Vibe-Coding an Attention Firewall, w/ Steve Newman, creator of The Curve

2026-04-19

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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 Gemin...

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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