The transcript of AI & I with Nashilu Mouen-Makoua is below.
Timestamps
- Introduction: 00:00:47
- Nash’s philosophy around storytelling: 00:04:03
- The Browser Company’s strategy to come up with creative ideas: 00:09:07
- Why Nash thinks building brands people can relate to is important: 00:15:00
- How to avoid the tired narrative around AI products: 00:18:47
- The ways Nash has integrated ChatGPT into her workflow: 00:22:21
- Why understanding social context is important to position your product: 00:33:35
- How Nash uses ChatGPT to get a gut check on her writing: 00:41:10
- What Nash thinks is the gestalt of the current age: 00:49:50
- Nash and Dan use ChatGPT to simulate and interview a typical Arc user: 00:52:01
Transcript
Dan Shipper (00:00:48)
Nash, welcome to the show.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:00:49)
Hey Dan, good to be here.
Dan Shipper (00:00:52)
So good to have you. We have been friends for a long time. I’ve been an admirer of your work for a long time. And so it’s really, really amazing to get to have you on the show. For people who don’t know, you’re the head of storytelling at The Browser Company, which is the maker of Arc—the Arc browser—which I use all the time. I’m actually using it right now to record this episode. I’m also a tiny, tiny, tiny investor, so I’m invested in your success. Everyone should know that, but, yeah, it’s great to have you.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:01:18)
It’s good to be here. Yes, I feel like we’ve known each other through many lives at this point.
Dan Shipper (00:01:24)
We have. Yeah. We first met when you were working at First Round Capital and I was doing a little bit of an angel fund with them, and we’ve stayed connected ever since.
So, the thing I wanted to start with today— We’re going to get into some AI use cases, but the thing I wanted to start with today is I am a gigantic admirer of the work that you’ve done at The Browser Company. I think everything from your website to your YouTube videos to the way you write job posts, it all has this really interesting aesthetic and it’s different and new and it’s refreshing. I’ve never really seen a technology company do storytelling like this and I wanted to talk about that. I want to talk about how you think about it, how you put that together, how you make sure that everything’s on the vibe, how you even articulate or think about the vibe. So let’s start there.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:02:14)
Perfect. I think the first thing that I would say is even the examples that you’ve given it’s all the feel of the team. And I think that one of— I remember when Josh first approached me and we hadn’t even landed on the name “storytelling” yet. It was like, there’s this role. I think that it feels like it has your name on it. And then we landed on storytelling and I was like, I feel like The Browser Company is pretty good at storytelling already, you know? And so even thebrowser.company website that was before there was ever a product, Josh and Nate had put that together. And so I think that there’s something about the DNA of this company, which is people who love the product that we’re building, love the potential of technology, but also love something outside of technology. And so when I think of our storytelling, I think of Carla, who leads brand, who’s an artist who lives up in Harlem with her family, and brings a lot of external feel to the work that she does. I think of Josh Lee, who was a filmmaker, documentary creator before joining The Browser Company. I think of myself, I love writing outside of Browser Co. And so I think that was always my biggest hope was that we would challenge what a tech company felt like and how it would show up in the world. And I think that that comes a lot from just having people who care about things outside of this industry.
Dan Shipper (00:03:36)
That makes total sense. And I love that you’re bringing in the team, but I also want to gas you up a little bit. You’re doing amazing stuff. Tell us about what you are doing. What you are bringing to The Browser Company in what storytelling actually means to you, and what part do you have to play and what you guys put out?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:03:57)
Yeah. So, I think there’s two things that I believe fundamentally in terms of storytelling. The first is that it always starts with people and it always has to do with people—whether it’s the people that you’re talking to or the people that are creating your product. And so I remember in 2022 we were doing this presentation for the team—it was six months into creating the storytelling team—and we were thinking about what is The Browser Company brand? And one of the decisions was that we didn’t really have a brand. It was people building a product. And so if you think about storytelling over the last three years, I’d say there’s been three iterations of it, where year one, 2022, was really, can we bring our team to the forefront? Can we be people building a product in a way that you’re sharing behind-the-scenes in a way that’s never been done by folks before. And so we really started with these videos that were people sharing how we’re thinking about performance or how we’re thinking about Swift on Windows or why we stopped shipping for a month. And it was always the team sharing the story. And so 2022 is really about blurring the lines between company and our members, as we call them, in a way that hadn’t been done before.
And then 2023 was really about thinking about inversion. And it’s another thing that I like to think about: How do you invert the narrative? How do you take what everyone else is saying and do it differently or tell it in fresh and new ways? And it was really inverting how we did releases and so, if you think about our Arc Max release, which was in October—wave one of AI—when everything was so big and world-changing, and it was a year after ChatGPT had been released initially. And we wanted to think about how you could flip how AI felt to people and make it as accessible as selling kitchen knives in a QVC TV show.
And so it really is a lot of the time: Can you keep people guessing? Can you keep it fresh? Can you make it really personal? And can you invert what people’s expectations are? And even this year has been a lot around, how do we think about the next stage for our company and how do we tell that story and again? How do you do a keynote that isn’t in a black background room? What if it was in a diner in Josh’s home city with a couple of our members? Again, you’re inverting people’s expectations and really centering people. So I’d say those are probably two of my biggest things: people and inversion. And I love we keep ourselves guessing at The Browser Company too and so not falling into what has worked—we’ll keep working for you.
Dan Shipper (00:06:30)
That’s so amazing. You said so many things I want to follow up on.
The first one that comes to mind is thinking about companies as collections of people and telling stories from that perspective, instead of sort of this formless mass. I think a good example would be at Hertz—everyone wears the Hertz uniform, they’re not individuals, they’re the physical embodiment of Hertz. And it sounds like you’re kind of flipping that on its head a little bit. Where did that come from? How is that coming out of your head or the team’s collective brains? How are you coming to like, oh, I have this cool new way to talk about companies and storytell about companies and its individuals. Tell me about that.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:07:14)
So, I think two things. I think at the high level and then really tactically, one of the things that we do at Browser Co., which I love.
So the people-first is also a question of— It’s strategic too, because what can our competitors not do? Our competitors are the Chromes of the world, the Safaris, which are part of Apple, and they’re too big to center people. And it’s too scary to center people because that comes with its risk of— People have their own opinions, and they show up in their own ways, and you lose a sense of polish in some ways when you let it be spiky. And I remember one time I was speaking to a dear friend who led marketing for another company and we were talking about our first big article that was going to be in a publication. And she was like, oh yeah, what is the thread across the people who will be interviewed? What are they wearing? Are they wearing similar clothes? Is it a similar story? And I remember talking about it with Josh and we were like, oh no, so and so is going to wear a knitted jumper because she loves knitting and that’s who she is. And so and so is going to wear a Hawaiian shirt if he wants to, because that’s who he is. And that’s The Browser Company. It is organized chaos in some ways. And it is an inversion of what you would expect at Hertz. So I think at the highest level— I’m trying to think where it came from— It just felt more authentic because I think that people are tired of things being overly curated.
