🤖 AI Summary
Overview
This episode dives into Noah Brier's innovative use of Claude Code as a second brain
for thinking, researching, and organizing. Noah shares how he integrates AI into his workflow, from setting up a home server to using Claude Code on his phone for deep work. The conversation explores the technical setup, the philosophical implications of AI, and how Noah is preparing his kids for an AI-driven future.
Notable Quotes
- There's entirely too much focus on AI's ability to write and not enough on its ability to read.
- Noah Brier, on the overlooked power of AI as a research and thinking tool.
- AI is like Thomas' English muffin—it gets into the nooks and crannies of how we work.
- Noah Brier, on AI's potential to integrate seamlessly into workflows.
- If there's a tool that lets a 10-year-old build an app, there can't be a bubble.
- Noah Brier, on the democratizing power of AI tools.
🛠️ The Claude Code-Obsidian Setup
- Noah runs Claude Code on a home server connected to his Obsidian vault, a markdown-based note-taking app.
- His setup allows Claude to access his entire note archive, pulling relevant research and organizing it into project-specific folders.
- He uses Git to sync his notes across devices, ensuring seamless access and updates.
- For his upcoming talk, Noah created a project folder in Obsidian, populated it with research, and used Claude Code to log daily progress and insights.
🧠 Using AI as a Thinking Partner
- Noah designed a Claude Code sub-agent specifically for thinking mode,
instructing it not to generate artifacts but to ask questions, log insights, and facilitate exploration.
- This agent helps him revisit projects after breaks by summarizing recent progress and surfacing key ideas.
- He emphasizes the importance of AI's ability to read and synthesize information, which he finds more valuable than its generative capabilities.
📱 Deep Work on the Phone
- Noah's home server setup allows him to use Claude Code on his phone via a secure VPN.
- He can research, write, and even push code updates directly from his phone, fundamentally changing how he works.
- Tools like Grok voice mode and Claude Code enable him to engage in deep thinking and problem-solving while on the go.
👨👩👧 Preparing Kids for an AI Future
- Noah encourages his children to engage with AI tools, such as using Claude Code to build a Secret Santa app.
- He emphasizes media literacy, teaching his kids to critically evaluate AI outputs and identify misinformation.
- He advocates for education systems to focus on meta-skills like critical thinking and argumentation, rather than rote memorization.
🌌 The White Space in AI
- Noah believes we're still in the early days of AI, with vast unexplored potential.
- He highlights AI's ability to integrate into existing workflows without forcing structural changes, reducing friction in adoption.
- His aha moment
with AI came when he realized its counterintuitive approach to software integration, flipping traditional paradigms on their head.
AI-generated content may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon as a sole source of truth.
📋 Episode Description
Noah Brier uses Claude Code as his second brain—it’s the coolest notetaking setup we’ve ever seen.
He has Claude running on a server in his basement hooked up to a VPN. It stores, reads, and writes to thousands of notes in his Obsidian vault. He does it all from his phone.
We had him on the show to tell us exactly how he’s pulling this off.
Dan and Noah get into:
The nuts and bolts of the Claude Code-Obsidian setup: Noah set up Claude Code on top of his Obsidian root directory, and he walked me through how he uses it to prep for an upcoming speech—creating a project folder, pulling in relevant research from his notes, saving transcripts from chats with other LLMs, and generating daily progress updates.
The “thinking partner” that lives inside Noah’s second brain: Noah points out that in the hype around AI’s ability to write, the fact that it can read is overlooked. That’s why he has an agent inside Claude Code with strict guardrails to stay in “thinking mode.” It logs his questions, tracks insights, and catches him up on research if he returns to a project after a few days away.
How Noah does deep work on his phone: Noah rigged a home server in his basement, put his Obsidian vault in it—and then runs Claude Code on top. Noah says that being able to think, write, research, and ship code from his phone has fundamentally changed the way he works.
This episode is a must-watch for anyone curious about who wants to learn how to use Claude Code to build a true second brain.
If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!
Want even more?
Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It’s usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free.
To hear more from Dan Shipper:
Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe
Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper
Timestamps:
00:01:19 - Introduction
00:04:28 - How you can do deep work on your phone
00:06:14 - Why Noah thinks Grok has the best voice AI
00:11:39 - The nuts and bolts of Noah’s Claude Code-Obsidian setup
00:23:59 - Using an agent in Claude Code as a “thinking partner”
00:35:07 - Noah’s Thomas’ English Muffin theory of AI
00:44:04 - The white space still left to explore in AI
00:50:41 - How Noah is preparing his kids for AI
01:01:54 - How he brought his Claude Code setup to mobile
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Noah Brier: