Becoming unLLMable With Sari Azout

Sari Azout
When I first started using AIs, I feared that machines were becoming more human. And yes, it is getting harder to tell the difference, but that’s not just because machines are becoming more human-like, but because humans are becoming more like machines. We worry AI will replace writers, but have you seen most of what’s online? Half the internet is engagement farmers on LinkedIn, selling you five steps to 10x your productivity by 6am. And you can see this mindset everywhere. We join Twitter for the love of conversation, come out obsessed with likes. We pursue research for discovery, then get trapped chasing citation counts. We try to hire and retain the best teachers, so we measure test performance, and then teachers teach the test. We want to reward quality media, so we measure clicks, and then we get clickbait. To put it differently, we try to measure what we value, but inevitably end up valuing what we measure.

Sari Azout
We want to reward quality media, so we measure clicks, and then we get clickbait. To put it differently, we try to measure what we value, but inevitably end up valuing what we measure. And what can be measured tends to be the mechanical stuff. Not only do numbers not capture what matters, they are extremely open to manipulation. The idea that our worth can be tied to KPIs and OKRs and numbers that can be seen and tracked and made legible to spreadsheets is a modern invention. In ancient Greece, the good life was defined by wisdom and contemplation. In medieval Europe, worth was tied to religious devotion. In many indigenous subcultures, worth or status really comes down to storytelling abilities, spiritual connections, and relationships. We just decided

Sari Azout
Then that like completely disappeared. And suddenly intelligence became important. And I just like, I think about so many things about the way I was raised now, like 2025, as ridiculous. Like the fact like I went to an Ivy league school and like, you know, perfect score on the SAT and all this, like the way that we talk about human worth. And it’s like, it’s flat out ridiculous. Like it doesn’t, it has zero kind of relation to whether that person is going to have a successful life or career in 2025, I believe. So I think just in the same way that strength and like, you know, physical strength was like rendered, like doesn’t matter anymore. You know, intelligence like won’t matter anymore. What will, you know? And I mean, I want to, you know, I want to be like mindful of the fact that all of this stuff, like it’s so deeply tied to like, you know, like labor, you know, and like people’s jobs and like, You know, is like UBI in the horizon or not. That’s very complex. But I do think that intelligence is going to matter so much less. And I have no idea what that will look like. But I find that really interesting as someone who feels like I have been surrounded by like Ivy League snobs my whole life. You know, me included, like this idea that like, you know, oh my gosh, but they, you know, they, like we took all these liberal arts classes and like this professor and like, there’s just Like a, an arrogance that comes with that. And I’m excited for what the world looks like when that is less valued, because I just think it’s going to make a lot of quality, like in the same way that I think we’ve been surprised by The kinds of things that AI can do, or we thought it was going to come after blue collar jobs, but like suddenly you can write poetry better.

Sari Azout
Like the reality is that the biggest problem for product builders today is attention. Like you can have, like literally you can have the cure for cancer today and people will just scroll past it on Twitter or be mad about it for sure. Or be mad about it, you know, right. But it’s like, people have no time. And like the average person will download maybe like with AI, like the windows maybe like opened up a little bit, but the average person downloads like zero new apps a month, you know? So you can have a phenomenal, super differentiated app, but people will not give you time. So I just, you know, I think I both like want things to be more interesting, more thoughtful, more provocative, but also understand the reality of being a product builder today, especially In consumer, where people will give you five seconds. And if something is too novel and does not fit like the kind of like, you know, paradigm in your head about like navigation or this or that, it just won’t work. So it’s a tricky time. I mean, the way that I, for Sublime, I really think about my goal is resonance, not scale. Like if I can have a hundred thousand people paying a hundred dollars a year for Sublime and a $10 million revenue business, I am perfectly content with that because I would love, like Sublime to me is a home to manifest my taste and values and beliefs in so many different ways, software and editorial and this and that. That’s my personal kind of objective with it. But do I think that that approach of trying to be not necessarily default to the norms is going to hit mass market adoption? I don’t.
Packy McCormick
That is not the answer that I was expecting. I really love it. It’s changing the way that I think about it maybe, but I wonder with sublime, like sublime is, is so wonderful.

Sari Azout
Like the reality is that the biggest problem for product builders today is attention. Like you