And I think that I wouldn’t still be in technology if it went for The Browser Company. And I know there are many people for which this company built a product that they want to see. I would be out somewhere writing a book, which we’ve talked about many times before. So if I was going to do this role and stay in technology, it was to do something different and to really push the boundaries. And part of that meant it’s just about— I fundamentally believe it’s about people. From a more tactical perspective, we have this meeting that I love called Writer’s Room and it’s the storytelling crew. It’s myself, Josh Lee, Cyrus, who works with us on video, Carla, who leads brand, Jess, who’s a brand designer here as well, Devin on the growth team. And what we do is we have two types of meetings. It’s a no-agenda meeting, it is a feedback meeting. And so you can either bring projects you’re working on just to get people’s thoughts or we have go-wide meetings, which is where somebody has a project that they’re kicking off and they just want to go as wide as we can and throw out the biggest ideas and pull from everywhere other than technology. And I would much rather we start here and bring it back to what’s possible than start from what’s possible than what we know and work our way out of there. And so our biggest moments, whether it is Arc Max or it is our Act II video this year, or it is Boost. So all of those have come from a writer’s room where you really give people the chance to go wide, pull from outside, and then bring it into, okay, what are we going to do with that?
Dan Shipper (00:10:10)
That’s fascinating. How does that work? So, when you’re going to a go-wide meeting, does everybody pull a bunch of references together or is the person who’s presenting, are they responsible for just coming to the meeting with all the references and doing all the stuff and then everyone just reacts? Or how does it work?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:10:26)
No, it will be something like, hey, I’m kicking off this project. For example, one of the thoughts that we had, which we’d never done, was we were thinking about how we would want to tell the story of Arc and what’s possible. And so it was a go-wide meeting. Hey, I want to talk about this topic, here’s a write-up. I think it was Josh D and I had collaborated on bringing this to the team. Here are the goals and I just want to talk about this for however long we have. And then everyone will either read that the night before, or come with some thoughts the morning of, or do a voiceover coming into the meeting. And then it’s just riffing. It’s riffing for an hour. And the person is taking notes. We were like, man, we should rent a storefront on Broadway and do a museum of technology. And it’s Chrome on the walls and at the end, there’s a couple of— We never did that, but we would never have gotten to that idea, if it hadn’t been for just throwing stuff at the wall. And then the person who’s leading will take that and kind of be like, okay, cool. I’m hearing a couple of threads. I’m going to go and sit with what’s most interesting. And I might come back in three different directions. I’d love pushback on these three and I’m going to commit to one of them.
Dan Shipper (00:11:36)
I love that. And are there any other specific rules about how you do this in the meeting? How do you keep things free-flowing? How do you get people generating as much interesting stuff as possible?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:11:51)
I think you have to have a couple of key questions that you’re bringing to the group. And a couple of key reference points. I think that folks always have a reference point or two that they’re bringing in. And you have to be prepared to lead the meeting in a way that you are poking, being maybe controversial. You can’t just kind of leave it wide open. If you leave it wide open, we’ll still get good stuff. But I think that it is the— We talk about look-out-fors. What are your look-out-fors? Or if there’s anything you want to push back on, bring that to the crew as well.
Dan Shipper (00:12:28)
Another thing that you said when you were first sort of introducing how you think about storytelling is when you’re doing— I think it was the Arc Max launch. You were talking about AI is currently this hyped thing that everyone’s talking about and you’re like, we want to flip the narrative and we want to make it as accessible as buying QVC kitchen knives. And that little thing—QVC kitchen knives—it’s so evocative. Talk about that.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:13:00)
Yeah, I think a lot of the product team’s intention had been around: What are the small moments that we can make better in somebody’s day? And the thread that that pulled was like, oh, what if it’s giving people less— I’ll tell you even how we got there. It was like, okay, small moments of people’s day—not big things. Can we just improve the small interactions? And so that was the product intention already. And then there was a question of well— And I think we’d had an offsite in LA that summer where we were talking about it. I was like, we’re giving people the opportunity to have less internet in a world that wants to give people more, etc. It was less internet and what if we were selling people less internet and what if we were selling them more time.
And what if we were selling them literally software on a QVC TV show? And so that’s kind of how and you land with— Yeah, actually we’re going to sell it on a QVC show. And I think it’s always been part and parcel of The Browser Company to want to ground technology in something that feels really human. And I used to live near the QVC center in London. I used to pass it on the train. And so it’s always been a back-of-the-mind thing. But even as Josh Lee and I were talking about it— Josh Lee and I really thought about it with Josh, a couple of other folks, Carla did the design for it as well. What are the reference points of ‘80s TV show meets Browser Company. And what are the human elements that many people will actually be able to see and feel? And that’s one that there’s something— Sometimes you just know when something’s captured that also to the question around Writer’s Room when something’s capturing the imagination of the people around the table and pull it.
Dan Shipper (00:14:53)
Totally. I guess what I’m getting at or what I’m asking about is, there’s a way that people might say we want to make AI accessible, right? That’s a pretty common thing that you might hear from a branding person or anyone involved in storytelling or marketing or anything like that. And you’re saying we want to make it like selling knives on QVC. That comes with so much flavor and evoke so much emotion and so many associations. And I want to talk about for you as a storyteller, why that’s important or getting to those sort of really concrete evocative details.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:15:34)
Yeah. I think because I don’t come from the tech world in that way. And I grew up in London, and was an English major. So I’ve always cared about the stories of people. My friends in London are photographers or documentary filmmakers. And so. I don’t care to speak the language of what exists already. And what exists already is like the language of this industry. And so personally, for me, I would say if I’m telling a story that the people around me will not be interested in or not get, and that’s not exciting or interesting or motivating, and I think Carla— Carla and I’ve had this conversation a lot around yeah, you want your brand to to make people feel something, but not just people around us only. And so I think that my sisters love Arc. I have three little sisters. They’re 15, 19, and 20. And they’re in New York at the moment right now, which is crazy. And they love Arc. And I want the people in my life to be able to understand and love this thing, because this is part of the reasons I joined The Browser Company. It is such an audacious bet to build a new browser. And that touches so many people. And so can you build a product? Can you build a brand that speaks to so many people? And that means making it really tangible and tactical, make it feel like something you can actually put your arms around.
