Noah Brier
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Helping CMOs build with AI at @Alephic_AI
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Articles by Noah Brier
The Three Vectors of the AI Race
← All Writing Alephic / Writing The AI race unfolds across three vectors—raw intelligence, intelligence per cost, and intelligence per cost at speed—driven by cost-effective models. Noah Brier/September 1, 2026/6 min read Increasingly, I believe there are three primary vectors in the AI race: Raw IQ: Who has the smartest model? IQ + Cost: Which model is the smartest per token dollar? IQ + Cost + Speed: Which model is the smartest per token dollar at the highest tokens-per-second (toks)?
The AI and Writing Edition
Today, we’re bringing you a new, excellent, adapted-for-WITI essay from our co-founder Noah Brier. Enjoy! Noah here. In 2023, I visited a high school in LA to talk about AI. It was the early days of ChatGPT, and mostly I answered questions about how it worked. After speaking with the students, I sat down with an English teacher one-on-one who was worried about what it meant for her and her teaching.
Things I Think I Think About AI (2026 Edition)
← All Writing Alephic / Writing In the 2026 edition of Things I Think I Think About AI, I revisit AI harnesses, top models like Fable, and agent-first workflows reshaping the field. Noah Brier/August 6, 2026/6 min read Last year I published a list of 29 things I think I think about AI, and I thought it might be good to revisit. So here’s my 2026 edition: Everyone is going to be working in harnesses (Codex, Claude Code, etc.) in the future.
The Mobile Lounge Edition
Noah here. What do the St. Louis Arch, the tulip chair, and the weird Washington-Dulles Airport people mover bus-a-ma-thingies have in common? All were born from the mind of Finnish-American architect and industrial designer Eero Saarinen.
In Defense of Tokenmaxxing // BRXND Dispatch vol 123
Another week, another article about the dangers of tokenmaxxing. This one comes courtesy of the New York Times and even introduces “tokenminning” as the antidote to the old way of thinking. But once again, the article’s example companies are countable on one hand: Meta, Amazon, and Uber.
Forward Deployed, Episode 7: The Diffusion Clock and the Conversion Clock
James Cham joins me for what is basically one of our recurring AI freakout calls, recorded. James is a partner at Bloomberg Beta and one of my favorite people to talk to when a new model or workflow suddenly makes the world feel slightly miscalibrated. Back in 2024, he and I recorded AI & The Enterprise with James Cham for the BRXND newsletter, which covered AI cycles, opinionated enterprise software, and where durable value might live. This conversation picks up from there.
Why is this interesting?
On accountability, education, and where we went wrong first. Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash Noah here. There are two stories we hear a lot about AI and writing these days: A junior employee responded to a work inquiry by generating a bunch of AI slop, never reading it, and then handing it in as the solution to the problem with great pride for their brilliant (unread) answer.
The C ulture of AI Engineering
Noah Brier cofounded Percolate in 2011 and learned the CEO’s hardest job: keeping a whole company pointed in the same direction. Now, at his AI consultancy Alephic—and in his own work, where he uses Claude Code as a second brain—he’s facing that same problem with agents in the mix. AI was supposed to make coordination easier. Instead, Noah argues, it has created new coordination problems of its own.
The GeLLMann Amnesia Effect // BRXND Dispatch vol 109
You’re getting this email as a subscriber to the BRXND Dispatch, a newsletter at the intersection of marketing and AI. Forward it to a friend, they’d like that, and so would we. There’s a thing that happens sometimes where you read an article about your industry or area of expertise and find a million holes in the reporting and thesis. But then you turn the page and read about the Strait of Hormuz or China or synthetic biology and are entranced by every word and depth of reporting.
Why is this interesting?
"'Diogenes the Cynic'" by Now Idonoa is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0. Noah here. A post from Kyla Scanlon about the “Ozempicification” of society is making the rounds. Her argument: people feel the system has failed them, so they’re turning to individual optimization tools—drugs, prediction markets, biohacking, hustle culture—to simulate control.
The $1 Sweet Spot
Gemini Flash has been on my mind a lot lately. Partly because Flash 3 came out and I've been doing a bunch with it (including processing 15 years of Evernote notes over a weekend), and partly because GPT 5.4 dropped, which means we have a new potential leader in the frontier LLM category. That last bit matters because the title of best model in the world feels like a horse race. Depending on the month and day, it could be OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google ahead by a nose.
The Non-Fungible Output Edition
On AI, artistry, and the new protectionism. Noah here. I recently learned of Substack’s concept of “non-fungible writers” and haven’t been able to get it out of my head. As explained by investor Ben Horowitz: [Substack] created this thing which they call the non-fungible writer, which is like: How many things in the newspaper could anybody write? And including AI, by the way. And how much is truly interesting and valuable?
