When you’re trying to navigate tumultuous change, it helps to have inquisitive navigators. As I’ve tried to make sense of AI, I’ve found useful explanations and pragmatic advice in the work of Noah Brier.
FYI—he’s hosting a Los Angeles version of the BrXnd AI Conference on February 6, 2025.
[Listen to the interview above, or via Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. And if you’re enjoying these conversations, please share a link with someone else.]
In this opening salvo of 2025, we hear from Noah as he walks us through his journey graduating from NYU into an initial career in journalism, then a pivot into the early 2000s era of NYC Internet-adjacent firms (Renegade, Naked Communications, The Barbarian Group) before co-founding Percolate in 2011.
“My whole life has been an openness to following those strange gut feelings when things don’t add up or you can’t figure something out and just going down the rabbit hole.” Everything I’ve done - it’s been one rabbit hole after another.” - Noah Brier
Of course we talked about AI. And I really appreciated his ability to frame the change we’re experiencing, as we shift from what Noah calls a Deterministic view of computing into a Probabilistic one. “We can’t underestimate how weird this shift is,” says Noah.
“What makes AI different is that we have always existed in a world where computers were deterministic machines. Fundamentally, we have a lot of intuition built up for what it means to use a computer that is a deterministic device. We’re used to these paradigms of deterministic computing. And one day we wake up and there’s this thing which just flips it all on its head.” - Noah Brier
And so here we are with a profoundly new way of computing, of thinking about computing, of building teams, cultures and process around computing—and the underlying concept is now very, very different. No wonder this stuff takes time to settle, to become real for the masses.
We cover a lot of territory, from creative briefs and AI-empowered brand style guides, to the purpose of marketing to what defines great creatives. But woven through it all is a sense of the profound change we’re encountering together.
“Nobody has thought about what it means when intelligence is essentially unmetered, and when it is instant. Instant intelligence is going to be a very mind-blowing thing.” - Noah Brier
Lots to chew on here.
I hope you enjoy it!
Episode notes
Noah mentioned studying the XYZ Affair during Middle School winter break.
And being a student at the Bank Street Elementary school.
And talking about the bike that proves you actually turn left (just a little) before you turn right, and vice versa.
Noah recently co-founded Alephic, an “AI-first technology foundry.”
And here’s a recap of Noah’s favorite piece of writing, from the designer Michael Bierut.
And finally, a hearty welcome to 2025. I’ve got at least three more podcasts in the works for January and early February, and I’ll return to weekly writing next week. I hope you have been thriving.
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