Codex clearly explained (and how to use it)

29:21It's like this channel is doing this right. That's why they're getting more views than you, right? And these exercises are good. It puts, you should spend more time on what you're doing wrong than what you're doing right, in my opinion, and just focus on improving it every time. Now, let's say that this was the most useful report you've ever seen, right? Let's say we go through it and we're like, oh my God, like we need to do this more often. One thing that you can do is you'll notice here we have this automations tab. I want you to do this every single Friday. Actually every, yeah, let's do every single Friday for the videos of that week.

30:02I want to know what I'm doing wrong. Please create an automation. Oops, I don't know why I didn't pick up on that. Oh, it's because I have my AirPods in.

30:19Create automation. 9 a.m. on Fridays. And so it really is that easy to create an automation. You just type in that you want this to happen. This is how I normally set up automations. People sometimes want to create an automation before they do it. It's just like do it once and then tell the agent to do that every time on this day. And that's a kind of a good workflow. And you can see here that it shows created weekly startup ideas podcast Fridays at 9am. If you click on it, it opens up right here and it shows you the status, which is active, which is good. The next run is on May 1st, 2026. The last run is nothing because it hasn't run before.

31:01and there you go. It tells you what project and then you'll notice here there's now a two on automations and it shows up right here and if you want to test it all you have to do is come up here and hit run now and it will run that automation and that's how you can kind of test to see how good it is and then if you notice that something's wrong you can press edit and you can edit the automation and I recommend doing that a few times like whenever you're setting up an automation you want to make sure it works and that's how you set up these recurring tasks and And some recurring tasks that I'm seeing a lot of people have in the AI space or just people in business is they just have AI analyze their Slack and their email like twice a day.

31:42And it sends them an email summary. So they just they get it very concise and they all have links to relevant chats or emails. So it's really easy to navigate. I found that to be a really useful one for me as well. And, you know, you one-shotted that negative report. So if I, let's say I'm not happy with the output for whatever reason, to refine that, how do I do that? Yeah, I mean, say like, hey, by the way, the report you gave me was too long. I want more concise. Put and make it a slash. And by the way, this document is a skill by default that is called Word docs. So I just say make it a Word docs instead of markdown.

32:38um and then and then you can see i'll use the doc skill here i'll do two things convert the markdown into concise docs and update the friday automation you see i was gonna have it recreate the doc and then i would say okay now update the automation but it decided that it was just going to do it for me um which is cool which is actually not how i would want to do it um and one thing is in skills you can always include references with skills so or in your automation. So you could actually include the document that it creates inside the automation. You can say, hey, it should look like this document, right?

33:19And you can give it an example. I always tell people that really good instructions are good, but giving it a really good example is great, right? You give an AI one good example, it's amazing. You give it five good examples, it's just going to do a great job every time. That's kind of how I think about it. So is there the concept of an eval on output, meaning, you know, an eval basically, you know, valuation, short for short for valuation, basically, this is a nine on 10 output, 10 on 10 output, and it keeps going until it gets good output. Is there that concept within Codex? I mean, you could set it up yourself.

33:58The you know, this is GBT 5.5, it'll run for as long as you want it to run. And so you could just tell it, say like, hey, I want you to evaluate it. The problem is, I think in that case, it would probably be useful to have examples of really good output so it knows what you want. You know, the AI, they struggle with these subjective tasks, right? Coding is very, you know what a good output is because the app looks good and it fully works. So it's easy to verify whether it's good or not. But a report, you know, my startup ideas podcast, So this is another problem that Codex has. Oops. That's kind of annoying.

34:39It's like the bullets are all weird. So this is one thing. This is another example of something you can fix. Like fix the bullets. They're weird formatting.

34:53What was I saying? Before the weird formatting? Before the bullets completely threw you off? you're saying uh those bullets are i don't blame you those bullets the bullets will throw anyone off yeah uh yeah honestly but yeah you could just create these these uh i don't remember what i was saying you were saying i don't i don't remember the bullets really took us for a left turn we're talking about skill i think you're talking about the you know the right outputs examples yeah yeah yeah yeah the number one thing that you can do uh in a company right now and we're talking to a lot of companies who are trying to implement ai is just collect as many good examples as possible um this allows your agents to have examples that they can reference store them in a knowledge base that's easy to find, right?