The last thing I’ll say is we’d done this presentation a while ago when I just joined, which was called Operation New York City, and it was thinking about our membership—our members of Browser Co. And New York City is the type of city where there’s something for everyone. And there will always be the leading industries of whether that is finance or consulting or fashion. But there is something for everyone in the city. And could Arc and our membership feel like the city that we’re born, where there is something for everyone and it can speak— You always have the leading demographics using your product, but it should feel like it speaks to, there’s something here for anyone. And I think that that’s part of the fabric of this company and our story.
Dan Shipper (00:18:00)
I love it. I want to get into AI stuff.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:18:05)
Okay, let’s do it.
Dan Shipper (00:18:06)
So, I know you’re using AI for some work stuff and some personal stuff. I also know that you’ve had a little bit of an interesting journey with it, where you’ve found it’s useful for some things and not useful for others. So tee us up. Tell us a little bit about where you’re using it and then we’ll jump into some use cases.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:18:22)
Cool. Awesome. I’m trying to think there’s something about just where AI is currently in terms of the stories that are being told about AI. And I think for us at Browser Company, we’ve been exploring it since October of last year. And we’ve always been focused on the smaller parts of people’s days. And I think that as we look at this next phase for AI and what’s possible, I’m really excited for part of our story to be also, how do you tell a new story about AI? Because I think that, if you really think about it, all of the releases are always about companies, right? It’s like, new GPT-40 is about OpenAI. Gemini is about Google. And Llama is about Facebook. And there isn’t room to really talk about what these products are trying to do for people in the most intimate ways, but intimate is in the smallest ways. And I think that there is this fatigue around, it says it’s going to do this, but does it actually help me to do this? And what can actually help me to do it? And I think my own journey was like that too. And I’m like, man. I’m missing this. I’m clearly not using this in the right way. But I’m really excited for what it means to invert the story of AI. It’s not going anywhere. It’s really powerful. I was in Kenya and my aunt was talking about using ChatGPT for something, right? I love that. And so what does it mean for us even as a company to think about how to invert the current story? Because it’s so big. Can you make it, can you make it with kitchen knives, right? But on a broader scale.
Dan Shipper (00:20:19)
Totally.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:20:20)
That’s all I got. Just because now I’m like, okay, I can’t talk to you because I don’t I don’t want this to be like, oh, Browser Company’s only building AI. But like between you and I, Dan, I think that it’s something where we’ve really been thinking about how much do you put in— If you are building AI into your product and you know Hursh, so we’re really exploring what that can mean. How do you own the fact that you are building maybe an AI-first product or whatever that may be, but without falling into the existing narrative, because it’s tired and it’s fatigued and there is that weight around it.
Dan Shipper (00:20:59)
I think that’s one of the interesting things is— Most companies when they think about participating in AI are framing it around keeping up. And that seems very different. You’re attacking with a very different perspective. Talk about that.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:21:18)
Yes. Well, I think that it’s because it’s coming from a place of keeping up and it’s coming from a place of measuring yourself against your competitors and what they have shipped—not what you can deliver to people that is meaningful to them. And so that’s a really good way of putting it. And so the audience is actually not the person who knows and loves your product. The audience is everyone beyond them. And it’s keeping up with the Joneses in some way. And I think the way that we’ve thought about it is it’s a new Play-Doh for the same mission that you’ve always had, you know? But yeah, I hadn’t thought about it in the way of, it’s keeping up. And keeping up is for secondary reasons. It’s not because it delivers what you want to for the people that you’re hoping to build for.
Dan Shipper (00:22:15)
And so personally, how has the new Play-Doh played out in your work life?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:22:20)
Yeah. I was fighting with ChatGPT. I was like, drop this for me, please. And it would come back with like— Because, at one point I was doing a lot of writing at Browser Code. You know, it was our member updates. It was our internal docs. And at one point, most of the words that you would see were coming from me. And so I was like, man, a ChatGPT can take this off my plate. Type in: Hey, can you draft x, y, and z? And it would come back with this crazy tone. And I’d be like, this is really cheesy, or this is just not working for me.
And so I’d say there’s three ways that I’ve learned to— I’m probably a daily user at this point, Monday to Friday. I’m not really using it outside of work. But the three ways that I found that it helps me—especially because I care so much about words, and so it was really hard to delegate words. And I think that that’s something with AI is like, what can you do for me that is helping me, but isn’t trying to replace what I do that is good. And so the three things that I’ve started using it for: One, is just as I’m in free-flow if I’m following an idea and I’m doing research and I want to bring some— I was researching the context behind Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” because of this presentation that I’m giving next week and what was happening in 1988 and how does that relate to this other thread of the positioning of this other product in 1988, right? And so that’s the free-flowing conversation that I’ll have with ChatGPT: how should we size this market, etc.?
The second is a kind of external prompt for writing that I’m actively doing or variations. And it was actually— One of my teammates, Dina, we were riffing on one-liners and she was like, I’ve been thinking with ChatGPT. How do you think with ChatGPT? And she sent me her chat and I was like, oh yeah, this is an iterative experience. And then the third, which I’ll say is the only time when I let ChatGPT change my words is this prompt that Josh came up with and it is tightening your language with a very specific prompt you gave it to get to a place where I felt that I was getting value and that I wasn’t trying to replace myself. Basically I was trying to improve the work that I was already doing.
Dan Shipper (00:24:53)
That’s cool. Let’s start with the first one. I want to see how you’re using it for that free-flowing research.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:24:59)
Okay. So this is one example where we’re developing a better understanding of who Arc is for at its earliest stages. And so this is a conversation just around the different subsets that— We call ourselves laptop people in many ways. A laptop person is a specific type of person who is maybe going to the office, but primarily on their laptop. And so this is just an ongoing conversation that I was having to just dig a couple of levels deeper.
Dan Shipper (00:25:38)
So, let’s start at the top. So you’ve sort of come up with this laptop person idea. You have the tag, you have the word already. And you’re like, I want to sort of flesh this out and understand more about who those people are. Why? Why do you want to flesh it out more?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:25:55)
Because browsers are for everybody. Who are they for initially? We think about it as for people whose livelihoods are on the computer, right? And what is it? This was me trying to understand what does it mean to have your livelihood on the computer? And there is a livelihood on the computer in that I am going into the office every day. There is that I’m hybrid or I’m remote. And so just trying to get an understanding of who are the people who should be in this audience that maybe we’re not thinking of as being in this audience right now.
