Welcome back to the AI Chat Podcast.
I am Jaden Schaefer, and today is episode 1001.
Yes, 1001.
I've officially entered the four-digit flex zone.
At this point, my podcast has more episodes than some people have unread emails.
And actually, I think it might actually have more episodes than I have unread emails.
That's only because Gmail stopped counting.
In any case, today I wanted to do something different.
The episode is going to be a roundup of some of the biggest things I've learned, what I appreciate most about the people in this community.
A little reintroduction for anyone who just jumped in and has been wondering who I am and telling the story of the show.
So for anyone new, I am Jaden.
I talk really fast.
I love AI.
I build companies.
Evidently, I say like too much in my episodes, and someday I'll use AI to cut that out.
But for now, I'm worried people complain that I'm using AI at all.
I accidentally created a podcast network.
This is one of many shows that I host.
I have three children.
I buy domain names like they are Pokemon cards.
My biggest domain name flex, is that I own podcast studio dot com, which is what I run a podcast studio in Arizona out of.
I run AI Box, which is a no-code AI app builder, and I spent the last few years interviewing founders, reading research papers way too late at night and explaining AI in a way that makes my family say that's super cool, but can you pass the salt at the dinner table?
I probably talk too much about AI at all given moments of the day.
So I originally started this podcast.
It was called ChatGPT.
I started it as just a way to get new users to talk about what was happening in AI and to learn, you know, for myself.
So basically, everything I would learn, I would talk about, and I was using it as a way to get new users on a wait list for my software company, AI Box, which has, of course, since launched, and you hear me talk about all the time, I'm sure.
And what was really interesting, I launched it.
It was called ChatGPT.
It was in the very early days after ChatGPT had launched.
And of course, with a title like that, so many people were probably searching for that organically.
The show really blew up and started getting a ton of downloads.
And I think I initially created a handful of episodes.
Wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it.
But the reception was really good.
I just got so many people listening that I decided to go all in.
So I think sometimes in the really early days, because I was just really stoked about seeing the numbers go up, I would sometimes I'd post 10 episodes a day just covering like every single AI news story that was happening.
And I do a deep dive on all of them.
I think the early episodes I'd actually use ChatGPT to help me answer frequently asked ChatGPT questions.
So I think like if you scroll all the way to the beginning, you'll probably see episodes that are something like is ChatGPT paid?
How does ChatGPT make money?
Like all the basic questions that people would have ever had.
And that helped it grow a lot.
At some point I realized that the whole AI market was going to be a lot bigger than just ChatGPT, even though that was like the crazy thing.
Um, and also I was worried that you know open AI.
There was like some rumors.
I don't know if it ever happened that people were um, you know, getting cease and desist if they had the name chat GPT or GPT and like the name of their company.
And so I think a lot of people change their names.
Uh, at the time I was sort of concerned.
I was also bringing.
I was also talking to uh executives I think from or not executives, but like just people that were high up at open AI uh, And so I realized, when I was about to do one of those episodes, that I probably should change the name to something less you know the name of an OpenAI product.
So at that point I changed the name to AI Chat and it has been that for the last couple years, ever since.
I've talked to a ton of incredible people, including the co-founder of Oculus, was a major highlight episode.
I've talked to Mustafa Suleiman over on my AI Applied podcast, the CEO of Microsoft AI and a ton of other really incredible people.
So the show has been a lot of fun.
People ask me why I create so many podcast episodes.
I think, if I'm being 100 honest, I was either going to spend all day long arguing with people on X about AI and what was happening, or probably Reddit as well.
Everyone's saying AI was, you know, all the doomers on Reddit saying AI was going to ruin us all.
So you are welcome.
I channeled that energy into something a little bit more constructive.
I created this podcast talking about what's going on.
The first big thing I learned after creating a thousand episodes of AI Chat is that I think right now the technology, like all of these different AI models, are changing really quickly.
New ones are coming out all the time.
But I think...
The mission of all of it is really basically the same thing.
AI is only as meaningful as the people that are currently using it.
I've talked to a lot of different founders and researchers on the show, interviewed them, a lot of different builders.
Something that always surprises me is how human the whole journey of AI is, when these people are creating AI companies.
Everyone essentially is trying to create something that matters.
Everyone is trying to solve an important problem to them.
Every time I use ChatGPT or AI or Grok or Gemini or anything, I'm trying to solve a problem that's important to me.
And I think the thing that's really exciting is that users and creators of these AI models at this point it feels like everyone is still humble enough to admit when their model is doing bad, or admit when their favorite model is doing bad come up with ways to improve it
And it seems like we're getting a really good feedback loop where a lot of these AI companies are actually implementing AI features, making changes.
You know, you could think of back to the Google Gemini famous moment when they created the, the black images of black Nazis, which is super historically inaccurate and probably pretty offensive.
And we've learned we've changed and we're making things better.
So I'm my hope is that that continues.
Something else I think I learned from this whole, you know experiment, I guess you could say, of becoming a podcaster.
This was never the career path I set out to become a podcaster.
But somehow that is how I typically introduce myself at this point.
I think the biggest thing for me is that consistency beats talent and consistency also beats luck.
It even beats my microphone when it decides to randomly disconnect in the middle of an interview or right as I'm about to record something and have to record an entire episode.
I think showing up is the cheat code.
If you want proof, you can look at this podcast.
When I started, it was literally me talking into a really crappy 20 Amazon microphone, hoping it would get a couple listeners.
The audio honestly sounded like I was talking into a can.
And now I have over 10 million downloads across my podcast network and a really amazing community of people like yourself who are trying to learn everything possible when it comes to AI and implications and all of the incredible advancements that we're making today.
Something I definitely don't take for granted is the concept that in the AI industry, there's a lot of talented people working on it.
It is too big for any one person.
I think this podcast in particular only grew because of all of the people around me.
So I definitely want to say thank you to you.
That is a listener for everyone on my team that has helped me create these podcasts.
For all of the amazing feedback that I've gotten on the podcast, as I've went through different microphones or had different audio hiccups, different things that have helped to make my reporting better on news stories.
I do actually really appreciate all the feedback I've gotten in emails.
Thanks to some of those, I definitely try to record when my neighbor is no longer mowing the lawn.
I also want to say a big thank you to all of the founders I've interviewed.
A lot of them have been really open and honest and sometimes it's off the record, which I obviously can't include, but they've given some really incredible feedback that has made the show better and that has helped me learn a lot about HAI and everything I have learned I've tried to pass on to everyone listening.
So also to my co-hosts on my other shows AI Applied and AI Hustle, Jamie McCauley and Connor Grennan.
These are incredible people.
And if you haven't listened to the AI Applied or AI Hustle podcasts, a quick plug to them, because they have some really incredible co-hosts over there.
AI Applied helps you apply AI into your work, into your organization, and it's more for business professionals.
AI Hustle is for people that are using AI to grow and scale their businesses, and for people that are trying to make money on the side or with their main business using AI tools.
So go check out AI Hustle and AI Applied, two amazing shows if you're not listening to them already.
So, as we're crossing the 1001 episode mark, I wanted to say I really appreciate you for choosing to listen every day.
This is the reason I get to do what I love.
This is the reason that the show keeps growing and it's the reason that I get up excited to record.
That and the fact, of course, that my kids are usually yelling at me by 6 am to get them out of bed.
So here is to the next 1,000 episodes.
We're gonna see more breakthroughs, more insights, more wild AI rumors that turn out to be true and more conversations with you.
I can't even imagine where this show is gonna be in 1000 episodes and where AI is gonna be when that happens.
I'm Jaden, this is AI Chat, and thank you for being part of this incredible journey.