35:54If you store them in like a Notion database, for example, AI is really good at going to a Notion database, scouring the Notion database, finding the right document to use as the example. And that way you can just kind of give it all of your documents as long as you keep it organized. It's going to be able to use it pretty well. And so collecting examples is a really useful thing. And I've noticed a lot more companies are even recording their screen a lot more in order to capture workflows because I've heard rumors that the future versions of OpenAI, their newest model and version of Codex, you're gonna be able to upload videos to it.

36:32And so it can watch the video, see exactly how you do it, and then it will be able to control the computer just like you. And that's gonna be a whole new world. And so I'm kind of preparing for that world because most of my workflows as a creator or like I'm in marketing, a lot of my workflows require using an interface or using a tool like CapCut, like Canva, and AI will pretty soon get to a point where I can do that. And just a side note, if that's the case that these super apps are going to allow recorded videos to be uploaded to them, you got to think that the value of recorded content is going to go up in the AI age.

37:17So just from a startup idea perspective, there's a lot there. Yeah. I mean, and why do you think you hear rumors of meta and Microsoft employees now required to record their screen and do certain tasks? And it's kind of like, you know, it's become a meme in that, you know, a lot of people who are anti-AI where like, oh, when they start recording your screen, like it's over, like they're trying to replace your workflows. And yeah, it is kind of scary in a corporate setting. But like if you run a small business and you want to accomplish more with like a small group of people, like you want to be able to offload some tasks that you wouldn't normally do to an AI that can just kind of handle these tasks.

38:00Let me see here.

38:04Did it fix it? There you go. So yeah, you can create any sort of document in here. Recording your screen will be big. So the number four negative, if you go back to that doc, one of the things that I get wrong in this podcast, apparently, according to Codex, is my interviews are way too soft. It says, my guests get a friendly runway. There's not enough pressure on failure modes, cost, security, churns, customer acquisition, who should not use the product. I'd like to take this opportunity to take the Canadian out of me and not be so friendly and ask you the question with respect to codex.

38:50Who should use the product? Costs, securities, churn, customer acquisition. Like, you know, what are the hard questions I'm not asking that I should be asking about Codex? You know what I respect about you is you got feedback and you are applying that feedback 10 seconds later, which I admire. That's great. You know, who should use the product? I think that if you're constantly, I think content creators should use this platform. You know, like I'm a content creator first. That's how my brain thinks. You know, I'm constantly creating lead magnets, which require vibe coding. And if, and yeah, I find that to be super useful.

39:35And I'm also creating documents. So if you're creating websites and documents, you might as well do it in the same platform. Because ultimately, like the websites that I create have to do with the documents that I create. I don't want them to be in separate platforms. I want to be able to create a document, do research, outline my thinking, and then convert it into a landing page seamlessly. And that's what you can do inside Codex. So as much as I want to help you give good feedback, I think there's a reason why these companies are racing to create the super app is because they think that everyone in knowledge work will use these platforms.

40:08And I truly believe that that's where we're going. I'm not saying you need to use Codex. I have no vested interest in Codex. I'm not an investor in OpenAI. I've never been paid by them. I just like their platform. And I think it's the best right now. and I see a clear path to it being the best over time. So that's why I'm trying to prepare now because it's only 10 % as good as it will be maybe once these AI gets really good at controlling a browser. That's what I'm really excited about. So for all those reasons, you should use it. But again, don't use it if you don't want to. Anything else on this platform that's just a must know in terms of getting the most out of it?

40:49Honestly, you know what? I maybe should have started this but so yesterday in my video I posted this video I wanted to test browser use and so I had it make this chess game and then I said I said okay use at browser use and play yourself in chess one move at a time like earlier here. So what you're going to see here, hopefully, if Codex operates properly, and by the way, we're using 5.5 on medium intelligence, which I will talk about that right after. But let's see if this AI plays itself using the browser. And I think this is just like a good way to kind of get an idea of like how the browser use works.

