Code Riff

Eric Tan, Yaohong Ch'ng

come see how ai is used for human flourishing and to have more fun.we interview ai-pilled practitioners using ai to enhance their work and lives.hosts:- Eric Tan - vibecoder https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/- Yaohong Ch'ng - senior engineer, founder of superuser hq. https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohongchng/subscribe and join us on our journey of figuring things out together.episode takeaways: https://coderiff.substack.com youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CodeRiffAI

Episodes

  1. Aug 11

    AI governance expert warns the window is closing | Simon Chesterman

    Simon Chesterman is AI Governance and Policy Lead at the NUS AI Institute, David Marshall Professor of Law and Vice Provost at NUS, and Dean of NUS College. He is also a novelist. He spends his working life on how law can help manage risk, and his fiction on what stays human. He spoke with us here in his personal capacity, not on behalf of NUS or AI Singapore. in this conversation we cover: - why we are all beta testers and lab rats in a live experiment - the risk he actually loses sleep over, and why it is not the Terminator - what happens to you when you outsource reading, then writing, then judgment - why an AI that flatters you is not on your side - a test you can run today to find out where AI is weak - what he thinks universities and entry level jobs look like on the other side of this hosted by Eric Tan, Yaohong could not make it for this episode. our guest: Simon Chesterman, David Marshall Professor of Law, Vice Provost, NUS AI Governance and Policy Lead, NUS AI Institute and author of the novel Artifice. learn along: - frontier lab: the handful of companies building the largest AI models - open weights: releasing the model's internals so anyone can run and modify it - closed model: the company keeps the internals and you access it through their service - cognitive offloading: handing your thinking to a tool until you get worse at doing it yourself - sycophancy: when a system agrees with you and flatters you because that keeps you engaged - legal personality: being treated by the law as someone who can hold rights and be held responsible. People have it. So do companies - sovereign AI: a country building its own AI capability rather than depending on another country's - p(doom): the probability an AI researcher privately assigns to this technology ending very badly where Simon says to start, if you want to go deeper - Singapore's Model AI Governance Framework, which collects real use cases - the AI Verify Foundation - the international AI safety report led by Yoshua Bengio and others - the global policy dialogues at the UN - and his own advice: read widely, test the systems against each other, ask them about their own guardrails, then come to your own conclusions the research behind this conversation we discuss four of Simon's papers on tape. to read more: - All Rise for the Honourable Robot Judge? Using Artificial Intelligence to Regulate AI (2023), Technology and Regulation: https://techreg.org/article/view/17979   the paper eric asks about, and where the AI Supreme Court and AI Prime Minister line comes from - Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of Legal Personality (2020), International and Comparative Law Quarterly: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3682372   the argument that you could give AI legal personality but you should not, including the river in New Zealand - Silicon Sovereigns: Artificial Intelligence, International Law, and the Tech-Industrial Complex (2026), American Journal of International Law: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.05506   AI research moving out of the universities into private hands, and the closing warning about the first and second AI emergency - Weapons of Mass Disruption: Artificial Intelligence and International Law (2021), Cambridge International Law Journal: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3832563   why AI gets none of the audits and licensing we give chemicals, nuclear materials and biological weapons research - his full list of papers: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=244368 books mentioned - Artifice, Simon Chesterman (his novel, the one he wrote as fiction before this became the news) - We, the Robots? Regulating Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of the Law, Simon Chesterman - Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom - The University Disrupted, Simon Chesterman, forthcoming watch the video version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CodeRiffAI connect with us - Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/ - Substack: https://substack.com/@coderiff - email: code.riffs.ai@gmail.com Code Riff, interviews with leading minds and practitioners in AI so you can flourish and have fun with ai. tools we use - Buzzsprout (podcast hosting, our referral link): https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2371679

    AI governance expert warns the window is closing | Simon Chesterman

  2. Aug 3

    From tyre shop to AI attention machine | Cordillia Tan (Co-Founder of PetaniAI)

