April 27, 2026
AI Tools: What's Actually Working (and What Isn't) with Bill McLean
Big news out of Cupertino: Tim Cook is stepping down as CEO, with hardware engineering chief John Ternus set to take the helm this September. Tom and Jeff spend a few minutes on the transition — then welcome back guest Bill McLean for an honest, no-hype check-in on AI tools: what they're actually using, what's working, and where the marketing is writing checks the technology can't cash.
In this episode:
- The Tim Cook → John Ternus CEO handoff and what a hardware guy at the top might mean for Apple's software
- Which AI platforms Tom and Bill settled on, and why ChatGPT got dropped
- Claude Co-Work in real life: web scraping, YouTube analytics, and why you still have to babysit it
- The "dopamine hit" problem: why AI-generated ideas can kill your motivation to actually do the work
- How Bill replaced his Squarespace subscription using Claude Code with zero coding background
- Why context might be AI's real superpower and why Apple could have the biggest edge
- MCP integrations worth building: Readwise, Craft, Apple Reminders
- Why Claude projects and skills outperformed an Obsidian vault for real workflow results
- A must-read New Yorker profile on Sam Altman
Links from the show:
- Bill McLean on YouTube: youtube.com/@BillMcLean
- Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted? - The New Yorker
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Contact Us
- Drop us a line at feedback@basicafshow.com
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- Find Tom at @tomanderson on Threads
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- Tom has a new YouTube channel
- Show artwork by the great Randall Martin Design
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Intro Music: Psychokinetics - The Chosen
Transcripts and some images are AI generated and may contain errors and general silliness.
