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PODCAST

Product Fridays

Andrew McGill and Andrew Phelps talk creativity, emerging tech, and the art of building great products. Subscribe for weekly inspiration and insights. productfridays.substack.com

technology entrepreneurship

All Episodes

21:07

The Best Way to Vibecode Is Hands-On. Here's How We...

Product Fridays ·

2025/10/27

A note from The Andrews: Hey! It would help us a lot if you would review Product Fridays on Apple Podcasts (even if you don’t like us). It’s basically like giving us money. If you do, we’ll immortalize you in a limerick on the next show.AI is changing software development — duh! But while no-code platforms like Replit and Lovable have gotten a lot of attention, most of the magic is happening when developers partner with AI instead.That means instead of ditching the IDE altogether, they’re using

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21:45

How Can News Publishers Compete with AI Digests? We...

Product Fridays ·

2025/10/13

A programming note: We’re now releasing Product Fridays on Mondays. We know, we know, Friday is right there in the name. But Friday is the vibe, you see. And Monday turns out to be a better day to release podcasts.OpenAI’s latest product, ChatGPT Pulse, automatically compiles a personal news digest from your email, calendar, and across the web. It’s convenient, addictive — and a little terrifying if you work in media. Because in this world, the reporter still digs up the facts, but the reader never

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18:54

ChatGPT Can Do Everything. That’s the Problem.

Product Fridays ·

2025/09/26

Andrew McGill shares a new demo he’s been working on — an AI-powered interior design assistant called Zhuzh — and wonders aloud: if this is just ChatGPT with a prettier interface, what’s the point? But maybe that is the point.We go deep on:* Why good UI still matters in the age of LLMs* How purpose-built tools outshine general-purpose chat for many use cases* Where wrapper apps land on the spectrum of AI product value* The difference between novelty and utility* What makes an AI idea

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22:36

We Cloned Our Voices. Can We Retire Now?

Product Fridays ·

2025/09/12

We've returned from our summer break, and Phelps is ALREADY trying to get back on Island Time by outsourcing the entire podcast to AI voice clones.Seriously, text-to-speech is one of those sneaky technologies that has gotten amazingly better in the last year. Gone are the days of stilted, Siri-esque robot voices mispronouncing your name. AI voice bots can now speak fluidly, emote realistically — and chortle?This week, we messed around in ElevenLabs to explore the boundaries of this tech. Listen

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19:05

Becoming a Morning Person (Against Your Will)

Product Fridays ·

2025/07/25

This week on Product Fridays, we’re trying something new: a deep dive. We focus on a single product and debate whether it’s worth keeping on our phones.First up: Rise, the sleep and energy-tracking app that promises to turn anyone into a morning person—whether you like it or not.We break down what makes Rise different from other sleep apps (spoiler: it’s not just the graphs), how it gamifies your sleep debt and energy potential, and whether it actually works. Along the way, we compare our numbers,

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15:11

Friday Bracket: The One App We Can't Live Without

Product Fridays ·

2025/07/11

It’s Friday, and Andrew McGill is a deflated car dealership arm-waving balloon of a human being.So this week, we take it easy… and build a bracket to determine the very best utility app on our phones. OK, so it wasn’t easy at all.Eight apps enter. The losers are deleted from the world. Forever!!!In this bracket:* YouTube – universal video hub* TikTok – short-form video juggernaut* Instagram – photos, Reels, DMs* Spotify – music and podcasts* Google Maps – navigation & local search* Amazon Shopping –

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38:23

How to Build a Product in Four Days (With Strangers)

Product Fridays ·

2025/06/27

What does it actually look like to invent something new in a week?This week we take you behind the scenes of a recent client sprint — a real one, with a real team, real stakes, and the usual emotional arc:* Monday: new faces and high hopes* Tuesday: existential dread* Wednesday: ideas take shape (somehow)* Thursday: revealing our work to real usersAnd yes, at one point, the phrase “sex party” ends up on a whiteboard in front seasoned editors. It’s a long story.What you’ll learn:* Why we’ve adapted

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16:30

What Happens If Google Search Just Disappears?

Product Fridays ·

2025/06/13

Google owns the open web. If your website isn’t Googleable or doesn’t work in Chrome, it doesn’t exist.Search has fueled discovery, traffic, and revenue growth for just about every online company of the last 25 years.So what happens when Google rewrites the rules?In this week’s episode, we unpack “Google Zero,” the moment Google stops sending traffic to websites. The term, coined by Nilay Patel at The Verge, describes a future where traditional search collapses under the weight of AI agents and

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19:01

What Even Is Creativity?