41:42I recommend just having fun with it at first i think people try to do like oh you see you can see the mouse you see that so it's literally playing itself in chess as both teams and look at how fast that's like working right like you know a few months ago this was way slower than this i don't know if you tested any of the browser use stuff but this is like pretty seamlessly playing yeah it felt like like with Manus, for example, it was really cool that browser use was even possible, but it really felt like it was on a dial-out modem. And this feels like it's broadband. 100%. Yeah, I just checkmated black.

42:26So white just checkmated black. White wins by checkmate. I played it through the in-app browser one move at a time, alternating white and black. Final result, white wins by checkmate. And here we can see the full sequence. sequence. And so in my video, it did this in one prompt. I said, build a chess game, then use browser use to test the game and play yourself until one team wins. And that's what it did in one shot, which, I mean, that's pretty insane. You know, like we're desensitized to it now, but like, that's insane. If you, if you think about where we were even a year ago, and then you think about where we will be a year from now, you know, it may just create its own Canva a year from now and then use that.

43:08It might be like, oh, it'd be way faster for me to just create my own tool because Canva doesn't have this little feature and it can't add it. Like, it might as well just make its own feature and then add it and then control it. And that... So are you not using Cloud Code at all anymore? This is like your daily driver? Okay. Two things I forgot to cover. That's one of them. Command J opens the terminal. type Claude I have it set up to automatically run in dangerously skip permissions mode anytime like I can say redesign the chess app to make it the anthropic vibe boom congratulations you're using Claude code inside Codex and you're using it with the Claude subscription so you are getting you're benefiting from that same the same savings right another reason why you want to use these models in these platforms directly, like in Claude or in Codex, is you just save so much money because they're subsidizing, like you get thousands of dollars of tokens for your$100 per month or$200 per month plan because you're using their platforms.

44:14So like for me, there's no really good argument on not using these platforms, if I'm being honest, because you get so many tokens as a user. And you can also just use Claude code directly inside Codex and it'll work. So that's one thing. Also, another thing is, you know, Theo and some other people have been talking about how they like to use 5.5 on low and medium effort for most tasks, right? If you ask it to make a simple change and you use extra high, it'll often like really try and put a ton of effort into it. and it might go off and like do unintended things. And so that's one thing to look out for.

44:56I'm not very good at discipline enough at doing that. I end up using, I end up just on extra high, just running it over and over again. But that's what I've been hearing other people say. And you can also, if it feels like it's going too slow, you can turn it to fast. Just know that this will be more expensive. You'll run out of credits faster. I also think it's worth mentioning that 5.5 is an expensive model, right? Yes. It's, if you use it via their API, let's see here. Look at that. So Cod Code just changed the chessboard, right? And then you can just throw it away. The only thing is, if you use Codex in the app, you get that like spinny animation and you can see when it's done.

45:39That does not happen when you use it in the browser. They're kind of like separate things. So just keep that in mind. But like, look at how easy that was. Now, people are like, oh but Claude's way better at design so it's like just make the whole app and then tell Claude to design it like that's what I say it's like it's that easy um what did you just ask right before this um I I just I was just saying that I you know you should should be noted that 5.5 is a more expensive oh yes yeah if you use it via the API it's twice as expensive as uh the recent model which is GPT 5.4. It's twice as expensive.

46:18But what you'll find is that the model is actually more efficient. So it'll get the job done and get the job done better with less tokens. And I think that's where I think the benchmark thing will be a year from now. It's not going to be how token efficient is it. It's going to be how much money and how much time does it cost to do a specific task. You know, the same way you would hire a contractor or a human employee, you're not like, you don't think about it in terms of token efficiency. You're like, you know, you just think about how expensive is it to get a task done. And so like if you were, what this model does is it really thinks about your intent more.

46:59And so it'll go more directly towards what it is that you want. And so you may find that it actually gets things done better and faster. But yeah, it definitely can cost more money when using it on the API. I haven't noticed my credits going down twice as much when using it in the app. So that's hard to say. And then it's also 20 % more expensive than Opus 4.7. So that's one thing to consider. So it is pretty expensive. You said that there were two things that you wanted to cover. One was terminal. One was the models and the second was using Cloud Code in the terminal. And again, this is a full terminal.