Why is this interesting?
Noah here. I recently learned of Substack’s concept of “non-fungible writers” and haven’t been able to get it out of my head. As explained by investor Ben Horowitz: [Substack] created this thing which they call the non-fungible writer, which is like: How many things in the newspaper could anybody write? And including AI, by the way. And how much is truly interesting and valuable?
Persuading the Algorithm // BRXND Dispatch vol 100
You’re getting this email as a subscriber to the BRXND Dispatch, a newsletter at the intersection of marketing and AI. Author’s note: This week we’re sharing a piece Noah originally published on the Alephic blog. It’s a great complement to some of our latest dispatches. Subscribe to BRXND Dispatch: Satisficing is one of the most important and yet least understood ideas in marketing.
Satisficing for LLMs
Satisficing is one of the most important and yet least understood ideas in marketing. The idea comes from Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon and is a portmanteau of "satisfy" and "suffice." The basic premise is that a much more reasonable model of human behavior than the popular economic concept of utility maximization is that, when we make decisions, we ensure that we clear an arbitrary satisfaction threshold (satisfy) and then give up excess utility for ease (suffice).
Forward Deployed Engineering
If you live around Silicon Valley or the software world, you’re starting to hear the term forward-deployed engineer (FDE) more and more. While the term has its roots in the military, it was popularized by Palantir over the last 20 years. To my mind, the primary distinction between a forward-deployed engineer and a more traditional software engineer is their relationship with customers.
Forward Deployed
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The Historical Humility Edition
Aboard builds business software that adapts to your processes, not the other way around. AI prototypes in minutes, expert engineers deliver in weeks. Custom CRMs, inventory systems, project trackers—without the enterprise bloat or timeline. Noah here.
The Historical Humility Edition
On whether we actually live in unprecedented times. Enterprise customization at startup prices. Finally. Aboard builds business software that adapts to your processes, not the other way around. AI prototypes in minutes, expert engineers deliver in weeks. Custom CRMs, inventory systems, project trackers—without the enterprise bloat or timeline. Start building → Noah here.
Forward Deployed, Episode 1: The Bitter Lesson
Welcome to the first episode of Forward Deployed (YouTube), a podcast exploring the intersection of AI, software development, and the enterprise. We’re very excited to have you join us as we tackle the wild world of Forward Deployed engineering. We hope to make this a roughly bi-weekly show and look forward to inviting guests in the future.
The Magic of Claude Code
Noah Brier, September 30, 2025 If you've talked to me lately about AI, you've almost certainly been subject to a long soliloquy about the wonders of Claude Code. What started as a tool I ran in parallel with other tools to aid coding has turned into my full-fledged agentic operating system, supporting all kinds of workflows. Most notably, Obsidian, the tool I use for note-taking.
The Cage Nut Tool Edition
Noah here. Just over two years ago, I moved out of Brooklyn and bought a house in the suburbs. The transition has been smooth, and I’m enjoying this new chapter in my life. Of course, like any city transplant, I didn’t have a particularly substantial set of tools. Life in an apartment is generally fine with just a screwdriver, some hex keys, and maybe a drill if you’re feeling particularly handy. For anything bigger, you can usually call the super or a handyman.
Noah Brier: Things I think about AI
Below is a list of things I think I think about AI. It's incomplete, in no specific order, and probably controversial. But, it's born from a place of spending an inordinate amount of time using and building with these tools over the last few years (my estimate for time spent working on AI-backed software is ~2,400 hours since 2022, and that doesn't count the day-to-day use of ChatGPT, Claude, etc.).
The Kessler Syndrome Edition
Noah here. Network effects have long taken over the business world. There’s not an HBS grad or Big 4 consultant who doesn’t keep the term on the tip of their tongue. Every pitch deck, strategy memo, and IPO filing cites the power of n². The idea, as we know it, comes from Bob Metcalfe, who came up with his “law” in 1980, while trying to sell Ethernet cards at his company, 3Com. The problem he faced was simple to articulate and incredibly hard to solve: why buy a network card when nobody else has one?
The Travel Cords Edition
Noah here. I’m back on the road, quite a bit more than I have been the last few years, and with that have been working on optimizing my travel setup. Specifically, I find everything is a whole lot more chill if I have cords and toiletries ready to go (most anything else I forget can easily be picked up in whatever city I’m in). Why is this interesting? To that end, and in celebration of Prime Day, I thought it might be fun to do a little share of what’s in my bag of cords.
