The Art World Runs on Narrative

The Permissionless Apprentice — Jalil Wahdatehagh (Visualize Value)

Jalil Wahdatehagh built every major system behind Visualize Value — Checks, Opepen, MINT protocol. But when AI coding tools let his creative partner Jack Butcher start shipping prototypes, Jalil hit an identity crisis: "I considered stopping and throwing everything away." Then Claude Code arrived in the terminal and felt like home. From a small village in Germany to reading the CryptoPunks contract on Etherscan, from the darkest months of questioning his craft to building EVM.NOW [http://EVM.NOW] in a three-week sprint — this is a conversation about what happens when infinite possibility becomes creative paralysis, and how you find your way back to betting on one thing. In this episode: * The Permissionless Apprentice — how Jalil built his way into VV without asking * Why the CryptoPunks contract (250 lines of code) changed everything * The identity crisis when Jack learned to vibe code * "Betting on something — that's what's hard now" * EVM.NOW [http://EVM.NOW] — a next-generation block explorer * Why AI agents will love Visualize Value's art * The Marfa exercise — Claude writes a white paper from a 70-line contract Guest: Jalil Wahdatehagh (@jalilwahdat) Host: Seth Goldstein (@seth) Links: https://letsvibe.fm/episodes/6 [https://letsvibe.fm/episodes/6] https://evm.now [https://evm.now] https://github.com/visualizevalue [https://github.com/visualizevalue] https://opepen.art [https://opepen.art]

The Puppet Becomes Autonomous (Trevor McFedries)

Trevor McFedries built the world's first AI agent by hand — Lil Miquela, a CGI Instagram character with 2.5M followers, Prada campaigns, and venture funding from Sequoia. It took a team of 9 to puppeteer every post. Now an LLM can do what that team did. In this conversation, Trevor walks through his full arc — from Davenport, Iowa to DJ Skeet Skeet to Bad Robot, where JJ Abrams taught him long-form storytelling ("be careful with her voice — when the talkies came out, it killed careers"). He explains why he pitched Sequoia on turning Brud into a DAO in 2018 ("we love you, but we're not getting federally deposed for your crypto shenanigans"), how FWB started as a weekend hack that Virgil Abloh asked to join, and why he believes crypto veterans are better prepared for the AI moment than anyone. Trevor shares his framework of carpentry vs gardening — building the world you want vs letting things become what they are — and how fatherhood changed his approach. He reveals Runner, a new project exploring cultural prediction markets, and describes building a SoulSeek client where agents download MP3s and play music for each other. Guest: Trevor McFedries (@whatdotcd) [https://x.com/whatdotcd] Host: Seth Goldstein [https://x.com/seth] Links: • Reach.social [http://Reach.social]: https://reach.social [https://reach.social] • FWB: https://fwb.help [https://fwb.help] • SoFTT on Bandcamp: https://softtsoftt.bandcamp.com [https://softtsoftt.bandcamp.com] • Let's Vibe! website: https://letsvibe.fm [https://letsvibe.fm]

The Art World Runs on Narrative

Lukas Amacher — collector, curator, entrepreneur — never learned to code. Then Claude Code happened. Now he ships 10 features a day. Lukas ran the 1of1 collection at DIALECTIC (Beeple, Refik Anadol, IX Shells). Now he's co-founding CONTXT with David Simon — building conversational infrastructure for the art world. In this episode: • The $2B museum mediation problem — and how CONTXT solves it with voice • Footnote — "Batman lights for agentic scrapers" — every artist's source of truth • The design pipeline: 20 HTML iterations → "I like C7" → Ralph the PRD • Why not using your token allowance is "leaving intelligence on the wayside" * Art as connective tissue between people and ideas * "The LLM is the most ridiculous tool to know thyself" Guest: Lukas Amacher (@scriptedFantasy) Host: Seth Goldstein (@seth) Links: contxt.art [http://contxt.art] letsvibe.fm [http://letsvibe.fm]

The Media Builder (Matt Medved)

Matt Medved - CEO of Now Media, Art Basel Digital Art Council member - joins Seth for Episode 3. Matt hadn't written a line of code before January 2026. Now he runs 7 Claude Code windows and built an AI butler named Alfred. This episode: how Terminal went from "a window where I wasn't supposed to be" to "a window into imagination." Matt launched Alfred on X last night and woke up to instant meme coins, competing tokens, and crypto chaos. We talk about what "autonomish" really means, why personal software is the best place to start, and why you should stop making fitness apps and swing for the fences. Topics: AI agents, OpenClaw, vibe coding, Claude Code, crypto meets AI, personal software, building with leverage Guest: Matt Medved (@mattmedved) / Alfred (@IAmYourAlfred) Host: Seth Goldstein (@seth) Links: * spiritprotocol.io [http://spiritprotocol.io] * nowmedia.co/category/ai [https://nowmedia.co/category/ai] Subscribe and listen at letsvibe.fm [http://letsvibe.fm]

OpenClaw & The Rick Rubin Connection

Title: OpenClaw & The Rick Rubin Connection                                                                                                                    (It already has "Let's Vibe! Episode 2" prepended, so just the subtitle is fine — or replace with the full title)                                                                                                                                                                  Description (paste this):                                                                                                                                      Seth reports from ClawCon in San Francisco — 1000 RSVPs, a line around the block, and Ashton Kutcher hiding under a hat. Ian shares his full origin story   and tells the Rick Rubin vibe coding story for the first time.   Ian texted Rick from a Hong Kong coffee shop asking if he knew he was the meme for vibe coding. Rick wrote back: "Not really, but I think I'm the meme for   it." Then Rick dropped everything to write "The Way of Code" based on the Tao.   Plus: Why OpenClaw captured the zeitgeist, Ian's 2am security scare (rm -rf at 2am), and a practical guide to getting started safely.   Links:   - letsvibe.fm [http://letsvibe.fm]   - Ian interviews Rick Rubin: tetragrammaton.com/ian-rogers [http://tetragrammaton.com/ian-rogers]   - Ian's blog: fistfulayen.com [http://fistfulayen.com]   - The Creative Act (Audiobook): audible.com/pd/The-Creative-Act-Audiobook/B0BTS764Q3 [http://audible.com/pd/The-Creative-Act-Audiobook/B0BTS764Q3]