Dan Shipper (00:26:32)
And so you start with how many people work remotely around the world? So, I’m curious— You could Google that. Why didn’t you Google it?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:26:40)
Because now i’m in Statista and I’m in this other place and actually I would much rather have a couple of websites summarized and because I knew that I wanted to do a deeper dive then go through seven different pages that are giving me information in an unnuanced way. And so I knew that I wanted to go a couple of levels deeper here.
Dan Shipper (00:26:59)
Okay. What’s Statista?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:27:01)
Oh, Statista is if you look up how many people use Mac or Windows, i’ll give you a website with a graph and that’s the end of the information.
Dan Shipper (00:27:11)
That makes sense. Okay. So, you asked how many people work remotely around the world and it’s saying, as of 2024, it’s estimated that 35 percent of workers are working globally. So it’s giving you a little bit of an answer and then you think, can you give me an estimate of what you mean when you say hundreds of millions of people worldwide are now working remotely? So, you’re basically asking it to go deeper in a particular part of the answer it gave you. Is that right?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:27:35)
Yeah. Yeah. Because if I’m trying to understand an initial target market, I need to be much more specific than hundreds of millions.
Dan Shipper (00:27:46)
Okay, cool. And let’s keep going down the chat. So it says, “When I say hundreds of millions of people worldwide are now working remotely, I’m referring to an estimated range of 500 million to 1 billion people.” So it’s giving you a more specific number to work from. And then and now you’re kind of your next follow up is like, which industries lend themselves to remote work more than others? So you started with like this initial sizing and then now you’re like, I want to cut up the kind of remote work industry into industries that maybe are leaning more towards that kind of work than others.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:28:25)
Yes, because what I want to develop is a hypothesis around, at the most granular level, who is this person that we’re thinking of? And so part of that is what do they do? And there’s only so far that I can think of what they may do. And so, yeah, the whole goal of this is to go from a macro statement to actually being able to envision this person as we’re doing research and meeting loads of different people who are Arc members and are not Arc members, trying to feel out the edges of the world here.
Dan Shipper (00:29:04)
Okay. That makes sense. So you’re saying, which industries lend themselves to remote work and it says technology, what else? Finance and accounting—that makes sense.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:29:13)
And part of this is that you want to speak to people in a way that feels like you’re speaking directly to them. And so this is just developing it. Okay. What are they doing day-to-day?
Dan Shipper (00:29:24)
Who are they? What are they doing? All that kind of stuff. Yeah. So it gave you a whole big list. And then you follow up with that list with, “Can you list some of these industries in one sentence with commas so I can copy them into a document?” I love it.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:29:37)
I was like, this is great. I don’t want the— Thanks.
Dan Shipper (00:29:43)
I think that ChatGPT’s reformatting capabilities are actually really underrated as a time-saver—something like that. A task like that might have taken you five minutes to do, but sometimes you have lists that are gigantic and it just would take you an hour or two and it just does it in an instant. It’s so nice.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:30:01)
It’s great. One of the things that we’ve been using it for, as well, is we’ve been experimenting with a podcast called Imagining Arc that is just weekly diary updates from Josh. And here’s the transcript. Make it into a two-sentence description that sounds like a description for X other podcasts—just those types of tasks.
Dan Shipper (00:30:26)
That’s cool. So let’s keep going. So it gave you that list and then so now you’re getting even more granular with the list. It’s giving you the list of technology, finance, accounting, and you’re like, okay, how many people are in those industries? And it’s basically doing the research of going to different articles and then summarizing what it finds for you in one response. So you don’t have to open up a bunch of tabs.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:30:49)
And part of this is also developing an understanding— This is much more fluid than if I were doing this research across different tabs. Or, I can go back to what I was looking up earlier without having to literally go back in tabs. And so one of the things I was trying to understand here is: Is the larger market remote globally? How large is the market in the U.S. but actually what are the industries and what—? So it was moving between different levels of the same problem in one place.
Dan Shipper (00:31:21)
And how are you checking all this stuff? Because for me sometimes looking at an answer like that, I’m like, okay, that’s, that might be right, but also, I don’t know. Are you checking?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:31:30)
Yeah, I click through a couple of these links and then I would do, for example, at one point you’ll hear me ask about freelancers and I was like, oh, freelancers are 1.5 billion in the world. And I was like, oh, but remote is 1 billion. So, how are we—? And so that’s when I might go and do some additional research.
Dan Shipper (00:31:46)
That makes sense. Sorry, there’s some. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So, okay. So let’s keep going. So we’ve got our estimates. You’re continuing to ask it to refine that down. I’m talking about students. And now you’re getting into students: How many students are in the U.S.? How many remote workers in the U.S.? Yeah. Tell us— I guess, let’s keep scrolling through. I kind of want to see if there’s other ways that you’re slicing things. So continuing to kind of follow up on—
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:32:25)
I like asking ChatGPT all of the same questions in different variations.
Dan Shipper (00:32:28)
I mean, it makes sense. It’s really good for that. I think it’s underrated how good it is for asking repetitive, annoying questions that you can’t ask anyone else because they get mad, you know?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:32:40)
Yeah. And when you’re trying to develop a perspective, this is like, I’m developing an opinion. It’s not, I am trying to get it down to a tee. I’m trying to— The adjacent work that I’m doing right now is, I’m going from this is the world to this is the inner circle, and what are the levels between that? And so that’s what I was trying to work through and estimate. But yeah, this is a I’m trying to develop a perspective while I’m doing this basically.
Dan Shipper (00:33:13)
Yeah. One of the things that you brought up earlier is sort of using this kind of free-flowing research style to understand a context. So, I think you brought up one of Tracy Chapman songs or albums. I can’t remember. I’d love to see how you do it for something like that, where you’re— And I don’t know if you can share that specific one, but—
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:33:35)
Cool. Alright. So I love to start presentations off with something that is outside of what we’re going to be discussing. And at the moment we’re talking about positioning and for some reason, Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” has been in my head. I think somebody played Tracy Chapman at the beginning of our all-hands this week, and I landed on the song. And so there’s this thread. And then there is another that I’m pulling at the moment, which is the best positionings are in response to the societal context that you’re building your product within.
And so some of the research that I’d been doing prior to this was around what was the context around the Ford T when it was released, right? Which was the 1908 recession—1907—really cheap car in 1908, positioned that way because you’re coming out of recession. 1984 is in response to Macintosh. Reagan administration. So it was kind of just feeding those things out.
Dan Shipper (00:34:40)
That’s so cool. I just got to stop you. I just very rarely hear someone talk about positioning with that kind of sense of breadth and context and history. I love it. It feels like such a rich way to think about how to talk about your products. I just love it.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:35:00)
Thank you. Thank you. And so, for some reason, yeah, Tracy Chapman came on yesterday. And so I was curious about— I was just listening to the song and I was like, what is the context around this song? And so I started with, okay. When did Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” come out? Cool. And so it was a question of what were the societal questions in the U.S. in 1998?
