In this episode, I spoke to Dani Grant, CEO of Jam.dev, a tool that reimagines the way software teams communicate about and fix bugs.

Dani brings an infectious energy to her work. Before starting Jam, she worked at Cloudflare and was an analyst at USV, where we first crossed paths.

For Dani, Jam isn’t just about making software teams more efficient—it’s about unlocking human potential and bringing the future closer, faster.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Chapters:

• 00:00 Cold open
• 03:23 What Dani is building at Jam
• 05:15 Reflections on her time at Cloudflare
• 08:11 On the joy of building
• 09:36 Why bug reporting matters
• 12:50 On AI and the future of software development
• 16:04 Why crafting beautiful products is important
• 19:23 On building trust with AI products
• 26:21 Building products using decentralized data
• 30:21 Life growing up in Mountain View
• 37:26 The power of cold emails
• 42:44 How learning the flute influenced Dani
• 48:28 Finding meaning in the startup journey
• 51:24 The importance of team dynamics
• 56:04 Nick’s reflections as an investor

The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.

In this episode, I spoke to Steven Johnson - one of my favorite authors and thinkers. Steven has written 14 popular books, including “Where Good Ideas Come From” which inspired the name of this podcast and my blog, The Slow Hunch.

Steven has an unmatched ability to stitch together ideas from technology, science, and history to make stories come to life. He has had a significant impact on the way I see the world today.

In this conversation, we double clicked on Steven's journey to unlock “networked thought” through the use of tools, and the micro insights that gradually led him to NotebookLM, a tool that he is currently co-creating with the team at Google Labs.

Hope you enjoy this conversation!

Chapters:

• 00:00:00 Cold Open
• 00:01:56 Intro
• 00:05:14 The origins of NotebookLM
• 00:08:36 Steven's early interest in technology
• 00:13:31 The concept of "The Slow Hunch"
• 00:15:24 The importance of capturing ideas and sparks
• 00:21:24 How the rise of the internet enabled "networked thought"
• 00:30:20 When LLMs came into the picture
• 00:45:25 Building NotebookLM
• 00:49:32 Steven's view on "Conversational Hypertext"
• 00:52:27 How AI changes the act of knowledge curation
• 00:54:48 Closing thoughts

The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.

In this episode, I spoke to Muneeb Ali, the co-founder of Stacks — a Bitcoin L2 that aims to make BTC more programmable and scalable.

At USV, we originally backed Muneeb and his co-founder Ryan Shea back in 2014. Our shared hypothesis was that Bitcoin had the potential to impact more than just finance—it could be a new foundation for the internet itself.

Of course, this idea wasn't as obvious back then. In my conversation with Muneeb, we used his personal and professional journey to trace the origins of this idea—starting with his PhD in computer science at Princeton leading up to his fascination with Bitcoin and work on Stacks today.

Muneeb offers insights into the technical and cultural challenges of innovating within the Bitcoin ecosystem, and shares his vision of a future where BTC serves as the foundation for the next generation of decentralized applications.

Chapters:

00:00:00 Cold open
00:01:35 Muneeb's background in computer science and peer-to-peer systems research
00:06:29 Transitioning from academia to entrepreneurship
00:09:00 The "aha moment" - Bitcoin solving the global state problem
00:11:16 Evolution of Muneeb's vision for Bitcoin
00:15:00 Comparing different approaches to blockchain architecture
00:22:48 The current landscape of blockchain ecosystems
00:26:29 Challenges of building on Bitcoin and navigating community resistance
00:29:43 The Stacks Nakamoto upgrade and its potential impact
00:32:44 Decentralization versus user experience
00:37:38 Future vision for Bitcoin L2s and a decentralized internet

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The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.

I spoke to Fraser Kelton, General Partner at Spark Capital and the former Head of Product at OpenAI. Fraser played a key role in the launch of ChatGPT, which is widely considered AI's "iPhone moment."

Before his stint at OpenAI, Fraser built Koko, a platform that was initially built to provide cognitive behavioral therapy at scale, transitioned to AI-driven online content moderation, and eventually acquired by Airbnb in November 2018.

At Airbnb, as Fraser experimented with early models like BERT and GPT-2 to scale Koko's content moderation efforts, he realized that transformer models could "turn all of the internet into training data," dramatically accelerating the progress of AI.

Fraser cold emailed Ilya Sutskevar and ended up joining OpenAI—helping them transition from a research lab into a company that ships compelling consumer and enterprise products. He offered a behind-the-scenes look at the development of GPT-3 and ChatGPT, and the decisions that led up to their release.

Looking ahead, Fraser discussed how transformer architectures could be applied to biology, disrupting traditional medicine as we know it. He spoke about how we are overestimating the short-term impact of AI, and under-appreciating the scale of change over the next 10-30 years.

Throughout his career, Fraser has been driven by a mission to support brilliant technologists in creating a better future. His insights offer a glimpse into the past, present, and future of AI at a pivotal moment in the technology's development. Enjoy!

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Cold open
• 00:02:56 Fraser's background as a founder and at OpenAI
• 00:04:33 The origin story of Koko and online cognitive behavioral therapy
• 00:10:22 Koko’s pivot to content moderation
• 00:13:15 Playing with BERT and GPT-2 at Airbnb
• 00:28:00 Cold emailing Ilya Sutskevar and joining OpenAI
• 00:35:00 The cultural moment of ChatGPT's launch
• 00:42:20 Overestimating short-term impact and underestimating the long-term potential of AI
• 00:44:13 The transformative potential of AI in biology and medicine
• 00:48:02 Supporting brilliant technologists to create a better future

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The Slow Hunch is produced by the team at Spectral.