NOW WORKSHOPPING
Episode 2
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TOPICS TO COVER
Perplexity Computer — Is a Polished UI the Winner for Agentic Work?
Perplexity just launched an all-in-one agentic system: research, design, code, deploy, manage — end to end. 14.6M views. The question Ben is asking: when it comes to agentic work, do polished consumer UIs like this actually win? Or do programmable, composable tools win? Is a beautiful wrapper a feature or a limitation?
Google Nano Banana 2 — Pro Image Quality at Flash Speed
DeepMind just launched Nano Banana 2, built on Gemini Flash. State-of-the-art image creation and editing at Lightning speed. For context: the existing Nano Banana Pro is already baked into OpenClaw. The new Flash version closes the quality gap while being dramatically faster. What does near-free, near-instant, Pro-quality image gen mean for builders shipping products?
Qwen 3.5 — Frontier-Grade AI That Runs on Your Laptop
Alibaba just dropped an open source model that nearly matches Sonnet 4.5 on coding and reasoning, runs locally on a 32GB RAM Mac. No API costs, no data leaving your machine, no rate limits. The gap between frontier models and local models just collapsed. What does that mean for builders who have been paying per-token?
Ben's OpenClaw Setup — Live Walkthrough
Ben walks through his full OpenClaw config on air. Env vars, tokens, identity setup, heartbeat. Shows how to personalise your AI assistant from scratch. Good demo segment for listeners who want to build their own.
What If AI Doesn't Actually End The World? — Kobeissi Letter
The bullish counter to Citrini. Doomsday is the obvious trade and the obvious trade never wins. Introduces 'Abundance GDP': prices fall faster than incomes, households get richer without wage growth. AI lowers the barrier to entrepreneurship. Most underpriced scenario right now is not dystopia, it's abundance. Pair with the Citrini piece for a real debate.
The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis — Citrini
Fictional-but-rigorous macro scenario: what if AI wins so hard it crashes the economy? White-collar layoffs hollow out consumer spending (Ghost GDP), private credit collapses on PE-backed SaaS LBOs, prime mortgages go delinquent in SF/Seattle/Austin. S&P -38%, unemployment 10.2%. Core thesis: every institution was built assuming human intelligence is scarce. AI just made it abundant.
Solo Founder Runs Company With 15 AI Agents
Defense-tech founder replaced his entire traditional team with 15 AI agents. This is the operational version of the macro thesis. Not 'will AI crash markets' but 'how do I use this right now to do what a 10-person team did last year.' The three of you are living this already.
Microsoft AI CEO: All White-Collar Work Automated in 12-18 Months
Mustafa Suleyman's claim that most white-collar tasks get automated within 12-18 months. For builders that's not a threat, it's a procurement window. What do you build on top of before it closes? What skills become more valuable, not less?
The Plumbers Are Fine. Their Office Staff Aren't.
Plumbing company used to need 3 dispatchers, 2 customer service reps, 1 marketer, 2 admin. Now needs 1-2 people managing AI systems. The 10 plumbers stay. The 8 back-office go. This is happening across every traditional sector right now, not just tech.
Creator Economy vs AI Slop — Can Anyone Stand Out?
TechCrunch asks whether there's room for the next generation of creators when AI floods every channel. Flip it for the pod: how do builders create real signal in a slop-saturated market? Authenticity, niche depth, and lived experience become the only moats. Which is exactly what this pod is.