Becoming unLLMable with Sari Azout (Hyperlegible 011)

68 snips

Jun 18, 2025

Sari Azout, a former VC and founder of Sublime, dives into the compelling intersection of technology and human potential. She discusses how AI is reshaping creativity, urging a deeper understanding of human qualities beyond technical skills. Sari highlights the importance of uniqueness as average becomes ubiquitous, and she advocates for redefining ambition in a world shaped by innovation. Her insights reveal how technology can enhance rather than overshadow personal fulfillment, making a strong case for maintaining human values in an AI-driven landscape.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Rethinking 'Artificial Intelligence'

The term "Artificial Intelligence" shapes fear-based discourse and limits understanding.
Reframing it as "Collective Intelligence" reveals AI as an amplification of human knowledge.

INSIGHT

AI Raises Workload and Standards

AI increases the amount of work we want to do rather than decreasing workload.
Technology raises cultural standards, making 'average' attainable but raising the bar for exceptional work.

ANECDOTE

Expertise Shapes AI Outputs

Using AI prompts with more expertise and context yields higher quality outputs.
The skill lies in guiding AI, knowing what is worth doing, not just using the tool.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Sari Azout is a former VC, the founder of Sublime, a friend, and a writer whose work I've long admired. We actually co-wrote the first piece I ever wrote on crypto about a company called Fairmint.

Sari is one of the most thoughtful and tasteful people on the world wide web, something that comes across in her writing, in the product she's building at Sublime, and even her background in this video. While a lot of people are talking about what AI means for humans, Sari is one of the few people I actually want to talk to about that topic.

A few weeks ago, she gave a talk she titled "Becoming unLLMable" at the Sana AI Summit in Stockholm, and then she summarized it on her Substack: Becoming unLLMable

Because of the format in which she originally presented these ideas, we did this one a little differently. To kick us off, Sari gives the presentation that we gave in Stockholm, and then we dig in on questions I had and things I've been thinking about.

It's characteristically Sari: optimistic but practical, grounded in facts but unafraid to imagine, and informed by her perspective as someone actually using AI to build a product and voice that stands out in a sea of undifferentiated slop.

We discuss a bunch of though-provoking ideas, my favorite of which is that average is now attainable by everyone, which means to stand out, you need to be way better than average. She is a case study on how to do that.

At the end of the conversation, Sari makes a few recommendations.

Her Favorite of Her Own Essays

What matters most in the age of AI is taste Letter to a friend who is thinking of starting something new

One Thing Everyone Should ReadOn Bullshit by Henry G. Frankfurt

One-Sentence Takeaway: "Make yourself unLLMable"

You can find this and all of the articles we discuss on Hyperlegible in one place thanks to our sponsor, Readwise - Visit readwise.io/hyperlegible for a free trial and get all Hyperlegible articles automatically added to your account:

⁠https://readwise.io/hyperlegible⁠

Big thanks to Jim Portela for editing!