Product Fridays ·

2025/05/30

Andrew Phelps leads off with a question, one he’s never spoken out loud before — “Am I creative?”Oof, isn’t that a straight jab to the ol’ imposter syndrome funny bone? If you’re like us, you’ve grappled with this very question many times before (especially when you’re in the midst of a creative drought).So this Friday, we’re talking about ideas — how we get them, how we keep them coming, and how anyone can come up with good ones if they put in the work.Also, stay for the outtakes at the end. It’s

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11:56

The End of the PM As We Know It?

Product Fridays ·

2025/05/16

This week we talk about the shifting role of product management—and whether the profession we grew up in is headed for extinction, evolution, or something in between.We start with the data: Lenny Rachitsky’s recent State of the Product Job Market shows PM hiring has rebounded from its post-Covid trough, but it’s nowhere near the highs of just three years ago. Big tech is thinning middle management ranks. And teams are asking: Do we really need so many PMs?We unpack the pros and cons of soft power,

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14:40

Existential Questions About Journalism and AI

Product Fridays ·

2025/05/09

This week, The Andrews met up in Baltimore for the Hacks/Hackers Journalism x AI Summit, which was a blast. (Even before the Mario Kart tournament got underway.)For one, we got to see some good friends and hear them say smart stuff, like Patrick Swanson and his session on synthetic audience panels.But it was also the first time we’ve seen a huge group of talented journalists grapple with the implications of AI together in one space — and boy, was it energizing. At the national level, it can feel

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10:40

When AI Tries Too Hard to Please

Product Fridays ·

2025/05/02

We all love praise. It feels good! But if a friend gives it to you over and over again, it becomes disingenuous, then irritating. If that friend is a chatbot, it can even become dangerous.That’s what happened with ChatGPT in the last week. The model got too eager to please—so much so that even Sam Altman admitted it had become “too sycophant-y and annoying.” OpenAI rolled back recent changes to the model (and did an admirable job communicating the changes).On this episode, we talk through the design

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19:59

ChatGPT or Claude? And Other Match-ups

Product Fridays ·

2025/04/25

This week we pit products against each other in a rapid-fire game of “This or That.” The rules are simple: two products enter, one product leaves. We set a strict timer and make our cases with maximum conviction—and minimum prep.The matchups:* Apple Maps vs. Google MapsBoth have niceties and flaws. But only one buzzes McGill’s watch.* ChatGPT vs. ClaudeWe both pay for both. So who wins? It comes down to coding, candor, and the creeping inevitability of AI lock-in.* Nintendo Switch vs. Valve Steam

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18:31

Vibes Won't Replace Programmers

Product Fridays ·

2025/04/18

What if anyone could build full-stack software just by describing an app in a few sentences? That’s vibe coding, and it’s pretty exciting to fraudulent software engineers like us.In this episode:* Our vibe coding tools and workflows* The long arc of abstraction in programming* Why this moment feels a lot like the iPhone and photography* Also: Is prompt engineering a real job?We also answer a listener’s question about the flawed-but-adorable Playdate, talk about the greatest product innovations of

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18:40

Nintendo Is a Weird Product Company

Product Fridays ·

2025/04/04

We eagerly awaited news of the Switch 2—and were a little bit disappointed by the reveal. Is it hard for mature product categories to surprise us anymore? (See also: smartphones.)On the agenda:* Nintendo’s strategic focus (and the similarities to Apple)* Will the Joy-Con mouse be good or weird?* Has Nintendo figured out the Internet yet?Plus, all this Nintendo talk gets us nostalgic for the Mario Kart 64 days. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get

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19:00

Yep, AI-Generated Imagery Has Crossed the Rubicon

Product Fridays ·

2025/03/28

Earlier this week, OpenAI unlocked a slew of new image generation features — and we sincerely (and excitedly, and fearfully) believe it’s a game-changer.On the agenda:* How object constancy makes image generation more useful by an order of magnitude;* A demo of how to create a beloved character and use it in a million different circumstances;* What we think this ~means~ for creators and people who value craftsmanship. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers

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22:43

How to Launch a Video Newsletter in One Friday

Product Fridays ·

2025/03/21

How do two friends launch a video newsletter in 2025? Does the world need another one of those? What should it be about? And where should it live?Oh wait, hi! You probably don’t know us. We’re The Andrews. That’s Andrew Phelps. That’s Andrew McGill. We build stuff. Both of us are former journalists who dove into product at media companies and spent years making cool things for places like The New York Times, The Atlantic and POLITICO. Now, we invent and build new products for clients — and our own

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3:45

Make Unpopular Apps

Product Fridays ·

2025/03/14

What if more products were not made to be popular, but loved? We are trying something fun: talking about products and product-making every week and recording it. We call it Product Fridays. This week we talked about opinionated products we like, plus some that we've worked on. (Originally posted as a pilot on LinkedIn.)Mentioned in this episode:* Zoom* You Need a Budget* NYTimes for Apple Watch (discontinued) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get

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18 results

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