47:35So if you're technical, like you can do anything in here. And I think, yeah, I mean, you can create any type of document. I'm still learning this right now. So for example, you can leave comments on the browser. This is similar to Cursor has this feature as well. So you can just comment directly on this and say like, this should say Greg Chess. Chess. and what you'll see once you press enter you see that one annotation enters the the chat let me close out of this um and you can say and then you can add another one you can say like the pieces should be bigger and you can just say bigger and so you can add three annotations and then just say make these changes that's kind of how i do it for a lot of the design changes and it's super useful.

48:33And so, yeah, I mean, this is a very complete product. You can also full screen it. One thing that you can do is you can full screen and then you can kind of message it here. It's kind of in a more immersive way to do some vibe coding tasks. Or if you want to just focus on the document that you're working on, I find this to be incredibly useful. Have you been using codex a lot with images 2.0 yes launched 100 so um great question codex has gbt image 2 which is the best image model in the world and again this is not like up for debate i'm not again i'm really not trying to shill anything you notice here that it's making changes and it's using browser use to test stuff i didn't even ask for that so just wanted to put that out there um yeah the gbt image model is actually insane.

49:20It's better across every single category and it's built into Codex. And so you can ask it to create websites. You can ask it to create 10 different versions of thumbnails and Codex will just prompt GPT image too. And then it can generate images and then it can put those images in a Word doc. You can put them in a presentation or a website or anything. So yeah, it's a super useful feature. And I think there might be a skill for it. It's slash image or GPT. No, okay. You can just ask it to use GPT image and it'll just do it. And they also have Sora built in too. Like Sora is an official plugin. Yeah, but are you going to use Sora?

50:06No. Yeah. No, God, no. Sora, I don't even have it installed. Some people out there might want to create some brain rot videos or whatever they're doing. I think the people that listen to this, most people here are like, I want to start a company where I have a company and I want product market fit and I want to scale it. And they're looking at how can I use this tool to just supercharge my productivity. and so I think that with respect to Sora, you know, Sora is now delisted from the App Store, right? Yeah, it doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't exist anymore. So it's like, it's interesting, it's fun, but I think the people listening to this are way more interested in using Remotion.

50:53Totally, but mind you, that's not like a reference to the app, the plugin. It's the video model and Sora's not the best video model right now. So that's why it's not interesting. And I think that's what OpenAI realized. They're like, oh, it's going to take so much effort to create the best state-of-the-art video model. Like, that's what people want to use. So you can create a skill that connects to FAL to use the best video models. And you can attach it to this app. And you could have those videos show up inside the Remotion thing. You can put videos inside of the Remotion video that play in the video itself.

51:26So if you wanted to create a talking head video of you, I've seen you have used AI video before, I'm certain. You could easily set that workflow to work directly inside Codex and you could add subtitles directly in it. I'm sure there's going to be a company that only builds like an AI video editor like Remotion that shows up inside Codex and they're going to make a killing, right? That's all coming. And so you'll be able to just edit, create videos directly inside Codex. Because any interface that you can possibly think of that would be on the internet will show up here because it's a full web browser.

52:02And with, you know, working with FAL, you know, what is the best video model? Is it C-Dense 2.0? Is there something else that you use? Yeah. For whatever reason, I've, like, completely lost interest in AI videos. Maybe it's gotten so good. for me I just focus so much more on like the I find coding and and agents so much more interesting than video models I'm not up to date I would love in the comments if someone could let us know what the current state-of-the-art model is I'm really curious I've heard Seed Dance Kling and a few others are really good I'm curious where Google is have you heard anything about Vio like is that still a good model?

52:44Was that the latest one? I think it was the latest, maybe like 3.1 or something. Yeah, I mean I had PJ Ace on, I don't know, three, four months ago and the stuff that he was able to show me in terms of creating commercials using VO 3.0, I believe, was incredible. Haven't heard of a big launch from Google since then. but I, I, I loved, I loved what, I loved what he showed me. I also played with C dance too last week. Um, and I was also like very, very impressed. Yeah. I always try it and I'm like, this is awesome. And then I'm like, what am I going to use this for? Like for me, I make educational content.

