MCP Servers: Teaching AI to Use the Internet Like Humans
If your MCP server has dozens of tools, it’s probably built wrong.You need tools that are specific and clear for each use case—but you also can’t have too many. This creates an almost impossible tradeoff that most companies don’t know how to solve.That’s why we interviewed Alex Rattray, the founder and CEO of Stainless. Stainless builds APIs, SDKs, and MCP servers for companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Alex has spent years mastering how to make software talk to software, and he came on the show to share what he knows. We get into MCP and the future of the AI-native internet.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share. Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribeFollow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipperReady to build a site that looks hand-coded—without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at Framer.com, and use code DAN to get your first month of Pro on the house.Timestamps:00:00:00 - Start00:01:14 - Introduction00:02:54 - Why Alex likes running barefoot00:05:09 - APIs and MCP, the connectors of the new internet00:10:53 - Why MCP servers are hard to get right00:20:07 - Design principles for reliable MCP servers00:23:50 - Scaling MCP servers for large APIs00:25:14 - Using MCP for business ops at Stainless00:28:12 - Building a company brain with Claude Code00:33:59 - Where MCP goes from here00:41:10 - Alex’s take on the security model for MCPLinks to resources mentioned in the episode:Alex Rattray: Alex Rattray (@RattrayAlex), Alex Rattray Stainless: https://www.stainless.com/
--------
51:40
--------
51:40
Cognition’s CEO on What Comes After Code
The future has a way of showing up early to some places. In software engineering, one of those places is Cognition—the startup that made headlines in early 2024 with Devin, the world’s first autonomous coding agent, and more recently with its acquisition of the AI code editor Windsurf.Scott Wu, Cognition’s cofounder and CEO, has a front-row seat to what comes next. In this episode of AI & I, we talk with Wu about why the fundamentals of computer science still matter in an AI-first world, the direction he sees for the short- and long-term future of programming, and why he believes we may already be living with AGI.Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Start00:02:02 – Introduction00:02:32 – Why Scott thinks AGI is here00:09:27 – Scott’s personal journey as a founder00:16:55 – Why the fundamentals of computer science still matter00:22:30 – How the future of programming will evolve00:26:50 – A new workflow for the AI-first software engineer00:29:33 – How Devin stacks up against Claude Code00:40:05 – Reinforcement learning to build better coding agents00:50:05 – What excites Scott about AI beyond CognitionIf you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Scott Wu: Scott Wu (@ScottWu46) Learn more about Cognition: https://cognition.ai/ Try the world’s first autonomous coding agent: https://devin.ai/
--------
53:22
--------
53:22
One Developer Got Thousands of Users Before His App Launched
Naveen Naidu built an app that found product-market fit backwards.Most apps launch first and then try to find users. Monologue, Naveen’s AI voice dictation app that came out of beta yesterday, did the opposite. It built a following of thousands of users during its incubation period at Every—many of them switching over from venture capital-backed competitors—all while the app barely had a landing page.The growth has continued in the 24 hours since launch, with an average of 1 million words being transcribed weekly, and in this episode of AI & I, we sit down with Naveen to talk about his journey as the single engineer behind a viral app. We get into the false starts and side projects that taught Naveen how to ship fast, the brutal feedback that kept Monologue honest, why Every decided to build in a crowded category, and the AI coding tools that let one developer do the work of a team.Get free early access to Amazon's Alexa Plus: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCCNHWV5?ref_=aucc_us_dis_everyalexa_q3_25Timestamps:00:01:27 – Introduction00:03:51 – A live demo of Monologue00:06:27 – Hard lessons from Naveen’s years in the wilderness00:12:29 – Building a muscle to ship fast00:21:11 – The spark that became Monologue00:26:09 – Dogfooding your way to a killer feature00:29:45 – Why the harshest product feedback is the most valuable00:31:47 – Every’s strategy for launching an app in a crowded space00:40:08 – Giving Monologue the Every “smell”00:45:09 – Naveen’s one-person AI stack to build beautiful appsIf you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribeFollow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipperLinks to resources mentioned in the episode: https://www.monologue.to/
--------
57:25
--------
57:25
Claude Code Can Be Your Second Brain
