, but I feel like they need to just like maybe start a business or some- something-

Marina Mogilko 27:00 Mm

Peter Yang 27:00 ... and learn to build things. 'Cause I, I, I feel like reflecting on my journey, uh, uh, my education, I didn't learn t- a ton from the classroom. I, I learned by like failing and like making mistakes.

Marina Mogilko 27:10 Yeah.

Peter Yang 27:10 So I feel like they need to have the right mentality to do that kind of stuff and to like know how to fail and just go out there and like try to do something. [laughs]

Marina Mogilko 27:17 Do, do you ever have fear for your career?

Peter Yang 27:19 Yeah. My career?

Marina Mogilko 27:20 Um, yeah. I, I'm, I'm talking to a lot of creators these days.

Peter Yang 27:23 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 27:24 And I see them at events, and a lot of people think that creator economy is getting oversaturated-

Peter Yang 27:29 Hmm

Marina Mogilko 27:29 ... 'cause everyone is suddenly a creator 'cause it's so much easier to create content.

Peter Yang 27:32 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 27:33 Um, do you think that might be a problem?

Peter Yang 27:36 I, I do think it's a problem 'cause I, I see a lot of creators like just making slop. Like they, they like, they get AI to generate like 10 posts per hour, and like the slop goes vi- viral, and it's kind of like, um, dis- disheartening to see that.

Marina Mogilko 27:46 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 27:47 But I feel like that... I think that's why it's so important to define your principles and values 'cause like I, I never wanna be someone who just makes tons of slop, even if it goes viral and makes me a lot of money.

Marina Mogilko 27:56 Yeah.

Peter Yang 27:56 You know?

Peter Yang 27:57 But, but I do think, um... But may- maybe people will get tired of the slop, and people will be like, "Hey, I actually want human craft and human to- touch on this stuff."

Marina Mogilko 28:04 Let's finish with an action plan-

Peter Yang 28:06 Yeah

Marina Mogilko 28:06 ... for, um, someone who's trying to stay ahead in this AI era. For the next week, what should they be doing?

Peter Yang 28:14 Okay. I think, um, to stay ahead, uh, get the $20 ChatGPT plan, download Codex, and just start saving time and, uh, u- building workflows and building skills to save time and asking Codex to do it. 'Cause I feel like that's more productive for you 'cause you will immediately recognize that you can start saving time versus what a lot of people do, which is like they, um, go on Twitter and try to like read all the news and like try to, you know, take some courses or s- or s- or something. Like, uh, switch from consumption mode to actual build mode.

Marina Mogilko 28:43 Output.

Peter Yang 28:44 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 28:44 What if they come back and say, "Oh, I tried, but it didn't work. I don't know what you're talking about."

Peter Yang 28:50 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 28:50 "It's so bad. It's so much easier to just do everything by yourself."

Peter Yang 28:52 By itself. [laughs] Well, it does take longer. So it's interesting 'cause like with AI, you have to set up the system first before you can see the fruits of the output, and it does take time to set up the system. But it probably only takes like one day-

Marina Mogilko 29:03 Mm

Peter Yang 29:04 ... to do it, right? And you have to have some patience 'cause,

Peter Yang 29:06 uh, even now with all this stuff I built, it still cannot one-shot exactly what I want.

Marina Mogilko 29:10 Mm-hmm.

Peter Yang 29:10 So there's always kind of a back and forth, and as long as you're patient and you give it like feedback and tell it to save it in its skills and memory, it will get better over, over time.

Marina Mogilko 29:18 Yeah.

Peter Yang 29:19 You know? And, uh, unlike like a em- employee, it's never gonna leave you. It's gonna be there.

Marina Mogilko 29:23 It's never gonna leave you.

Peter Yang 29:24 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 29:24 And it's only getting exponentially better-

Peter Yang 29:26 Yeah, the model will get better

Marina Mogilko 29:27 ... every single month. [laughs]

Peter Yang 29:28 Yeah.

Marina Mogilko 29:29 Peter, thank you so much. It was a very, very productive conversation.

Peter Yang 29:32 Thanks, Marina. It was great.

Marina Mogilko 29:32 Thank you for coming.