Stop Building AI Agents. Build AI Employees Instead (Live Demo) | Pedro Franceschi

Ethan is the product lead for ChatGPT Finances at OpenAI. He previously co-founded Digit, which helped more than 10 million people save over $9 billion. In our interview, he shared six practical ways to use ChatGPT to find wasted spending, save money on taxes, maximize credit card rewards, and model major financial decisions. I’m confident at least one of these use cases will save you money today.Ethan and I talked about:(00:00) ChatGPT Finances can save you money right now(03:37) Use case 1: Cancel recurring subscriptions(09:37) How ChatGPT protects your financial data(18:03) Use case 2: Find tax savings proactively(24:58) Use case 3: Cut ETF and mutual fund fees(26:20) Use case 4: Maximize credit card rewards(28:20) Use case 5: Model income and taking time off(31:05) Use case 6: Decide whether to rent or buy(34:00) How to set up recurring finance checks(36:58) Shipping 47 product updates in one weekThanks to our sponsors:Wispr Flow: 4x faster than typing with your voice https://ref.wisprflow.ai/peteryangRiverside: All-in-one AI studio for podcasts and video https://creators.riverside.com/PeterYangLinear: The AI agent platform for modern teams https://linear.app/behind-the-craft📌 Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/how-to-save-money-now-with-chatgpt-finances-ethan-blochWhere to find Ethan:X: https://x.com/eblochLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ebloch/Website: https://ethanbloch.com/Subscribe to this channel — more interviews coming soon!

Pedro is widely respected as one of the most AI-pilled CEOs out there. His hot take is that “agents” is a terrible name. Instead, he showed me what you should build: AI employees that have a defined job, skills, manager, and budget. Pedro also did a live demo of how he still uses OpenClaw to stay on top of his $5B business.Pedro and I talked about:(00:00) Build AI employees, not AI agents(05:23) Why Pedro spends half his time reviewing work(12:32) Live demo: Jim, Brex’s AI recruiting employee(21:24) Why Brex makes engineers build with AI in interviews(22:33) CrabTrap: How to stop AI employees from leaking data(27:30) The tokenmaxxing bill is coming. Here’s how to control it(40:45) Live demo: Pedro’s OpenClaw system runs his lifeThanks to our sponsors:Riverside: All-in-one AI studio for podcasts and video https://creators.riverside.com/PeterYangLinear: The AI agent platform for modern teams https://linear.app/behind-the-craft📌 Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/stop-building-ai-agents-build-ai-employees-insead-pedro-franceschi-brexWhere to find Pedro:X: https://x.com/pedroh96LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pfranceschi/Subscribe to this channel - more interviews coming soon!

📌 Copy the AI system I use to run a one-person $1M+ business: https://www.behindthecraft.com🤝 Subscribe to my practical AI newsletter read by 150K+ professionals: https://creatoreconomy.soSue is the co-founder and CEO of Brilliant, an interactive learning platform with 10M+ learners. I asked her how AI can help kids learn without doing their thinking for them, and she played back a real session with Koji, Brilliant’s AI tutor. If you’re building AI products or raising kids, watch how it helps a student work through a mistake without handing over the answer.We talked about:(00:00) Why AI should make kids think harder(01:34) Why test scores are down while grades are up(09:41) Koji: An AI tutor that won’t give you the answer(18:05) Why humans design lessons and AI builds them(22:25) Primitives: The building blocks behind Brilliant’s AI(29:30) Testing AI lessons with simulated students(32:10) Measuring learning, not lesson completion(34:39) Sue’s rule for competing with the big AI labs(39:10) How to raise kids who enjoy doing hard thingsThanks to our sponsors:Riverside: All-in-one AI studio for podcasts and video https://creators.riverside.com/PeterYangLinear: The AI agent platform for modern teams https://linear.app/behind-the-craftWispr Flow: 4x faster than typing with your voice https://ref.wisprflow.ai/peteryangWhere to find Sue:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-khim-70b86014/Brilliant: https://brilliant.orgSubscribe to this channel - more interviews coming soon!

📌 Copy the AI system I use to run a one-person $1M+ business: https://www.behindthecraft.com🤝 Subscribe to my practical AI newsletter read by 150K+ professionals: https://creatoreconomy.soAs head of product engineering at Replit, Amol has a firsthand look at which vibe-coded apps become real businesses. He showed me three apps built by non-coders that reached six figures, then walked through his 4-step process to take a prototype to production — publishing, security, monetization, and distribution.Amol and I talked about:(00:00) He built an app in 3 days that made $100K+ in month one(02:08) Three vibe-coded apps that became real businesses(08:04) What six-figure vibe-coded apps have in common(12:31) Live demo: Turn an AI interview coach into a real business(13:59) Steps 1 and 2: Publish the app and make it secure(17:50) Steps 3 and 4: Add payments and optimize SEO(21:35) How to replace expensive SaaS with internal tools(28:22) What software survives when code costs almost nothing(31:02) Why value is moving from models to appsThanks to our sponsors:Riverside: All-in-one AI studio for podcasts and video https://creators.riverside.com/PeterYangLinear: The AI agent platform for modern teams https://linear.app/behind-the-craftWispr Flow: 4x faster than typing with your voice https://ref.wisprflow.ai/peteryang📌 Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/how-non-coders-are-vibe-coding-100k-businesses-with-ai-amol-jain-replitWhere to find Amol:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jainamolWebsite: https://replit.comSubscribe to this channel - more interviews coming soon!