Dan Shipper (00:35:35)
And it’s saying, you know, economic inequality and poverty. So, “widening economic disparities, homelessness, race relations and civil rights, racial tensions, affirmative action, the AIDS epidemic, the war on drugs, the Cold War and nuclear anxiety.”
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:35:55)
There was a lot going on. I’m like, I thought we had it complicated. And so then, part of my question was— I remember seeing something about Reagan here and I was like, oh, when was Reagan— Is that how you spell Reagan?
Dan Shipper (00:36:18)
No, you got it right the first time.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:36:24)
When did Reagan’s presidency end?And, so it’s like, oh, when was the election?
Dan Shipper (00:36:37)
So you said, “When did Reagan’s presidency end?” So, tell me about why you are asking that?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:36:44)
Yes, because I had been doing research around 1984, the Macintosh advert, and I think that part of 1984’s individualism was in response to the conservatism that had started in the 1980s, a couple of years before coming out of the seventies into the eighties. And so I remembered that this was a time of political transition. And so I was curious, how close was this political transition to this song coming out? And so I’m asking, okay, what was the election where he left power? And this is where it got a little complicated. Okay, cool. 1988. And so then I was like, what was the election date in 1988? And what I’m trying to do is understand the context of this song as it was November 8th. So we’re talking— It came out six months before this moment. And so what is the context of the country in April of 1988? And so this is really trying to dig into the best positionings or the best products or the best moments that come in conversation with the time in which they’re born into the world. And so here I was like, okay who was the opposition in 1988 at the U.S. election?
Dan Shipper (00:38:17)
Michael Dukakis. He’s the guy— I think he rode a tank famously and wore a helmet and everyone thought he was kind of a little too nerdy or something to be president. I think that’s the guy.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:38:40)
I love this. Now I’m going to have to go and research that afterward.
Dan Shipper (00:38:45)
You should follow up and ask what people think of Michael Dukakis and did he ride a tank? Wait, so the opposition platform. Tell us about that just real quick.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:38:50)
And so I’m trying to understand the context of, again, Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution.” We could even ask what verses may refer to some of these conversations in 1988, but it is about people trying to get jobs and people trying to make it work and people standing in the welfare line. And so I wanted to understand in April of that year, in 1987, leading into when it was released, what is the context that she’s telling the song then? And why did it resonate so deeply? And so now I’m like, oh, it was an election year. Okay, if you think six months out from an election and this is my brain at 11 p.m. on a Tuesday night, you’re thinking—
Dan Shipper (00:39:35)
Sometimes the most creative time.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:39:38)
Right. Exactly. You’re thinking six months out from an election, it’s not dissimilar to the time that we’re in now, right, where you don’t know where things are going to go, but you do know what you’re hoping for. And I’m curious about these moments of shifts, because I think that not just in the U.S. but globally, we’re in a moment of shift. And as I think about what it means to position our company, how do you feel about how people are feeling at this point in time? And so this is all a thread of pulling that. And so it was like, okay, what was the conversation in 1988?
And part of that comes from part of the remote questioning that I was doing as well is how are people feeling today? We’ve done a lot of interviews with individuals just that we know that we don’t know. And there is this feeling that it’s been many years of things just going faster and faster and doing more. And actually we went through a pandemic and some people moved and some people have had kids and some people got married and you’re just kind of more all the time. We haven’t had room for pause. And we’ve been on our laptop the whole time. And so that’s the context of today. And so I’m trying to understand what is the context of these different times, these different positions, or these different songs that people created something that made people feel something.
Dan Shipper (00:40:55)
I really connected to what you just said. We’ve been on our laptops the whole time. That hit me.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:41:03)
Let’s try something. Actually, I ran this through it. “Hi, ChatGPT. Could you summarize—”
And so this is something I’ll do sometimes to feel out if what I’m writing is coming across, right? Is it tonally capturing and so here is it totally— I can write in very convoluted ways sometimes. Is it capturing the message I wanna come across? Is it capturing tonally the you know— Tone is compassionate and supportive. And so this is a— I wrote this just because it came out of my brain last week. Before I shared it with the team, is it what I wanted to come across in this case as well? So this was a short piece about being on your laptop the whole time.
Dan Shipper (00:42:20)
So you’re using it sort of as a gut check or a just a little sanity check if this is what my gut says, or this is what I’m trying to do. And I’m not going to tell you what I’m trying to do. I’m just going to ask you to summarize what you see. And it’s sort of acting as a little bit of a mirror that’s maybe slightly more objective than you can be on Tuesday at 11:00 at night before you share it with your team.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:42:46)
Yes. And I can follow up and ask does this point come across? Does this feel like specific things that I want to— If it didn’t mention them, is this part of your read?
Dan Shipper (00:42:54)
Yeah. I just don’t know. I feel like you’re doing such a good job of capturing the spirit of right now. And I’m just getting some good vibes from this. So I want to go back to capturing the spirit of 1988 and just sort of see how you’re continuing to do that because I want to learn how to do this. And I feel like you’re giving me some really interesting ways to incorporate ChatGPT in this. So you’re asking about the opposition. So we were kind of fleshing out the picture. I had that idea to ask about Michael Dukakis. So I want you to ask, is he the guy on the tank or whatever you would ask, fleshing him out.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:43:36)
Yeah. About Michael— Let me ask what it is, what did people think?
Dan Shipper (00:43:40)
What did people think about him?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:43:45)
And then I’ll ask, was he the guy on the tank?
Dan Shipper (00:43:55)
Okay. So it’s saying it was— They think it was mixed.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:44:05)
So what I would probably do right now is I would be like, hey, ChatGPT can you give me this response in three paragraphs max?
Dan Shipper (00:44:10)
Got it. So basically we got a response and you’re like, I want it in a couple of paragraphs. And he’s basically like— It’s saying that they think of him as a competent and effective technocrat, but this image also worked against him because he was sort of criticized for lacking charisma and the emotional connection with voters that he needed. And yeah, that’s really interesting. He sort of came off as lacking leadership qualities because he was too smart.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:44:53)
Yes. Do you want me to ask, was he the guy on the tank? I have another question that I would ask.