The Cognitive Offloading Edition
Noah here. Researchers from MIT Media Lab just published "Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt." The key finding: The LLM undeniably reduced the friction involved in answering participants' questions compared to the Search Engine. However, this convenience came at a cognitive cost, diminishing users' inclination to critically evaluate the LLM's output or "opinions" (probabilistic answers based on the training datasets).
The AI Content Optimism Edition
Noah here. Since ChatGPT launched, I’ve been hearing the same fear expressed over and over, particularly in marketing circles: AI will drown us in low-quality content. The argument goes that AI makes content creation so cheap and easy that we’ll be flooded with mediocre, AI-generated “slop” that pollutes the internet. This creates a vicious cycle where models trained on slop produce even worse content. Why is this interesting? I think this logic misses something fundamental.
Why AI Will Improve Content Quality, Not Degrade It // BRXND Dispatch vol. 77
You’re getting this email as a subscriber to the BRXND Dispatch, a newsletter at the intersection of marketing and AI. We’re hosting our next BRXND NYC conference on September 18, 2025 and currently looking for sponsors and speakers. If you’re interested in attending, please add your name to the wait list. As space is limited, we’re prioritizing attendees from brands first. If you work at an agency, just bring a client along—please contact us if you want to arrange this.
Resend: The Vibe Coding Edition
This originally went out under paywall, but open to all today. Noah here. Last week, a client asked me if I’d join a meeting they were having and spend 10 or 15 minutes talking about “vibe coding.” For the uninitiated, most people were introduced to the term by Andrej Karpathy, a legend in the world of A, and the first person who really got me excited about AI 15 years ago.
The Vibe Coding Edition
Noah here. Last week, a client asked me if I’d join a meeting they were having and spend 10 or 15 minutes talking about “vibe coding.” For the uninitiated, most people were introduced to the term by Andrej Karpathy, a legend in the world of A, and the first person who really got me excited about AI 15 years ago. On February 2nd, he tweeted: There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists.
So Easy a 7-year-old Could Do It // BRXND Dispatch vol. 061
You’re getting this email as a subscriber to the BRXND Dispatch, a (roughly) weekly email at the intersection of brands and AI. The next edition of the BRXND Marketing X AI Conference will be in LA on 2/6. If you’re interested in attending, early bird tickets are on sale UNTIL 12/10 for 15% off.If you’re interested in sponsoring, we’ve got a form for that as well.
The AI Data Paranoia Edition
The below is a WITI-minded adaptation of an excellent dispatch Noah sent out recently. We wanted you to be able to enjoy it too. – LC and CJN. Noah here. Since ChatGPT came out, there’s been concern about the data we input being included in training. Some of this had to do with OpenAI’s consumer terms of service, which does allow them to train on the data you input.
The Childhood Exploration Edition
Noah here. A few years ago, I wrote about the explore/exploit tradeoff, a computer science concept that identifies the challenges between solving for breadth versus depth. The tradeoff is about understanding the give and take between exploration—going wide, trying new things—and exploitation, or going deep into one thing.
AI & The Enterprise with James Cham // BrXnd Dispatch vol. 052
Hi everyone, I have another fun interview edition of the newsletter for you. This one is a conversation with one of my favorite AI sparring partners, James Cham. James is an investor with Bloomberg Beta and a deep thinker about the space. He and I have had a recurring call over the last year—every two months or so—where we share our latest thinking. After our last conversation, I asked if I could record one and write it up.
The Hort Report: 19th July 2024
Here’s your weekly Hort Report - the round-up of industry news, retail insights, home gardener gossip, influencer spotlights, social media news, and so much more! Grab a tea or coffee and catch up on the latest below… NEWS FLASH Hitchin Lavender, a lavender farm in Ickleford, has asked visitors to stop sitting in their lavender plants to pose for social media photos.
The Moving Goalposts Edition
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The 2x2 Edition
An archive edition today. See you on Saturday for our paid subscriber edition. Noah here. I love 2x2s. For the uninitiated, they’re the little charts with four-boxes that frequent WITI emails as a way to understand an idea. In their essence, the 2x2 (alternative name: four-box) is an approach to data visualization. The X-axis represents one spectrum, while the Y-axis represents another.
How to Talk to Language Models Will Listen // BrXnd Dispatch vol. 45
You’re getting this email as a subscriber to the BrXnd Dispatch, a (roughly) weekly email at the intersection of brands and AI. Wednesday, May 8, was the second BrXnd NYC Marketing X AI Conference, and it was amazing. If you missed it, all the talks are up on YouTube, and I’m writing a series of posts summarizing a few of them. Tim Hwang was back at this year’s conference with more mind-bending provocations.