📌 Copy the AI system I use to run a one-person $1M+ business: https://www.behindthecraft.com🤝 Subscribe to my practical AI newsletter read by 150K+ professionals: https://creatoreconomy.soShreya and Hamel teach the industry standard course for AI evaluations taken by 4,500+ students from OpenAI, Google, and more. In our interview, I asked them to give live feedback on the AI evals that I built for my skills and demo how anyone can run evals with ChatGPT/Claude and their free evals skill. Don’t miss this up to date primer on evals from the real experts. 🙂P.S., I asked Shreya and Hamel to give my audience 25% off the next cohort of their AI evals course. It has 4.7 stars with 900 reviews which is almost unheard of on Maven. Sign up via the link here: https://maven.com/parlance-labs/evals?utm_campaign=peteryang&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=maven&promoCode=PETERYANGWe talked about:(00:00) Why AI evals are completely different now with the latest models(02:30) Demo: Live audit of the evals that I built for my AI skills(05:14) Top down vs. bottom up evals and why AI sucks at the latter(08:16) Spinning up AI agents to grade each eval criteria(14:32) Demo: Using Shreyas AI skill to run evals in Claude(23:46) How to review output labels to identify failures(34:37) How to turn failures into reusable evals(43:19) Where human judgement is still neededResources mentioned:Free eval skills from Shreya: https://github.com/ai-evals-course/evals-skillsDo automated evals work?: https://parlance-labs.com/blog/posts/auto-evals/Thanks to our sponsors:Wispr Flow — 4x faster than typing with your voice — https://ref.wisprflow.ai/peteryang📌 Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/how-to-build-better-ai-evals-with-claude-code-shreya-hamelWhere to find Shreya and Hamel:Shreya: https://www.sh-reya.com/Hamel: https://hamel.dev/Subscribe to this channel - more interviews coming soon!

📌 Copy the AI system I use to run a one-person $1M+ business: https://www.behindthecraft.com🤝 Subscribe to my practical AI newsletter read by 150K+ professionals: https://creatoreconomy.soRiley is a top AI creator and founder of Agent Native. In this episode, he showed me how he uses Codex to run his entire content business from generating engaging thumbnails to writing incredible video hooks. Riley also shared his full AI stack including some lesser known AI tools to edit videos, draw diagrams, and more.We talked about:(00:00) How Codex runs Riley’s 1.5M+ follower content business(03:16) Demo: Using Codex to create animations and B-roll(07:28) Demo: Codex can reverse-engineer a top YouTube hook(13:24) The BRENS framework to turn an idea into a strong hook(17:24) Demo: Riley’s Codex stack for diagrams, thumbnails, and posts(22:01) How Riley creates so much content every week(25:41) Demo: Using Codex and Paper for viral YouTube thumbnails(35:01) How to set up AI agents to find content ideas proactivelyThanks to our sponsors:Google AI Studio: The fastest way to go from prompt to production https://aistudio.google.com/?utm_source=peteryang&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=26Q3-peteryang_aisRiverside: All-in-one AI studio for podcasts and video https://creators.riverside.com/PeterYangWispr Flow: 4x faster than typing with your voice https://ref.wisprflow.ai/peteryang📌 Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/how-i-run-my-content-business-with-codex-riley-brownWhere to find Riley:Agent Native, Riley’s new company: https://agentnative.inc/X: https://x.com/rileybrownWebsite: https://rileybrown.xyz/Subscribe to this channel - more interviews coming soon!

📌 Copy the AI system I use to run a one-person $1M+ business: https://www.behindthecraft.com🤝 Subscribe to my practical AI newsletter read by 150K+ professionals: https://creatoreconomy.soNan and Jacob built Linear Agent, which has transformed how the $1.25B company gets work done. In this episode, they took me from the initial memo to launch, showing how to give an agent tools to find the context it needs, use evals to improve reliability, and more. This episode is a must-watch if you want a concrete, behind-the-scenes example of how to build a production agent end to end.We talked about:(00:00) What’s holding AI agents back as models improve?(00:51) Three things every good agent needs(03:00) Demo: The internal memo that started Linear Agent(09:50) The biggest mistake to avoid when building agents(11:29) Demo: From Slack to code in 6 minutes with the agent(17:01) When prototyping, “use the biggest model until it works”(24:02) Give agents tools to find context, not more context(34:07) The first thing to do before building an agentThanks to our sponsors:Oceans: Hire AI-native EAs http://oceanstalent.com/peterRiverside: All-in-one AI studio for podcasts and video https://creators.riverside.com/PeterYangLinear: The AI agent platform for modern teams https://linear.app/behind-the-craft📌 Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/5-rules-for-building-ai-agents-in-production-linear-nan-jacobWhere to find Nan and Jacob:Nan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenanyuJacob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-shumway-314a8366Linear Agent: https://linear.app/docs/linear-agentSubscribe to this channel - more interviews coming soon!