Dan Shipper (00:44:58)
Yeah. We’ll forget the guy on the tank for a second. What would be your follow-up to really get into that?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:45:10)
“How were people really feeling—,” which is a very subjective question—”in the U.S. in 1988, leading up to the election?” And where my mind is going is this is after eight years of one government. And so when people were looking for change, were they afraid of what Michael Dukakis was bringing because he didn’t feel charismatic enough? And so I’m trying to not make a parallel, but just, how are people feeling and this would be me reading through Wikipedia and clicking through a bunch of links and maybe going to a YouTube video or two—usually otherwise.
Dan Shipper (00:45:46)
So what are you seeing here that resonates with you? Or not? Or leading you to want to follow up?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:45:55)
Yeah. I would say a mix of optimism, concern, uncertainty. We know that it was the election that stayed with the same party because it was George Bush. And so I’m curious about— Now what I’m curious about is, and this is me going down a rabbit hole, but what was the, what was the outcome of the vote? Was it a landslide? Because I’m curious, again, tying it back up, this one song that has resonated so deeply over the years, was it capturing a moment that didn’t come to fruition? What is the tension there?
Dan Shipper (00:46:32)
Yeah. And I guess what do you take from the kind of knowledge that as a competent technocrat, he lost and people felt like he didn’t have leadership qualities. And how does that tie into— If you had to think about, okay, how am I going to position a product in an era that reminds me of this era, how do you think about positioning given that information?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:46:55)
I think what I’m doing when I’m thinking with ChatGPT in this way, I’m forming perspectives. It’s a conversation. So it’s the same as if I were talking to myself or talking out loud and I’m forming perspectives and I’m then going to go and write a document coming out of this. and so to me, this is what I’m really curious about right now is why was there no change when people felt like there was change coming?
Is that a true perception? Yes or no. I’d be curious to know more about that. But this is a lesson on a feeling that didn’t translate to anything. And was that the dominant feeling or was it not the dominant feeling? And I think about that from laptop people, you’re on your laptop all the time. The biggest thing that you want to do when you’re thinking about positioning is make sure that you’re not just positioning for yourself. But you’re positioning for something that’s going to resonate with the group of people and a large enough group of people that you believe your product is for. And so this is interesting to me from what didn’t click at this moment.
Dan Shipper (00:48:05)
And how do you swerve this chat to start talking about Tracy Chapman or would you—?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:48:08)
I would ask, were any of these threads present in Tracy Chapman’s song? I think so, because—
Dan Shipper (00:48:10)
Let’s ask.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:48:11)
Let’s ask. Okay.
Dan Shipper (00:48:30)
So, it’s saying, “Yes, several threads present in the U.S. in 1988 are reflected in Tracy Chapman’s song, Economic Inequality and Poverty: The song’s lyrics speak directly to the struggles of those living in poverty, highlighting the frustration and despair of people crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation, armies of salvation. Social justice and change: Chapman’s call for revolution…. The song symbolizes a broader desire for social change and justice, political polarization, and desire for new leadership. While not explicitly political, the song’s message of change and empowerment reflects the broader public sentiment in 1988. In essence, ‘Talkin’ Bout a Revolution’ encapsulates the hope, frustration, and desire for change that were significant undercurrents in the U.S. during the lead up to the 1988 presidential election.”
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:49:15)
And so the reason I highlighted this is because that’s what one of the things I was trying to get at in my mind is, was that we went from, there’s this interesting song to what was happening in 1988 to there was an election to who was in the election and what was the incumbent and what— And okay. Yes. So what you’re hearing in this song is not somebody in a non-election off year who just kind of felt this way. No, it was capturing a moment in time.
Dan Shipper (00:49:49)
Well, and what do you think? So we’ve talked a little bit about what you feel like are important threads of the context in our time. So things are moving faster and faster. We’re spending all of it on our laptops. We’re just coming out of Covid. How are you seeing the time that we’re living in right now?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:50:07)
One thing I wonder about is, which is a related thread. But, is it okay to aspire to less also? I think that that’s something that we are seeing and feeling and that we’ve talked about internally is it’s the flip side of go for more. It’s the flip side of everything going so fast. It’s like, is it okay to aspire for less? Is it okay to aspire for the small things, which might also be an age thing. I think that there are times to grind and as we’re doing some of these interviews, people know what my priorities are at this point. So I think that that’s one part of it. I think just the levels at which we’re thinking about positioning are societally, and then what does it mean within your computer? And what does it mean for the person? And things are going so fast on a personal level. It’s also on a global level, you know? And so it really is this interplay between everything is moving so fast in the world whether it’s elections in different countries, whether it is climate disasters, this, that, everything is so much up here. And even when you get to my computer, I’m having more ads than ever on YouTube. And everything is actually optimizing to give me a little red dot in the corner of the app to remind me to check it because they want me to spend time in it, you know? And so it’s like, what are the threads that, how can— You can’t be the antidote to everything, but you can actually be the answer for this part. And this part is not insignificant because of the time that you’re spending in it. And so it really is that what is the relationship between how somebody is feeling and then this small, but a big part that you can affect some lightness for.
Dan Shipper (00:52:01)
One of the things I think could be fun to do together is just to go down even further on this rabbit hole: I think ChatGPT is actually really good at simulating the personalities of different people. So we could have it pick out someone from the laptop class and ask it about how it and how we’re encapsulating the feelings of this age and see if we can discover anything new. Are you down for that?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:52:26)
I love that. I’m very down for that.
Dan Shipper (00:52:30)
Okay, cool. So I can drive and you can tell me what you want me to say. Okay, cool. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to basically describe the laptop class to ChatGPT and then we’re going to ask it to simulate someone from the laptop class. And then we’re going to talk to them and see what we can find. So, yeah. So, give me some descriptions of the laptop class I can use.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:53:02)
Yeah. So, these are people who spend five days a week on their computer. They rely on their computer for their livelihood. And so it’s not that they could do this work on their phone or that their primary job is off their computer. They use their computer for work and for internet chores. But for things that are more fun, they’re phone people. They probably try not to open their laptop over the course of the weekend. They might go into an office. They’re probably hybrid or they may also be fully remote and working from home. It’s a laptop people who care also care about their work. They’re really proud of their work. But they also have a lot of competing priorities. And they are clear on what is important to them. And so for some of them, that might be their kids and their family. For others, it might be teaching a yoga class out in Brooklyn. They don’t want to be on their computer all of the time. And there’s a disconnect between being a laptop person, because you love what you do and you have pride in what you do, but also wanting to be off that laptop—you’re on the laptop too much. They care about what they do. So they probably use something like ChatGPT or Grammarly or Calendly to help them get some of these tasks done. And I’ll stop there for now.
Dan Shipper (00:54:45)
Okay, cool. So we’re basically putting that into ChatGPT. We’re saying here’s a group of people I’ll call the laptop class. And we’re going to just describe the laptop class. I just want to see what it says.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:55:00)
I love this little “memory update.” It really makes you feel like, thanks for remembering.
Dan Shipper (00:55:07)
Yeah. okay. So now I’m going to say, I want you to give me five profiles of specific people who could be in the laptop class, make it up based on what I’ve described and what— You know, so it’s making me crazy— Isn’t it cool? So it’s giving me Rebecca Greene, the remote marketing manager who’s 34. She lives in Portland, Oregon. She’s a senior marketing manager for a tech startup. She’s married with two young kids. So it’s giving me all that stuff. Yeah, go for it.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:55:50)
Can I tell you in my document here, which is our examples of real people–the first one is this person who I will call Claire for the sake of this discussion, who is 37, lives with her husband and two children, is a leader at a company that does coaching, but cares deeply about her job, but also that’s Rebecca.
Dan Shipper (00:56:14)
I love this. It’s so funny. I actually use ChatGPT for this all the time. And it’s kind of crazy how good it is, especially for initial market research. You always want to talk to real people, obviously, but if you’re just sort of getting a sense, you’re kind of doing this whole context exercise is really good for this. So we’ve got Jake Thompson, the freelance web developer, lives in Austin, specializes in e-commerce sites. He’s single, enjoys live music, and practices yoga. He loves the flexibility of his freelance career, but finds himself working late into the night. And so he’s sort of stressed out about that. We’ve got Sofia Martinez, the hybrid teacher and writer. We’ve got Ahmed Khan, the corporate consultant and Laura Bennett, the health tech entrepreneur. So which of these people feels an interesting profile that you want to explore, or do none of them feel interesting? Or should we get more?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:57:08)
Let’s get more. I’m curious to see more because these ones are interesting and I know them now.
Dan Shipper (00:57:15)
Yep. Cool. So I’m going to hit regenerate, which is a really nice thing because it’ll basically just take this prompt and just do it again and try to try to make it slightly more diverse. So we’ll see if that works for you but if it’s feeling too—
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:56:30)
No, this is great.
Dan Shipper (00:58:32)
—generically in a particular direction, we can always ask it to be like, hey, give me a person who’s more like X. So we’ve got a senior product manager, a tech startup, we’ve got a freelance graphic designer, a university professor of history, a software engineer at a Fortune 500 company, a marketing director at a nonprofit. Any of these stick out to you or should we push it in any direction?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:57:57)
Let’s do Aisha.
Dan Shipper (00:57:58)
Aisha Khan. So, Aisha is the marketing director at a nonprofit. She lives in Washington, D.C. She’s in her late thirties. She works in a hybrid role, balancing in-office meetings with remote strategy sessions. Okay, cool. So great. I’m going to say, please, let me just— I’ll just write it out.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:58:18)
Oh, my goodness, Dan, this is so cool.
Dan Shipper (00:58:30)
Okay, so I’m going to say, great, please write me a detailed profile of Aisha. It should be so detailed that another AI could take on her personality and simulate everything important about her, how she thinks, and her worldview. So this is— Oops. We got an error.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (0o:58:45)
We broke it.
Dan Shipper (00:58:48)
So, now we’re getting deep into, into Aisha. We’re getting a detailed profile—physical description, basic information, background and upbringing, education, early career, current role and work philosophy. And yeah, this is super detailed. It’s a biography.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (00:59:10)
Yeah, this is crazy. How does it generate this type of depth about a person that we’ve made up together?
Dan Shipper (00:59:20)
I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. I mean, I think there’s a lot of this type of stuff on the internet where it’s people talking about different types of personalities and different people and how they think and all that kind of stuff. So, it’s obviously drawing on that and it’s just really good at giving a little bit of text. So we have a little bit of a profile above here, just exploding that out into something more detailed. It’s really, really good at that. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to take this profile. I’m going to copy it and I’m going to open up a new chat. I’m going to say, I want you to simulate this person, so I can talk to them. And, I’ll say also only respond as this person just to make sure it kind of captures it. And let’s see how it does. This is a really long prompt. So sometimes it gets a little bit confused and forgets. Oh, so we’ve got Aisha. So yeah. What would you want to know about Aisha to kind of help with this positioning exercise?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:00:35)
I want to ask Aisha how she’s feeling today.
Dan Shipper (01:00:44)
“How are you feeling today?” Aisha says she’s “feeling centered and focused. Thank you for asking. I’ve been balancing a few projects at work, but I made sure to start my morning with some yoga, which always helped me stay grounded. How about you? How are you feeling?”
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:00:52)
I’m good. I’m curious what your first 10 minutes are like when you sit down to start your work every day. And maybe it’s what your first 10 minutes on your laptop are like when you sit down.
Dan Shipper (01:01:13)
Be detailed and specific and honest. I’m going to say, let’s see what happens. “My first 10 minutes at work are a crucial part of setting the tone for the day. Here’s how it typically goes. Log in and settle in: I start by logging into my laptop, making sure everything is in place. My coffee is within reach. My notebook is open beside me. My phone is on silent to minimize distractions. I like to have a clean and organized workspace. So if anything is left from the previous day, I’ll tidy it up. Then I check my calendar. The first thing you do, my laptop is my calendar. I review the meeting schedule. If they’re back-to-back meetings, I mentally prepare myself for a more intense day. This gives me a sense of how much uninterrupted work time I have, which helps me prioritize tasks.” That’s actually quite insightful. I do that too.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:01:50)
You’re like, hey! We are all like Aisha.
Dan Shipper (01:01:54)
“Skim through emails and messages. Next I open Slack and check for any urgent messages, scan for anything that requires immediate attention, review to-do lists, and then a brief moment of reflection.” So I think this is reasonable. It’s probably a little bit generic. How are you feeling about it?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:02:13)
It is a little bit generic. I mean, it’s true. The next question I would want to ask with people would be like, what part of that do they most enjoy and do they least enjoy?
Dan Shipper (01:02:28)
I will also say we can push it to be less generic. So if it’s feeling like we want something else, we can do that. “… do you most enjoy and least enjoy?” Actually, before we do that, I want to just press redo once just to see what could happen? I want to explore the space a little, the space of possibilities. So, “Opening ritual: I begin by opening my laptop and launching a few key apps. These are my lifelines workspace set up while my computer is waking up. I’ll take a moment to adjust my workspace, quick review of the day, email, check in Slack messages, prioritizing tasks, setting intentions.” So more or less the same, but there’s like this one feels a little more spiritual or something—like, opening ritual and setting intentions, which is kind of interesting. So maybe we can go with that one. So I’m going to say, “What parts of this do you most enjoy and least enjoy?” Okay. She most enjoys “the part where she sets her intentions. I least enjoy scanning through emails and Slack messages.” Same. Same, Aisha.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:03:34)
Right, right. Okay. It can feel overwhelming. There you go. Especially if they’re unexplained issues. What about it feels overwhelming?