The Tradeoffs Edition
Noah here. A few months ago, I ran across a finance piece with the rather bombastic title, “The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero.” The article argued that fraud is part of a tradeoff credit card companies make in order to make it even more painless to obtain and use their credit cards. The marginal return of permitting fraud against you is plausibly greater than zero, and therefore, you should welcome greater than zero fraud.
Rethinking AI Analogies // BrXnd Dispatch vol. 43
You’re getting this email as a subscriber to the BrXnd Dispatch, a (roughly) weekly email at the intersection of brands and AI. Wednesday, May 8, was the second BrXnd NYC Marketing X AI Conference, and it was amazing. If you missed it, all the talks will be going up on YouTube, and I’ll have lots more content coming out soon. The fine folks at Redscout were kind enough to do a quick turnaround writeup the day after the event, so you can check that out for now.
The Panel Discussion Edition
Noah here. Anyone who has sat through a corporate conference has had to deal with the mediocrity that is the panel discussion. Four people who all agree with each other are seated next to one another on stools and asked questions that they may or may not try to duck. It’s by far my least favorite bit of conference programming and hardly ever offers much in the way of interesting content. But at least a lot of people got to be added to the program! Why is this interesting?
Imperfect AI // BrXnd Dispatch vol. 42
You’re getting this email as a subscriber to the BrXnd Dispatch, a (roughly) weekly email at the intersection of brands and AI. Wednesday, May 8, was the second BrXnd NYC Marketing X AI Conference, and it was amazing. If you missed it, all the talks will be going up on YouTube, and I’ll have lots more content coming out soon. The fine folks at Redscout were kind enough to do a quick turnaround writeup the day after the event, so you can check that out for now.
The AI Ratings Edition
Noah here. When we talk about a chess player being a Grandmaster, we're really referring to their "Elo rating." This system, named after physics professor and chess player Arpad Elo, was designed not only to compare two players facing off but also players who might never play against each other.
The Parenting Rules Edition
Noah here. I’ve got two kids, and before my oldest was born, my wife and I came up with a simple rule we would try to use to guide our parenting: “Don’t put your shit on your kids.” Of course, we would love and protect them, but first, we would try our best to do no harm by projecting our own identity and insecurities onto these small and malleable humans. Have I delivered on that rule as a parent? Not close.
The MrBeast Edition
Noah here. Like nearly 250 million other people, I subscribe to MrBeast on YouTube. My kids regularly ask if there’s a new MrBeast, and we have easily watched 100 videos across his multiple channels together. While I’m certainly not an expert in the creator economy, I do really like YouTube. If you’ve never watched a MrBeast video, they are normally in the 15-20 minute range with budgets that regularly exceed $1 million.
BrXnd NYC 2024: Speakers & Sponsors // BrXnd Dispatch vol. 38
You’re getting this email as a subscriber to the BrXnd Dispatch, a (roughly) weekly email at the intersection of brands and AI. BrXnd NYC 2024 is coming on May 8, and there are still a few tickets left. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to get this email out, but one exciting thing after another kept happening, and it got pushed back bit by bit.
The WITI Recommends Edition
Noah here. We are coming up on our fifth birthday (!!!), and for about four of those years, we’ve been thinking about building out a recommendations site off the back of our nearly 1500 editions. Well, we are finally making it happen. I’m happy to announce Why is this interesting? Recommends, which pulls together over 1,000 products, books, software, and other kinds of recommendations from across our many emails from the past five years. Why is this interesting? WITI is a long-term experiment.
Early Look: WITI Recommends
Greetings, paid subscribers, Thanks as always for your support. For the last year or so, we’ve been throwing around the idea of pulling out all the product recommendations from WITI into a site, and we’re finally almost ready to launch. Before we put it out to the world, we figured it would be great to get some feedback from all of you. You can find the … Keep reading with a 7-day free trial Subscribe to Why is this interesting?
On Non-Determinism // BrXnd Dispatch vol. 35
You’re getting this email as a subscriber to the BrXnd Dispatch, a (roughly) weekly email at the intersection of brands and AI. 2024 conference planning is now in full swing. I’m looking for sponsors and speakers (including cool demos!). The initial round of conference invites went out to previous attendees. If you’re interested in attending, feel free to be in touch. As space is limited, I’m prioritizing attendees from brands first. If you work at an agency, just bring a client along.
The My War Edition
Noah here. Growing up in the 1980s, I had a skateboard. I was never any good, but I would try to roll around and ollie over stuff. Every so often, I would get a copy of Thrasher and pore through its pages. I vividly remember holding onto the April 1991 “Boards of the Future” issue for years, puzzling over the featured boards. (It was an April Fools’ edition, though I don’t remember whether I put two and two together at the time.) I recently returned to Thrasher by way of YouTube.
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