Noah Brier uses Claude Code as his second brain—it’s the coolest notetaking setup we’ve ever seen.He has Claude running on a server in his basement hooked up to a VPN. It stores, reads, and writes to thousands of notes in his Obsidian vault. He does it all from his phone.We had him on the show to tell us exactly how he’s pulling this off. Dan and Noah get into:The nuts and bolts of the Claude Code-Obsidian setup: Noah set up Claude Code on top of his Obsidian root directory, and he walked me through how he uses it to prep for an upcoming speech—creating a project folder, pulling in relevant research from his notes, saving transcripts from chats with other LLMs, and generating daily progress updates.The “thinking partner” that lives inside Noah’s second brain: Noah points out that in the hype around AI’s ability to write, the fact that it can read is overlooked. That’s why he has an agent inside Claude Code with strict guardrails to stay in “thinking mode.” It logs his questions, tracks insights, and catches him up on research if he returns to a project after a few days away.How Noah does deep work on his phone: Noah rigged a home server in his basement, put his Obsidian vault in it—and then runs Claude Code on top. Noah says that being able to think, write, research, and ship code from his phone has fundamentally changed the way he works.This episode is a must-watch for anyone curious about who wants to learn how to use Claude Code to build a true second brain.If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Start building in Google AI Studio at ai.dev. Ready to build a site that looks hand-coded—without hiring a developer? Launch your site for free at Framer.com, and use code DAN to get your first month of Pro on the house. Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: 00:01:19 - Introduction00:04:28 - How you can do deep work on your phone00:06:14 - Why Noah thinks Grok has the best voice AI00:11:39 - The nuts and bolts of Noah’s Claude Code-Obsidian setup00:23:59 - Using an agent in Claude Code as a “thinking partner”00:35:07 - Noah’s Thomas’ English Muffin theory of AI00:44:04 - The white space still left to explore in AI00:50:41 - How Noah is preparing his kids for AI01:01:54 - How he brought his Claude Code setup to mobileLinks to resources mentioned in the episode:Noah Brier: https://www.noahbrier.com/, Noah Brier (@heyitsnoah) / XAlephic, his AI strategy consultancy: alephic.com The conference he leads about marketing and AI: http://BRXND.AI A newsletter he writes about AI: newsletter.brxnd.ai The declassified relic from World War II they talk about: Simple Sabotage Field Manual The apps Noah used to set up Claude Code on his phone: Termius, Tailscale
--------
1:11:53
--------
1:11:53
This AI Makes a Video Game World in 40 Milliseconds
We had Dean Leitersdorf on the pod and he did something no guest had ever done.Mid-sentence, he transformed from a startup founder in a black t-shirt to a wizard with light shooting from his hands. Then, he was in a white-walled game universe, and when he picked up the tissue box on his table, it morphed into a gun which he could shoot by moving his arm.He did it with one of his products, Mirage: It takes any live video feed (like Dean on the pod) and instantly renders each frame into a new style of your choosing—40 milliseconds from input to output.Dean is the co-founder and CEO of the creators of Decart which makes Mirage. They recently raised $100 million at a $3.1 billion valuation to build a new era of real-time generative AI experiences like this.Realtime generative video models are going to change video games forever, and Dean is on the forefront: imagine creating endless variations on existing titles, like GTA-V with a frigid winter filter, or taking a bare-bones vibe-coded prototype and using Mirage to texture it. But games are just the beginning, Dean sees Mirage as opening the door to a new medium, a new experience created by AI. In this episode, we take a look at how Mirage works under the hood, and what the Decart team learned about the future of software while wrestling with its toughest research problems. We also debate AGI—how close it really is, what counts as progress, and what kind of society it might create. This episode is a must watch for anyone interested in the future of gaming, creativity, or if you just want your mind blown by what’s already possible. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share! Want even more?Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.To hear more from Dan Shipper:Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper Timestamps: Introduction: 00:00:47A demo of Mirage, the first real-time video-to-video model in the world: 00:02:38How Mirage can take your vibe-coded game to the next level: 00:06:22The new architecture of modern software: 00:08:45How Mirage works so blazingly fast: 00:16:34Inside Decart’s invention of a new “live stream diffusion” model: 00:20:33Solving the error accumulation problem for real-time video: 00:21:17How Dean thinks about inventing a new creative medium: 00:29:55Dean’s take on the post-AGI world: 00:39:43Why AI brings back the age of the generalist: 00:51:15Links to resources mentioned in the episode:Dean Leitersdorf: @DLeitersdorfDecart: https://about.decart.ai/ Try Mirage and Delulu: https://mirage.decart.ai/, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ai.decart.delulu, https://apps.apple.com/il/app/delulu-by-decart/id6749955738 More about Yan LeCun’s error accumulation problem: https://x.com/ylecun/status/1640123182983045120
Learn how the smartest people in the world are using AI to think, create, and relate. Each week I interview founders, filmmakers, writers, investors, and others about how they use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Midjourney in their work and in their lives. We screen-share through their historical chats and then experiment with AI live on the show. Join us to discover how AI is changing how we think about our world—and ourselves.
For more essays, interviews, and experiments at the forefront of AI: https://every.to/chain-of-thought?sort=newest.
UK