Dan Shipper (01:03:39)
“What about it feels overwhelming? Be really specific.”
“The overwhelming part comes from a few things. Volume and urgency, context switching, pressure to respond, unplanned tasks, emotional weight. These factors combine to create a sense of being pulled in multiple directions at once, which is why I try to keep this part of my morning routine as streamlined and brief as possible.”
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:04:08)
It’s interesting. It’s interesting because it’s a variation of what you hear from people, right? But I think that this is where you or I would want to just understand this person even a little bit more.
Dan Shipper (01:04:24)
So, yeah. Tell me more. Where does this go for you or what would you want to ask more of? How would you—?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:04:35)
Well, maybe I would want to— Because what I’m trying to understand in this case is what is causing the overwhelm for people, right? And if there’s anything that they could remove from here or that would change how they’re feeling in that instant, what would it be? Or, from a higher level I mean, maybe ask Aisha, when else do you feel overwhelmed? I’d be curious.
Dan Shipper (01:04:53)
So I’m saying, “When else do you feel overwhelmed?” One of the things while it’s responding—this pressure to respond is really interesting. I know that feeling of weight that comes over you and expectation, and it is to some degree driven by the outside environment and it’s to some degree driven by those little beeps of the red lights of the notifications, but it’s also very internal. I feel like I want to live up to all these expectations, you know?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:05:30)
Yes. I think that that’s something we’ve talked a little bit about is it’s also the wanting to be on it for other people or not let down other people.
Dan Shipper (01:05:41)
Totally. So, we asked Aisha where she felt overwhelmed. “We’ve got back-to-back meetings, tight deadlines, unclear expectations, managing team conflicts, information overload and personal life demands.” So one thing that we can do is we can say something like, “These feel pretty generic. Can you tell me things that only Aisha might say to a question like this? Make sure it’s really specific to you.” So Aisha says, fundraising events is a place where she feels particularly overwhelmed and so this is where we’re starting to get into like—
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:06:25)
Her job. This is her.
Dan Shipper (01:06:26)
Yeah, this is actually her day. And one of the really interesting things about this is it’s such a function of prompting. If I had said this at the top, I think we would have gotten a lot less generic answers to begin with. But, yeah, she’s thinking about fundraising events. She’s thinking about crisis communications, cultural tensions, donor relationship, managing expectations from, from my family. What does that stuff make you think about?
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:06:50)
Yeah. What did these things make me think about? This is interesting because this would be insight into the day-to-day of somebody who I would have to be on a call with otherwise, to even think about the different things that they’re working through over the course of the day. If that makes sense. What does go into donor relations or what does go into fundraising for an event? What are those from a team-building-a-product perspective? It’s like, oh, these start to be some of the jobs to be done by a person who is separate from us. And yeah, that’s the first place where my mind went, which is much more helpful than signs of burnout, you know?
Dan Shipper (01:07:30)
Totally. Now you’re making me think I wanna go back to our original question. I’m curious about what the first 10 days of your life are like. And I’m just gonna add in can, just tell me things that only Aisha might say to a question like this and make sure it’s specific to you and see how it changes it, see if it changes it from the opening ritual workspace set of all that kind of stuff to something that makes us see her say a little bit more.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:08:10)
This makes me think of one other use case I’ve seen, which is helpful. Adina and Jay are on our team, who lead on research, do, which is when we do these interviews, we get transcripts of the videos afterwards, and it can be 25 or 30 people and putting those transcripts into ChatGPT and creating a table of what all the responses were and then for specific types of insights and then what are the threads across all of those across all of those interviews.
Dan Shipper (01:08:39)
I love that. Another thing you can do is you can put a transcript in and have it write a profile of that person from the transcript and then continue interviewing them after they’re gone.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:08:45)
That’s fascinating.
Dan Shipper (01:08:52)
Yeah. okay. So, we got a slightly more detailed response from Aisha saying things that only Aisha would know. I would say it’s still a little bit more generic than we might like, but it’s starting to feel more visceral and visual. And I think with a little bit more tweaking, we could probably get somewhere good. But, I just think going back to that sort of that other response we got where it’s talking about crisis comms and you’re like, okay, now it’s saying things where I’m getting into the world a little bit in a way that I wouldn’t be able to otherwise.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:09:33)
That made me think of oh, what if I could talk to Tracy Chapman in 1988? And then I was thinking about another example of the positioning, which was the Ford T in 1908, that the whole positioning around it was like buy a Ford T and then buy more with what you have left over. And it was cost. It was every man’s car because it was a cheap alternative. And it came on the tail end of a recession in 1907, which is probably what played into its positioning at that point in time. And the overall cultural feeling was probably like, I’m broke. And so it’s not like you’re broke. Here’s the car. It’s like, no, do this and do more after it. And so what we did with Tracy Chapman, I would probably be interested in diving into understanding the context, but from the perspective of the team or people who would have participated in, had that context in 1908.
Dan Shipper (01:10:21)
I think this is a fantastic use of language models. I’m kind of buzzing right now because it’s so valuable to capture a gestalt of an age. And usually the way to capture gestalt is you go and you read a bunch of stuff and if you spend a couple of weeks doing that, you get this residue that just accumulates in your body. That’s the vibe. And then that’s what lets you do the positioning or write the piece or whatever. I’m doing this right now with— I’m writing a piece about ancient Greece and I’m doing the same thing and I’m just trying to get the vibe. And it’s such a powerful shortcut to just use this. And I’m the ChatGPT AI guy. I don’t know why I haven’t been doing that. I love it.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:11:15)
Yeah. It’s really true. Because you’re steeping yourself in something. And it’s so impersonal or it’s just tab after tab of text after text. so I’m probably going to try and recreate what you did here afterwards for my little Ford T folks in 1908.
Dan Shipper (01:11:33)
I love that. Well, we had more to cover, but we are unfortunately out of time. We’ll have to have you back for another episode. Maybe around one of Arc’s new launches. But this is fantastic. Thank you so much for doing this.
Nashilu Mouen-Makoua (01:11:44)
Yes. There we go. Thank you, Dan. Thank you.
Thanks to Scott Nover for editorial support.
Dan Shipper is the cofounder and CEO of Every, where he writes the Chain of Thought column and hosts the podcast AI & I. You can follow him on X at @danshipper and on LinkedIn, and Every on X at @every and on LinkedIn.
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