53:33I like talking. I, you know, it's, it's hard for me and I've just been using remotion a lot because, um, very similar to you in the first, you know, one to two minutes of my long form videos, I use graphics to kind of outline the, you know, I saw or watched one of your OpenClaw videos recently, and you have a really cool graphic of like OpenClaw with a spotlight coming down on the OpenClaw. It was just a very good opening graphic. And that's how I use, I use it as overlays over my long form content. That's what I'm excited about. I just have been using it not at all for AI generated video. But also PJ is a legend, by the way.

54:07I love that. I think a part of what's daunting for a lot of people in AI in general is they hear about something like Codex and they're overwhelmed with how do I actually make this a part of my life. I just had coffee right before this with a friend of mine and I was like, dude, are you on codex, how you're using Claude, how you're using Gemini. And he was just like, to be honest, I use Notion and Notion AI. And I ping pong with ChatGPT and Gemini sometimes, but that's basically it. And I was like, well, what's stopping you from setting up some automations and creating some skills and this and that?

54:52And he's like, I'm just overwhelmed and I don't know. First of all, Notion's done a great job, honestly. You know, I think they're, I don't use Notion much anymore because the platform got a little too overwhelming to onboard other people onto. Like if you don't know how to use Notion, it's becoming a little annoying to like teach people how to use Notion. It's kind of overwhelming a little bit. But they have a really good agent system built in. And if you want to go deep in Notion AI and learning how to build agents, do it. Like, you know, it's great. I just personally want to create other types of documents.

55:31And I find codecs, like very soon you'll be able to connect, like Notion will just show up in the browser. Because right now you can't sign into anything and have it stay signed in. It's not persistent. So that's, but I know for a fact that they're releasing a full browser. And so there is a Notion skill already. You'll be able to control Notion. And so you're going to be able to use these models for cheaper inside Codex to use AI inside Notion. To me, it doesn't make much sense to use the agents within Notion. It makes sense to use the agents within Codex and then use the interface of Notion if you like it.

56:07That's how I see it. But if you say you use Notion as your second brain, I'm sure there's a plugin, a Notion plugin that connects, right? Yeah, absolutely. Plugin, Notion. I have it set up. I use Notion for one specific thing, and that is for all of my videos, I create one Notion page, and I drop in. You can actually upload videos to it, and I can comment on parts of the script and include attachments on the videos. It's a niche use case. So I use Notion, and I set it up with one click. And if you actually go to Notion, actually, we don't need to get into this, but it's super easy to choose what TeamSpaces has access for codecs.

56:52So when you go to Notion, you can very easily set up permissions. And you can only give it access to one database if you want. If you're worried about it messing with your Notion or privacy concerns, you can give it access to only specific databases, which I find really useful. I want to end on this note. I want to end on for someone who's just getting started with Codex if there's three or four things that they should do once they've got it installed what would those things be? It's very funny and by the way we didn't plan this I put this right before the podcast I was like if there's projects to get started to test I actually wrote them down and we covered one of them I think the first thing that you should do is you should have fun on all these platforms.

57:42I think the worst thing that people do when they show up on the platform is to like expect to get productivity out of it right away without kind of like play around for 30 minutes, take an hour to just do fun projects. And this gives you an idea of like the possibilities and then hone it down and get very specific and get discipline. And so I think one of the best things that you can do is like make a game and have browser use play a game against itself. Just use the browser use, test it. It'll get your brain thinking about where this is going in the future and how this will be useful in the future, which may actually change how you set up your documentation now for all of your different tasks.

58:19Like maybe it'll, maybe you can start preparing for it now because this is not a year from now. This is like three months away. AI will be able to control any browser like as good of a human. And this is something I can't convey by explaining it. You have to try it out. So that's why I recommend trying it out. Another thing that you should do is tell AI to do in-depth research and say, put it on max effort and say, I want you to research this topic and put it all, organize all the information you find into a spreadsheet. Then when you're done, turn that into a document and a presentation and just get the sense that you can create a in-depth research report.

