Today, Cohort 2 of The AI Second Brain starts. If you're in it, welcome. I can't wait to see what this group builds.

Enrollment's closed for this round. But next week, we're opening up something new: in-person meetups. More on that soon.

It's good timing, because this month inside the Second Brain Membership, the theme is human connection in the AI era.

The better our tools get at doing our thinking, the more deliberate we have to get about our living.

That's always been the point of a Second Brain: buying back time for the parts of life a computer can't do for you.

I Found the Vibecoded Business That Makes Real Money

My friend Christophe has three kids, a craft soda company, a music consulting gig, and no coding ability.

He built an AI sales agent at night, on the couch, while watching movies with his wife. It's now bringing in leads that have turned into real accounts at hotels like the Four Seasons and the Belmond.

I've been looking for a vibecoded project that makes real money. This is the first one I've found up close, and the conversation changed what I think is possible for a small business right now.

Phones Down Or You Buy Dinner

Our members inside the Second Brain Membership were sharing tips around our theme of human connection in the AI era. Here’s one I want you to know…

Britney has a rule for get-togethers: phones go face down in a stack in the middle of the table. If you reach for yours, or start griping about work or politics, you pick up the tab.

Simple. Almost too simple. But it works because it turns a vague intention “be more present” into a real cost.

Most of our plans to be more present fail because they rely on willpower in the moment, right when we're tired and distracted and have the least of it. Britney's rule skips willpower entirely. You don't have to resist checking your phone. You just have to decide if it's worth buying dinner.

You don't need a formal group rule to try this. Next time you're with people you care about, put your phone somewhere inconvenient, and name the cost of touching it before anyone sits down.

What would you charge? Hit reply and tell me.

What Happens To Your Job By 2030

Anthropic just released the Economic Scenarios Explorer.

You feed it your own guesses about how fast AI improves, and it shows you what that means for GDP, jobs, and wages by 2030, across three scenarios: modest, substantial, and extreme.

What I liked is the model underneath it: every job as a bundle of tasks that AI can augment, automate, or replace. Watching that logic play out is more useful than any single prediction.

One crucial finding: unemployment in knowledge work rises, while in other occupations it falls. If AI takes over the thinking tasks, demand shifts toward the hands-on work that AI can't touch yet.

Worth sitting with for a few minutes this weekend.