    Cordillia Tan is better known to many Singaporeans as "Tyre Jie Jie". with no driving licence and almost no automotive knowledge, she stepped into her family's tyre shop when it was roughly S$400,000 in debt, and helped turn Pitstop into a multimillion-dollar digital automotive business. after five years in the workshop she is building PetaniAI, a home for the AI-curious in Southeast Asia. in this conversation you'll hear: - eight months of TikToks that went nowhere before one video changed the trajectory, and what she thinks the scarce advantages are now that AI makes building cheap: attention, trust and distribution - going beyond SEO into AEO: letting the model audit the site, surface the content gaps her whole industry was missing, then feeding it a fact nobody else in the world publishes so the answer has to cite her - the day she couldn't make a S$20,000 rent payment with S$2,000 in the bank, asked ChatGPT for legal ways to raise it overnight - the internal tools she built with Claude Code: an inventory system, a used tyre pricing tool, and a quote log to handle prices that kept moving - the builds that didn't last, and what made the difference between the ones that stuck and the ones nobody used - why WhatsApp stayed the interface for her team, instead of forcing them onto something new our guest: Cordillia Tan, Co-Founder of PetaniAI (https://petaniai.com/) hosted by Eric Tan and Yaohong Ch'ng produced by PetaniAI glossary, in plain english: - vibe coding: building software by describing what you want to an AI coding tool, testing what it produces and improving it through conversation. - machine vision: software that reads and understands images. Cordi used it to identify tyre details from a photograph. - AEO: writing so that AI assistants quote you when someone asks them a question, rather than writing to rank on a search results page. - moat: an advantage that makes a company difficult to copy or compete with. - distribution: the ability to consistently reach the right audience and get a product, idea or piece of content in front of them. - AI slop: generic, low-effort AI-generated content that sounds polished but offers little original insight or value. connect with us - want to suggest a guest or a topic? tell us: https://forms.gle/DSyLzPAoR6x2M4Np9 - Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/ - Yaohong: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohongchng/ - Superuser HQ (Yaohong's company): https://superuserhq.com/ - Substack: https://substack.com/@coderiff?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page - WhatsApp community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Dmp5eEEsAZhJTB6LjcIG3c?mode=gi_t - email: code.riffs.ai@gmail.com - PetaniAI: https://petaniai.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/petaniai/ Code Riff - a podcast hosted by Eric Tan and Yaohong Ch'ng. we interview leading minds and practitioners in AI so you can flourish and have fun with ai.

    From tyre shop to AI attention machine | Cordillia Tan (Co-Founder of PetaniAI)

  3. Jul 20

    Inside an AI-native recruitment firm's stack | Roger Olofsson (Co-Founder of Olofsson Consulting)

