CEO and co-founder of Every, a radically AI-native company generating 7-figure revenue with just 15 employees across 6 business units and 4 software products. Prolific writer exploring AI transformation through his Chain of Thought newsletter and AI & I podcast.
Building Radically AI-Native Companies
Dan Shipper has built Every as a living proof of concept: a company where engineers write virtually zero code by hand, where AI agents ship features in parallel, and where 15 people accomplish what traditionally requires 50+. His work demonstrates that AI isn’t just a productivity tool—it’s a fundamental reimagining of how knowledge companies operate.
Current Work: Every
Every combines publishing, AI products, and consulting into a cohesive AI-first operation:
- Publishing: Daily AI newsletters reaching 75,000+ readers
- Software Products: Spiral (AI writing), Cora (email management), and others—each built by a single developer
- Consulting: Helping legacy and modern companies transform workflows
- Revenue: 7-figure with 7,000+ paying subscribers
The company’s radical efficiency comes from treating AI as infrastructure, not tooling. Every developer works across multiple products simultaneously, shipping features and fixes in parallel because AI handles implementation details.
Philosophy: Compounding Engineering
Dan articulates a paradigm shift from traditional software development:
Traditional Engineering accumulates technical debt—each feature makes the codebase harder to work with. Compounding Engineering leverages AI to create the opposite dynamic—each feature makes the next one easier because AI learns from prior implementations. Knowledge compounds instead of debt.
This enables counterintuitive outcomes: fractured attention becomes viable, managers can commit code, and new hires are productive on day one. The secret is codifying tacit knowledge into prompts that capture organizational standards and practices.
Key Writing & Resources
Dan’s Chain of Thought newsletter explores the frontiers of AI transformation:
- GPT-4: A Copilot for the Mind - How AI becomes a digital research assistant
- GPT-4 Is a Reasoning Engine - Understanding AI reasoning capabilities
- How to Make AI Write Like Your Favorite Author - Techniques for authentic AI writing
His podcast, AI & I, features 25+ deep conversations with experts including Reid Hoffman, Tyler Cowen, and Kevin Roose on practical AI implementation.
Products & Innovations
Spiral (v3 launched 2024) - An AI writing partner with editorial taste, built by a single engineer in months. Unlike typical AI tools that rush output, Spiral deliberately slows down to understand ideas, mirroring how human ghostwriters work. Features an interviewer agent that proactively requests context when needed.
Extendable Articles - A new content format where readers can chat with source material (transcripts, recordings, articles) that informed the piece, creating interactive, exploratory reading experiences.
Conference Appearance
Event: AI Engineering Code Summit 2025 Date: November 20, 2025 Time: 5:00 PM Session: How to Build an AI-Native Company (Even If Your Company Is 50 Years Old)
Dan presented Every’s operational model, demonstrating how companies can implement Plan → Delegate → Assess → Codify workflows to transform even decades-old organizations into AI-native operations.
Core Insights
“Because code is cheap you get to try different ideas”
“AI permits engineers to work with fractured attention”
“Non-obvious second-order effects once you adopt it”
Dan’s work shows that AI transformation isn’t about adopting tools—it’s about rebuilding organizational processes around a new economic reality where implementation is cheap and clear thinking becomes the limiting factor.
Last Updated: November 24, 2025