📌 Copy my personal AI system to save time and build with AI: https://www.behindthecraft.com/🤝 Get my free AI newsletter read by 150K+ professionals: https://creatoreconomy.so/Karan co-founded Nous Research, the company behind Hermes, the #1 personal agent and AI app overall on OpenRouter. I found him incredibly down to earth as we discussed why open-source AI must win, how Hermes gets better the more you use it, and even a live demo of how Hermes can mod your favorite childhood games.Karan and I talked about:(00:00) How Hermes differs from Claude Code and Codex(02:20) Why every AI model now sounds exactly the same(11:16) How to stop AI from saying “you’re absolutely right”(15:16) How Hermes creates skills without bloating its context(16:40) The open vs. closed-source debate on AI safety(23:40) Using one Kanban board for humans and AI agents(26:45) Demo: Rebuilding a childhood Sonic world with Hermes(36:07) How two Discord friends built a self-improving agent(42:40) How Hermes became its own biggest contributorThanks to our sponsors:Riverside: All-in-one AI studio for podcasts and video https://creators.riverside.com/PeterYangLinear: The AI agent platform for modern teams https://linear.app/behind-the-craftWispr Flow: 4x faster than typing with your voice https://ref.wisprflow.ai/peteryang📌 Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/hermes-co-founder-on-building-an-ai-agent-that-improves-itself-karan-malhotraWhere to find Karan:X: https://x.com/karan4dWebsite: https://www.karan4d.com/Hermes Agent: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agentSubscribe to this channel - more interviews coming soon!

Jason is a DevEx engineer on the Codex team. In our episode, he showed me how he runs his entire workday using Codex, from his chief of staff thread to the way he builds skills that learn how he works. Jason wrote the official OpenAI guidebook on how to get the most out of Codex, so don’t miss this episode.Jason and I talked about:(00:00) The only job left after AI can do the work(02:40) Turn pinned threads into long-running workspaces(05:50) Build a chief of staff across Slack, email, and Linear(10:12) Teach Codex to write like you for every audience(13:33) Mine past sessions for new skills and workflows(20:01) How Codex revised a launch video while Jason was out(24:23) Build a drum practice site around how you learn(25:59) Goal, plan, and worklog for long-running Codex tasks(33:52) Why taste starts with knowing what feels wrongThanks to our sponsor:Google AI Studio: The fastest way to go from prompt to production https://aistudio.google.com/?utm_source=peteryang&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=26Q3-peteryang_aisRiverside: All-in-one AI studio for podcasts and videohttps://creators.riverside.com/PeterYang📌 Get my personal AI OS with useful AI skills, $270 in AI tool credits, live monthly workshops, and courses on Hermes and Codex agents: https://www.behindthecraft.com/Where to find Jason:X: https://x.com/jxnlcoSubscribe to this channel - more interviews coming soon!

Thariq works on the Claude Code team, and I’ve wanted to see how he builds for a long time. In our episode, he showed how to use /goal to keep Claude working, how he plans with Claude to remove unknowns before building, and how he runs a team of agents in Slack. He also shared why his team cut Claude Code’s system prompt by 80% and how he creates polished launch videos with Claude.Thariq and I talked about:(00:00) Goals, loops, and workflows to make Claude work longer(04:48) Live demo: Creating a polished video with one prompt(08:17) Plan by removing unknowns before you build(14:32) How Anthropic uses HTML artifacts for planning(18:35) Running parallel Claude tasks through Slack(27:34) Using separate creator and verifier sub-agents(31:08) How Thariq stays focused while Claude works in parallel(34:07) Why Anthropic cut Claude Code’s system prompt by 80%(37:01) How to become more technical when AI writes the codeThanks to our sponsors:Riverside: All-in-one AI studio for podcasts and video https://creators.riverside.com/PeterYangLinear: The AI agent platform for modern teams https://linear.app/behind-the-craftWispr Flow: 4x faster than typing with your voice https://ref.wisprflow.ai/peteryang📌 Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/how-i-plan-build-and-run-loops-with-claude-code-thariq-shihipar📌 Get my personal AI OS with useful AI skills, $270 in AI tool credits, live monthly workshops, and courses on Hermes and Codex agents: https://www.behindthecraft.com/Where to find Thariq:LinkedIn: https://x.com/trq212Website: https://www.thariq.io/Subscribe to this channel - more interviews coming soon!