    Roger Olofsson is MD and Co-Founder of an AI-native recruitment firm Olofsson Consulting (https://olofsson.ai/), having spent ~30 years in tech executive search in Singapore.  in this conversation we cover: - how Roger ended up settling down in Singapore (from Sweden!) - the live walkthrough of their matching system which consists of 395K candidates - how Roger transformed into an ai-native firm, removing soul-draining work - why the team is shifting back into claude code after building their own software - new job creation due to ai - why he is hopeful given uncertainty hosted by  - Eric Tan https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/  - Yaohong Ch'ng https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohongchng/ - Our guest: Roger Olofsson, MD and Co-Founder of Olofsson AI (https://olofsson.ai) https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerolofsson/ chapters 0:00 cold open 1:28 agenda 8:33 building an ai-native recruitment firm 10:43 why they went all-in on ai 13:19 live showcase: Olofsson AI's internal recruitment platform 21:33 llms find candidates that were once difficult to search for 26:14 how agents save recruiters from doomscrolling linkedin 30:50 getting a team to adopt ai without fear 34:27 how roger aligns incentives for the long run 39:40 how ai helps them compete with giants 42:58 everyone in the firm uses claude code 46:46 emerging roles and job descriptions with ai 52:09 the newest role: agentic product manager 56:25 optimism despite ai fears 59:57 lightning round 1:05:49 post-credits scene: roger's ceo summarizer tools mentioned in this episode - Claude Code (the terminal AI Roger's whole team is trained on): https://claude.com/claude-code - Exa (agentic web search, the POC they showed): https://exa.ai - Supabase (where their Postgres database lives): https://supabase.com - Vercel (where the platform is hosted): https://vercel.com - GitHub (where their skills live): https://github.com - Lovable (the coding agent that pulled Roger back into building): https://lovable.dev books Roger recommends: - The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz - Zero to One, Peter Thiel connect with us - Substack: https://substack.com/@coderiff?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page - email: code.riffs.ai@gmail.com - Superuser HQ (Yaohong's company): https://superuserhq.com/ tools we use - Buzzsprout (podcast hosting, our referral link): https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2371679 - Snipd (how we take notes from podcasts): https://get.snipd.com/pAbF/36jzrvki LEARN ALONG (glossary for the non-techies) a few terms from this episode, in plain english: - ai-native: a company designed around ai from the ground up, instead of adding ai tools onto the old way of working. - ai agent: a program you hand a goal to, that then takes the steps itself (searching, filtering, writing) instead of you doing each one. - agentic search: a search where an ai agent runs the whole hunt on its own, refining as it goes, then hands you the results. - skill: a saved set of instructions an ai can reuse, so a task you taught it once runs the same way every time. - harness: the setup an ai agent runs inside, which decides what tools and data it can touch. - frontier models: the newest, most capable ai models from the big labs. Roger builds on these instead of training his own. - fine-tuning: training an existing ai model further on your own data. Roger's team chose not to, betting the frontier models improve faster. - context engineering: feeding an ai the right background (like 25 years of recruiting judgment) so it makes decisions the way an expert would. - context window: how much text an ai can hold in its head at once, measured in tokens (chunks of words). - Postgres: a widely used free database. the filing cabinet where all the candidate records sit. - POC (proof of concept): a small trial build to test whether an idea works before committing to it. - agent orchestrator: a new job Roger described, a person who manages and trains a team of ai agents rather than a team of people. about code riff Code Riff - interviews with leading minds / practitioners in AI so you can flourish and have fun with ai - youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CodeRiffAI - spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/53wI41qQXVTiydVjN7i4uB

    Inside an AI-native recruitment firm's stack | Roger Olofsson (Co-Founder of Olofsson Consulting)

  4. Jun 16

    Cybersecurity shouldn't be a luxury | Gaurav Keerthi (CEO of StrongKeep)

