Personal tools for information overload

Steve Newman explains why he built side-project productivity tools, starting with an RSS reader and an attention firewall to manage overwhelming inputs.

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Steve Newman, creator of Writely and founder of the Golden Gate Institute for AI, shares the personal AI toolkit and vibe-coding practices that have reshaped how he works. He walks through bespoke tools including an attention firewall, a reading app for surfacing new ideas, a coding-agent dashboard, workflow automations, and a universal logging system for debugging with Claude. They also discuss information security, mobile and voice workflows, Steve’s “anti-tokenmaxxing” philosophy, and his views on AI takeoff, robotics, and climate change.

Google: Try Gemini’s Nano Banana image generation model in Google AI Studio or the Gemini app to create custom illustrated worksheets in seconds, and explore the app’s quizzes and guided learning features.

Sponsors:

AvePoint:

AvePoint is building the control layer for AI agents so you can securely govern, audit, and recover every action at scale. Design trusted agentic outcomes from day one at https://avpt.co/tcr

VCX:

VCX, by Fundrise, is the public ticker for private tech, giving everyday investors access to high-growth private companies in AI, space, defense tech, and more. Learn how to invest at https://getvcx.com

Claude:

Claude is the AI collaborator that understands your entire workflow, from drafting and research to coding and complex problem-solving. Start tackling bigger problems with Claude and unlock Claude Pro’s full capabilities at https://claude.ai/tcr

Tasklet:

Build your own Cognitive Revolution monitoring agent in one click.
Try it for free and use code COGREV for 50% off your first month at https://tasklet.ai

CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(03:25) Special Sponsor

(04:47) Building personal productivity tools (Part 1)

(14:23) Sponsors: AvePoint | VCX

(16:45) Building personal productivity tools (Part 2)

(17:32) Security tradeoffs and caution

(26:00) Touring the custom toolkit (Part 1)

(26:05) Sponsors: Claude | Tasklet

(29:56) Touring the custom toolkit (Part 2)

(38:01) Stack choices and dashboards

(45:12) Hooks, repos, and syncing