AI makes you more creative, AI Roundtable with Steven Johnson and Grant Lee | E2231

January 7, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

🎙️ The Speakers & Context

The Format: Host-led roundtable discussion with two guests, testing a new "This Week in AI" format on the This Week in Startups feed.
The Key Players:
- Jason Calacanis: Host, podcaster, investor; provides entrepreneurial framing from 90s tech roots and current AI builder lens.
- Grant Lee: Co-founder/CEO of Gamma (AI-first presentation tool, $2.1B valuation, $100M+ ARR); credible as builder scaling AI productivity for non-devs.
- Stephen Berlin-Johnson: Editorial Director at Google Labs' Notebook LM; author/thinker (e.g., Feed co-creator, books on decision-making); expert in AI context tools from product lead role.
The Vibe: Optimistic, builder-focused; blends tactical use cases with philosophical dives into creativity and jobs.

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: Grant Lee & Stephen Berlin-Johnson**
2 (07:51) **AI Productivity Tools for Non-Developers**
3 (15:50) **Knowledge Worker Superpowers & Tool Adoption**
4 (21:03) **Impact on Org Building & Roles**
5 (31:37) **Creative Resistance to AI**
6 (40:05) **Public Perceptions: Pew Survey on AI & Skills**
7 (45:33) **Decision-Making & Scaffolding**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

This Week In Startups is made possible by:

Gusto - https://www.gusto.com/twist

Lemon IO - https://lemon.io/twist

Quo - http://quo.com/TWiST

Today’s show:

We keep hearing about how AI is killing our ability to think, filling our media with slop, and ruining our kids’ ability to learn. It seems the internet is filled with negative sentiment about the future AI is bringing.

Jason is joined by Grant Lee, CEO and co-founder of Gamma, as well as Steven Johnson, editorial director of NotebookLM to tackle these questions on today’s AI roundtable!

Grant and Steven break down how they are using AI to push forward their own productivity as well as their teams. Both say that AI makes you more creative! Steven points out that it helped him write his books by having AI do the “chore work” while he got to focus on the valuable insights and higher level thinking.

One valuable tip was that AI can be used to uncover customer insights in a new medium. Steven and Grant both put customer feedback into an LLM, allowed them to have high level conversations with their whole user base about what features and products they each enjoy. If that isn’t creative, then what is?

Learn about all this and more in today’s roundtable!

Timestamps:

(00:00) Introducing Steven Johnson and Grant Lee!

(10:12) Gusto: Check out the online payroll and benefits experts with software built specifically for small business and startups. Try Gusto today and get three months FREE at https://www.gusto.com/twist

(11:28) How Jason and the TWiST team uses NotebookLM

(12:37) Will AI replace lawyers in startups and VC? Should they?

(16:08) How the Gamma team uses AI understand their consumers

(19:43) Lemon.io: Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://lemon.io/twist

(22:38) How the Google team uses AI to “talk” to their whole user base.

(24:45) Is AI replicating our brains and consciousness?

(28:18) The ways that AI is changing how companies process information.

(30:39) Quo (formerly OpenPhone) gives you a clean, modern way to handle every customer call, text, and thread all in one place. Try it free at http://quo.com/TWiST

(31:43) Jason thinks groupchats are the mo