    gaurav keerthi has packed several careers into one. he was a rescue helicopter pilot, made brigadier-general, became the air force's first chief innovation officer, then deputy chief executive of singapore's cyber security agency. then he started strongkeep, because he was tired of waiting for someone to build affordable cybersecurity for the small businesses everyone else overlooks. in this conversation we cover: - what growing up through a coup and political violence taught him about safety - the only four ways businesses actually get hacked, and how ai just makes them faster - why he rebuilds every ai "skill" from scratch instead of trusting one off the internet (and learns more doing it) - why the cost of building software dropped to zero, but the prices didn't - why he gave up top jobs in the air force and cyber to build affordable security for SMEs - the "brilliant intern with a drinking problem" rule for using ai agents without getting burned (Simon Chesterman quote) - how singapore's rigid system produces some of the world's best "oddball" founders - how he hires by reading ai chat transcripts chapters 0:00 cold open 2:34 coup, assassination, fall of the Berlin wall 10:08 security as a luxury good 16:52 SMEs and how security is often overlooked 20:50 the four ways things go wrong 27:30 emerging risks from personal claws 31:41 building a second brain, and why Gaurav built his own harness 36:15 rebuilding ai skills yourself (don't trust outside skills), vibecoding 40:55 StrongKeep demos - 7 min setup 46:20 building for when the cost of software drops to zero 50:07 ai as a "brilliant intern with a drinking problem" (quote by Simon Chesterman) 56:55 break 57:07 entrepreneurship in sg, principles of debate, hiring 1:06:40 rapid fire: books, fav place in sg, philosophy 1:15:37 thank you youtube: https://youtu.be/UNBkWOIw-IM?is=QOdIL2tB2JNZ428A spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/53wI41qQXVTiydVjN7i4uB?si=9g2gxyYDQeyow-YhxUC25Q apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/cybersecurity-shouldnt-be-a-luxury-gaurav-keerthi/id1877603539?i=1000772983777 snipd: https://share.snipd.com/episode/921b3698-317f-4a8a-b302-b94262433805 how we met (the "group" mentioned) we met Gaurav through the agentic builders collective (abc), a local (Singapore-based) community for people building with ai. https://www.agenticbuilders.sg links - StrongKeep (affordable cybersecurity for smes): https://strongkeep.com - run a free cyberscan on your business: https://cyberscan.strongkeep.com - gaurav: gauravkeerthi.com books gaurav recommends: - sapiens, yuval noah harari - unspeak, steven poole - the wisdom of crowds, james surowiecki glossary (for the non-techies) a few terms from this episode: - ai agent: a program you hand a goal to, that then takes the steps itself (browsing, clicking, running code) instead of you doing each one. - harness: the setup an ai agent runs inside, which decides what it's allowed to touch. gaurav tried the off-the-shelf ones, then built his own. - personal claw (openclaw, nanoclaw): nicknames for personal ai agents people run on their own devices. - least privilege: giving a tool or person the smallest set of permissions they need, and nothing more. the "$5 to a teenager" rule. - credentials: your logins, passwords, keys, and tokens. the thing attackers want most. - clear text (plaintext): information saved as plain readable text with no encryption, so anyone who opens the file can read it. - vibe coding: building software mostly by describing what you want to an ai and running what it gives you, rather than writing the code yourself. - second brain: a personal system, often ai-powered now, that stores and connects your notes so you can recall everything you've saved. - sme: small and medium-sized business. the people gaurav built strongkeep for. code riff: a podcast hosted by Eric Tan and Yaohong Ch'ng. we interview experts so you can use ai to flourish and have fun. - youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CodeRiffAI - spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/53wI41qQXVTiydVjN7i4uB whether you run a small business or just build with ai and worry you're missing something, we hope this one leaves you feeling more equipped, not more behind.

    Cybersecurity shouldn't be a luxury | Gaurav Keerthi (CEO of StrongKeep)

  5. May 21

    We vibecoded an app for our grandparents

    This is a secret episode we almost didn't release. Eric (vibe-coder, can't read code) and his cousin Jason (a software engineer) sat down to build a family app for their ageing grandparents. What you'll hear is a distilled 2.5h chat, with a brief demo near the end. We're releasing it because the mess is the whole point. If you're curious about vibe coding but scared to start, this is what it actually sounds like when two real people try. Key takeaways: - Get the AI to grill you before you build. Jason had it question his intent and features until they reached shared understanding - no code until then. - Leave the technical details out of planning. Focus on the job to be done and who's using it; the stack decisions come later. - Planning is painful but it pays off. An hour of arguing and changing our minds upfront beats iterating ten times on the wrong prototype. - A software engineer meets Claude/Opus for the first time and reacts to how it works vs his usual Cursor setup. - You don't need a finished product to start. We ended on a mock app - grab a friend, your cousin, your kids, and just start building. Hosts: Eric Tan (non-technical builder). Yaohong Ch'ng is the usual co-host - this episode is Eric solo with a guest. Guest: Jason - software engineer, Eric's cousin, daily Cursor + Sonnet 4.5 user trying Claude/Opus for the first time. Got a problem you want us to solve live? Fill out the form: https://forms.gle/DSyLzPAoR6x2M4Np9 A few terms you'll hear: - Vibe coding: building software by telling an AI what you want in plain English, instead of writing code yourself. - Claude / Opus / Sonnet: Claude is the AI assistant; Opus is the bigger, pricier model Eric uses, Sonnet the faster, cheaper one Jason uses at work. - Cursor: a code editor with AI built in - Jason's daily tool. - Plan mode: a Claude Code setting where it asks you questions and writes a plan before building anything. - Notion as a database: using Notion to store the app's data instead of paying for a proper database - a cheap shortcut with limits. - Mock data: fake placeholder content used to see how the app looks before real data goes in. Connect with us: - Eric on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/ - Jason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ysjasonchen/ - Email: code.riffs.ai@gmail.com Code Riff - messy real-world problems, solved with AI, so you can too.