58:56You can put it in a spreadsheet. You can create a document and a presentation, right? So once you do these two things you now understand browser use and all the types of documents it can create and then i said make a 3d simulation this one's more just for fun um if you want to you can also try and build a mobile app in swift if you have a company website and you're like oh you've always wanted to create a mobile app um you can literally download the code to your to your web app or website upload it and say hey i want you to build a mobile app in swift for this for now you still need to have a Mac and you need to have Xcode downloaded, but it can one-shot mobile apps, like full mobile apps.

59:34If there's a few things that you need to learn, but you'll be mind blown at what it can create in one shot to the point where it's actually gotten scary for me. Like, I'm like, oh my God, every app that can exist will exist. That's how good AI is getting at creating mobile apps. And then like the main thing after you've kind of played around, like I said list out all the things that you do on a day-to-day basis pick the most annoying thing that you do every day and then try and do it with computer use or just try to create a workflow that accomplishes it maybe you use plugins and then tell your agent to turn it into an automation just tell your agent to turn it into an automation and you know if you can create one useful automation in a couple of hours that might be worth it you know and so those are just some projects that you could get started with right now that will give you an overarching view of what this tool can do and i think by then you'll be like okay i understand and by then you'll be like that riley brown guy he was right about that codex thing yeah like and you might have doubt now like you can only convey so much information by talking or even showing like you've got to feel with ai i think to a large degree you have to feel it you do these things if you're still not sold message me i i i i don't think you you'll exist um i don't think that person will exist just you gotta try it i'll include links for where to find riley in the show notes in the description riley just put my phone number i want a direct line no i'll include riley's phone number actually be careful what you text riley because he's got uh chronicle set up so you know whatever you text him might just show up on the internet it goes straight to sam altman yeah riley thanks so much for coming on the show.

1:01:18Do you have one last word of wisdom to leave people after this Codex Masterclass? Honestly, just get out there and experiment. Right now is the best time to experiment. And what I've noticed, you know, in being in San Francisco, I've noticed that the people who have been like really successful creating startups are people who just like want to experiment and tinker and they don't have so many people who are like type A, want to get an immediate benefit after 30 minutes of using a tool. And I don't think that's where the benefits come. I think the benefits come from tinkering, messing around with tools.

1:01:54And when you have this weird inclination of you're like, okay, wait, what is a model? Why is this model different than the DeepSeek V4 model? It's like, go down that rabbit hole, use AI, learn about it. And then through that process, you'll learn the things you need to learn to start or grow your business. I think all of the magic in AI happens in these like rabbit holes. And then once you find something, just like go all in on it. That's kind of my final advice. And I think Codex is a great kind of surface to do it on. You're totally right, by the way. I lived in San Francisco for almost nine years.

1:02:29And I think it's not just so much that the tinkerers win, is that people, the tinkers who aren't afraid of looking dumb win.

1:02:45When you're trying some of these tools you might feel dumb initially. It's because you aren't a master of it yet. The only way to become a master is to actually put in the time and work. I think the reward is infinite. The ability to use these tools really well like Codex and be able to create. For me, this isn't just a tool that's helpful for content creators. This is helpful for literally anything that you can dream of. Lead magnets, you used one example. Lead magnets, content of course, but ideas for products that you want to create, businesses you want to create, automating your personal life, automating a dream team for a business that you're starting and everything in between.

1:03:39Keep playing. Just stop listening to this but also like and comment for us. I want this episode to get a lot of love so Riley comes back on. Come on, dude. This is my fifth time on the show, man. I'll come back on any time even if it gets 10 views. You came on when we were just a little show. Dude, honestly, there's an argument to be made that I put you on the map. No, I'm just playing. The video, the first Vibe Coding video, it's funny. I actually, someone, a lot of people bring that up. They're like, oh, I first saw you on Greg Eisenberg's podcast when I was struggling through that first episode.

1:04:18And that's why we do this, right? Like, you know, I hope, so yeah, thanks again for coming on. And I hope someone learned one, two, three, four, five things that just gave them not just the creative juices to actually use these tools, but the motivation to keep going. So thanks a lot, Riley. Appreciate you having me on. This is awesome.