    We vibecoded an app for our grandparents

  6. Apr 28

    Global FMCG Researcher Uses AI for Ingredient Analysis

    Cosmetic scientists from FMCG companies spend days clicking between PubChem, INCI Decoder, and supplier sites just to figure out what's in one competitor product. Aidil is a cosmetic chemist. He does this manually in Excel and through hundreds of searches in a textbox. We tried to solve that task with Claude Code - live, in 90 minutes. 10 products decoded, and a similarity matrix. What you'll hear: - Why a trained scientist still loses a day per product to manual ingredient lookups - Aidil dictating what the tool should do - in plain English, no code - Building a Python script live that pulls CAS numbers, molecular formulas, and chemistry from PubChem - Tagging each ingredient's cosmetic function with INCI Decoder (surfactant, emulsifier, thickener) - The messy bits: synonyms, rate limits, caching, and a PubChem API that doesn't have pKa - A similarity matrix that clusters Pantene with Olaplex, and Head & Shoulders on its own - Aidil's payoff: "it has the potential to just take a few seconds" Hosts: Eric Tan (non-technical builder) & Yaohong Ch'ng (Founder, Superuser HQ, ex-Stashaway head of Data) Guest: Aidil Juhari - ex-FMCG R&D scientist, cosmetic chemist Got a problem you want us to solve live? Fill out the form: https://forms.gle/DSyLzPAoR6x2M4Np9 We write here: https://substack.com/@coderiff Join our community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Dmp5eEEsAZhJTB6LjcIG3c?mode=gi_t LEARN ALONG: - FMCG: Fast-Moving Consumer Goods - shampoo, toothpaste, detergent. Aidil's world. - INCI: The official scientific name for every cosmetic ingredient. - CAS number: A passport number for molecules - unique ID for every chemical. - PubChem: Free public chemistry database run by the US government. - API: How one program asks another for data, instead of copying from a webpage. - pKa: A chemistry number for how acidic or basic a molecule is. PubChem doesn't have it, which bit us. Connect with us: - Eric on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/ - Yaohong on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohongchng/ - Superuser HQ: https://superuserhq.com/ - Email: code.riffs.ai@gmail.com Code Riff - messy real-world problems, solved with AI, so you can too.

    Global FMCG Researcher Uses AI for Ingredient Analysis

  7. Apr 3

    Luxury Bag Restorer Finally Analyzes Her Sales Channels with AI

    Lynn runs Dr. Bags, a luxury bag and shoes restoration business in Singapore - 11 years, 3 stores, about 30 staff. Her team is already stretched thin building a new ERP system, training staff, and handling daily operations. Analysing marketing data? That would take two days nobody has. We built her a marketing dashboard in under an hour using Claude Code with a month of her deal pipeline data. It wasn't perfect - and that turned out to be the most useful part. What you'll hear in this episode: - Why SME owners know they should analyse their data but never do - Building a marketing dashboard from raw ERP data, live in one session - Discovering that WhatsApp was getting credit for wins that started on social media ads - A pile of deals stuck in limbo that nobody had noticed - Why business acumen matters more than any AI tool - and how Lynn proved it Hosts: Eric Tan (non-technical builder) & Yaohong Ch'ng (engineer, Superuser HQ, ex-Stashaway head of Data) Guest: Lynn Kee - founder of DrBags, luxury bag and shoes restoration Got a problem you want us to solve live? Fill out the form: https://forms.gle/DSyLzPAoR6x2M4Np9 Listen/watch: - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5u9ShYoodc&t=56s - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/43mFsd6uOHqcYuE2c6nmkp?si=2MxLxpcFQyu1fvPYIiO6BA - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/luxury-bag-restorer-finally-analyzes-her-sales-channels/id1877603539?i=1000759069037 - Snipd: https://share.snipd.com/episode/829084df-c22c-4833-96e6-9fb7714b7275 Connect with us: - Eric on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/ - Yaohong on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohongchng/ - WhatsApp community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Dmp5eEEsAZhJTB6LjcIG3c?mode=gi_t - Substack: https://substack.com/@coderiff - Email: code.riffs.ai@gmail.com Tools used in this episode: - Claude Code: https://claude.ai/code Tools we use: - Buzzsprout (podcast hosting): https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2371679 - Snipd (AI podcast highlights): https://get.snipd.com/pAbF/36jzrvki LEARN ALONG - Glossary: - ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning): Software that tracks everything in your business - inquiries, jobs, inventory, delivery. Lynn's ERP follows a bag from first WhatsApp message through cleaning, QC, and return. - Dashboard: Charts and numbers on one screen so you don't dig through spreadsheets. What Lynn wanted instead of two days of manual Excel work. - Attribution: Figuring out which ad channel actually brought a customer. Lynn's data said 89% WhatsApp - but many customers found DrBags through Instagram or Facebook first. - Funnel: The journey from first contact to closed deal. Lynn's funnel: new inquiry to engaged to won or lost. 61% of deals were stuck in "Engaged." - Data cleaning: Getting your raw data accurate before doing anything with it. Yaohong called it "plumbing" - if your data isn't clean, your dashboard lies to you. - POC (Proof of Concept): A quick prototype to test if an idea works before investing serious time or money. - Plan mode: A Claude Code feature where it reads your data, proposes an approach, and waits for your OK before building anything. ABOUT: Code Riff - messy real-world problems, solved with AI, so you can too. One of us can't code. The other's been coding since he was 13. Every episode, someone brings us a real problem and we try to solve it with AI in one hour live.

    Luxury Bag Restorer Finally Analyzes Her Sales Channels with AI

  8. Mar 13

    Oil Analyst Saves HOURS Analyzing News (Live Build)

    Bryan is an oil market analyst. Every morning he spends one to two hours reading news - Reuters, CNN, CNBC - trying to pull out the actual facts from opinion and spin. Two articles about the same event sometimes say opposite things. We tried building him an AI tool using Claude Code. It scraped hundreds of articles, stripped out the editorializing, and pulled just the verifiable facts. It covered about 80-90% of what he needs.  What you'll hear in this episode: - An oil analyst explaining the daily problem: separating fact from spin in news headlines - Building a fact extraction tool with Claude Code, live in one session - The moment two articles about the Strait of Hormuz directly contradicted each other - Why "dangerously skip permissions" exists in Claude Code (cowboy mode) - Bryan's live feedback: what worked, what didn't, and what he'd actually use - Yaohong on why confidence scores without defined criteria will hallucinate Hosts: Eric Tan (non-technical builder) & Yaohong Ch'ng (engineer, Superuser HQ, ex-Stashaway head of Data) Guest: Bryan - oil market analyst Got a problem you want us to solve live? Fill out the form: https://forms.gle/DSyLzPAoR6x2M4Np9 Connect with us: - Eric on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/ - Yaohong on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohongchng/ - WhatsApp community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Dmp5eEEsAZhJTB6LjcIG3c?mode=gi_t - Substack: https://substack.com/@coderiff - Email: code.riffs.ai@gmail.com Tools used in this episode: - Claude Code: https://claude.ai/code - Gemini API (news classification/analysis): https://ai.google.dev/ - Python (RSS scraping + fact extraction) Tools we use: - Buzzsprout (podcast hosting): https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2371679 - Snipd (AI podcast highlights): https://get.snipd.com/pAbF/36jzrvki LEARN ALONG - Glossary: - RSS feeds: A way to automatically pull articles from news sites without visiting each one. Like a subscription pipe that delivers headlines to your tool. - API keys: Password-like codes that let your tool access paid services like AI models. You keep them secret and they track your usage. - Hallucination: When AI confidently generates information that sounds right but isn't real. The biggest risk when you need verified facts for trading decisions. - Sandbox: A restricted environment that limits what code can do on your computer. A safety net when running AI-generated code. - Dangerously skip permissions: A Claude Code setting that removes the safety sandbox. Useful for speed, risky if you don't trust what the code is doing. - Scenario analysis: A structured way of thinking through "if X happens, then Y follows." Bryan uses a specific framework: impact, market response, price implications. ABOUT: Code Riff - messy real-world problems, solved with AI, so you can too. One of us can't code. The other's been coding since he was 13. Every episode, someone brings us a real problem and we try to solve it with AI in one hour live.

    Oil Analyst Saves HOURS Analyzing News (Live Build)

  9. Mar 9

    Using Claude Cowork To Streamline Wet Market Operations (Live)

    Chuyi quit her corporate job to help manage a wet market vegetable store at Marine Terrace. She tracks competitor prices and supplier orders through WhatsApp and spreadsheets — all by hand. So we used Claude Cowork to build her a competitor pricing guide and supplier management dashboard in one hour, having fun while doing it together. What you'll hear in this episode: - A wet market store operator walking through her daily pricing and supplier workflow - Using Claude Cowork to scrape and compare prices across FairPrice, Sheng Siong, Cold Storage, and more - Building a supplier management tracker with price logging, margin calculations, and trend analysis - AI "hallucinating" wet market prices — and Yaohong catching it live - Honest conversation about scraping ethics, data accuracy, and why "your data will never be clean" - Why not everything needs code — sometimes a spreadsheet is the real unlock Hosts: Eric Tan (non-technical builder) & Yaohong Ch'ng (engineer, Superuser HQ, ex-Stashaway head of Data) Guest: Chuyi (Le Fresco, 50 Marine Terrace) Got a problem you want us to solve live? Fill out the form: https://forms.gle/DSyLzPAoR6x2M4Np9 Connect with us: - Eric on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/ - Yaohong on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohongchng/ - WhatsApp community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Dmp5eEEsAZhJTB6LjcIG3c?mode=gi_t - Substack: https://substack.com/@coderiff - Email: code.riffs.ai@gmail.com Tools used in this episode: - Claude Cowork: https://claude.ai - Google Sheets: https://sheets.google.com Tools we use: - Buzzsprout (podcast hosting): https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=2371679 - Snipd (AI podcast highlights): https://get.snipd.com/pAbF/36jzrvki Also discussed: Notion, Airtable, Google CLI, Gemini LEARN ALONG — Glossary: - Claude Cowork: A browser-based AI assistant from Anthropic that can control your files and browse the web. Costs ~$30 SGD/month on the Pro plan. - Scraping: Automatically collecting data from websites using a bot instead of copying it by hand. Some websites block this. - Tokens: The units AI models use to process text. More tokens = more cost. Like minutes on a phone plan. - Hallucination: When AI confidently makes up information that isn't real. In this episode, it estimated wet market prices at "20-40% cheaper than supermarkets" — a guess, not data. - MCP (Model Context Protocol): A way for AI agents to connect to external tools like Notion or Google Sheets. Think of it as a universal adapter plug for AI. - Network egress: A security setting that controls which websites an AI tool can access from your computer. Like a bouncer checking IDs. ABOUT: Code Riff — messy real-world problems, solved with AI, so you can too. One of us can't code. The other's been coding since he was 13. Every episode, someone brings us a real problem and we try to solve it with AI in one hour live.

    Using Claude Cowork To Streamline Wet Market Operations (Live)

  10. Mar 3

    We Built an ESG News Bot in 1 Hour using Claude Code (Live)

    An ESG analyst at a bank spends her morning commutes reading news across Reuters, ESG News, and Financial Times, etc, then manually logging it into Excel and Word. She tried ChatGPT but got hallucinated headlines. So we automated the whole thing in one hour using Claude Code from scratch, having fun while doing it together. What you'll hear in this episode: - A real sustainable finance analyst walking through her daily news workflow - Building a Python news scraper live with little to no prior coding experience - AI classifying articles into sustainable finance, policy, and country news - Setting up a Telegram bot that delivers a formatted Word document daily - Honest explanations of API keys, prompt injection, and context rot - A conversation about AI in banking - augmenting jobs, not replacing them Hosts: Eric Tan (non-technical builder) & Yaohong Ch'ng (engineer, Superuser HQ, ex-Stashaway head of Data) Guest: Wachel - Sustainable Finance Analyst Got a problem you want us to solve live? Fill out the form: https://forms.gle/DSyLzPAoR6x2M4Np9 Subscribe to our newsletter: https://substack.com/@coderiff?utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Tools from this episode: - Claude Code: https://claude.ai - Newsdata.io: https://newsdata.io - Telegram (BotFather): https://t.me/BotFather Connect with us: - Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/ - Yaohong: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohongchng/ - Superuser HQ: https://superuserhq.com/ - Email: code.riffs.ai@gmail.com Code Riff - messy real-world problems, solved with AI, so you can too.

    We Built an ESG News Bot in 1 Hour using Claude Code (Live)

  11. Feb 16

    It's Time to Build Your Own Software

    I don't write code. Yaohong's been coding since he was 13. We sat down to figure out why we're making a podcast about building things with AI - live, on camera, with real people's real problems. In this episode, we talk about: - Why this moment is important for non-coders to build with AI - Singapore's 2026 budget and AI adoption - The problem with AI consultants selling to SMEs who don't understand AI - Why we picked Claude Code over Lovable, Bolt, and Cursor (for now) - Pains of 24/7 OpenClaw bots - What guests / subscribers can expect Hosts: Eric Tan (non-technical builder) & Yaohong Ch'ng (engineer, Superuser HQ) Got a problem you'd love to solve with AI? Submit it here - we'll try to build it live: https://forms.gle/DSyLzPAoR6x2M4Np9 Timestamps: 00:00 - Trailer 00:43 - Why we're doing this 01:59 - When AI became real for us 04:25 - How we met and what's changed since 05:16 - Building an AI-native company 07:22 - Why now 08:23 - Yaohong's backstory 10:40 - Our format and a little rant on OpenClaw bots 14:49 - Singapore's 2026 budget and AI strategy 16:54 - The problem with AI consultants 18:36 - What we're really trying to do 20:15 - Limits of AI 23:19 - Why Claude Code vs other vibecoding tools 26:17 - Using AI for writing 28:38 - Kids and AI 30:42 - Risk of AI dependence 35:51 - What guests can expect Links: Submit your problem: https://forms.gle/DSyLzPAoR6x2M4Np9 Superuser HQ: https://superuserhq.com/ OpenClaw (AI agent framework): https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw Eric's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/ Yaohong's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohong/ Learn along (tech terms from this episode): - Claude Code: An AI tool you talk to in your terminal. You describe what you want in plain English, it writes and runs the code. - Vibecoding: Building software by describing what you want, not writing code yourself. What Eric does. - Terminal / command line: The text-based interface where you type commands. Like texting your computer instead of clicking buttons. - API key: A password that lets your app connect to another service. The "annoying part of vibecoding" according to Eric. - Lovable / Bolt / Replit: Web-based AI app builders. Simpler than Claude Code but less flexible. - Cursor: An AI code editor. More visual than Claude Code, less powerful. - OpenClaw: An open-source AI agent framework. Yaohong's team built personal virtual assistants (Ram and Connie) that collaborate with each other in Slack channels. Think AI coworkers that can switch roles and work on projects together. - Supabase: A database service where apps store data. Like a spreadsheet in the cloud. - Sycophancy: When AI agrees with everything you say instead of pushing back. Can lead people down dangerous rabbit holes. We get on a call with someone, hear what's bugging them, and try to solve it with AI in an hour. That's basically the whole show.

    It's Time to Build Your Own Software
  • 11 Episodes

About

come see how ai is used for human flourishing and to have more fun.we interview ai-pilled practitioners using ai to enhance their work and lives.hosts:- Eric Tan - vibecoder https://www.linkedin.com/in/erictisme/- Yaohong Ch'ng - senior engineer, founder of superuser hq. https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaohongchng/subscribe and join us on our journey of figuring things out together.episode takeaways: https://coderiff.substack.com youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CodeRiffAI

Information

  • Creator
    Eric Tan, Yaohong Ch'ng
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Code Riff
  • Show Website
    Code Riff