Meeting Title: Brainforge x Greg GitHub Usage Sync Date: 2026-02-13 Meeting participants: Greg Stoutenburg, Gabriel Lam
WEBVTT
1 00:01:34.780 ⇒ 00:01:37.899 Gabriel Lam: Hello, happy Friday. How are you?
2 00:01:38.770 ⇒ 00:01:40.029 Greg Stoutenburg: Doing well, how are you?
3 00:01:40.260 ⇒ 00:01:46.680 Gabriel Lam: I’m doing well, I’m in New York this weekend, so it’s pretty exciting.
4 00:01:46.680 ⇒ 00:01:49.429 Greg Stoutenburg: Nice! Just for fun, or .
5 00:01:49.670 ⇒ 00:01:55.410 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, a bunch of my college friends are visiting New York, and I was like, hey, you know.
6 00:01:55.510 ⇒ 00:02:03.630 Gabriel Lam: Nice. On the train ride away, I’ll come see you guys, but nice. Yeah, it’s been… I’ve just been reading a lot recently, so that’s been really good.
7 00:02:03.630 ⇒ 00:02:03.950 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
8 00:02:03.950 ⇒ 00:02:04.890 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, how was you?
9 00:02:05.080 ⇒ 00:02:10.610 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, that’s cool, yeah. Calm, calm week in the personal life, busy at work,
10 00:02:11.030 ⇒ 00:02:21.329 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, we finally got a break from the temperature, it’s been super cold here. Oh, wow. But, yeah, that’s alright, I like being outside in the winter, so… I got to ski on a frozen pond a lot last week, so…
11 00:02:21.330 ⇒ 00:02:21.710 Gabriel Lam: Nice!
12 00:02:21.710 ⇒ 00:02:27.170 Greg Stoutenburg: I don’t mind the cold so much, but yeah, I don’t know, glad it’s Friday.
13 00:02:27.170 ⇒ 00:02:35.270 Gabriel Lam: I know. I also went skiing last weekend, and we were lucky, we just got, like, snowfall the night before.
14 00:02:35.600 ⇒ 00:02:36.390 Greg Stoutenburg: Yup.
15 00:02:36.560 ⇒ 00:02:40.610 Gabriel Lam: Crazy driving up, but we got there, and we were like, alright, that was worth it.
16 00:02:40.610 ⇒ 00:02:45.439 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, I think that’s… that’s a good sign, right? If it’s a little treacherous getting up, you’re going somewhere good.
17 00:02:45.440 ⇒ 00:02:45.860 Gabriel Lam: Yeah.
18 00:02:46.310 ⇒ 00:02:55.820 Gabriel Lam: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Okay, I know you’re short on time, and I, like, saw on your calendar, like, please ask for booking. So, thanks for sending your time.
19 00:02:55.900 ⇒ 00:03:01.200 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, that was fine. I mean, so it’s… it’s not even necessarily no, it’s just, please ask, because…
20 00:03:01.200 ⇒ 00:03:01.710 Gabriel Lam: Yeah.
21 00:03:01.710 ⇒ 00:03:12.630 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, you know, sometimes if someone… sometimes someone will throw something on at, you know, for a quarter after 3, and they throw it on at, like, 2, and I don’t see, and then it’s like, I can’t come.
22 00:03:12.630 ⇒ 00:03:17.069 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think really the main goal was just…
23 00:03:17.370 ⇒ 00:03:21.700 Gabriel Lam: I’ve been having a bunch of conversations with people, and…
24 00:03:21.870 ⇒ 00:03:24.660 Gabriel Lam: I’m, like, on the sort of engineering and, like.
25 00:03:25.360 ⇒ 00:03:36.700 Gabriel Lam: GitHub side, like, we’re seeing these things, and we’re like, oh, are people using it the way we think they’re using it? Like, what are people… how are people actually using it? I was speaking to, like, Luke, and…
26 00:03:36.970 ⇒ 00:03:44.729 Gabriel Lam: Ryan and Rico, and they’re like, oh, you know, they’re not very… they’re not technical. I also didn’t come from a technical background, and so I was like, oh.
27 00:03:44.830 ⇒ 00:03:47.009 Gabriel Lam: I’m… I’m seeing, like.
28 00:03:47.310 ⇒ 00:04:00.129 Gabriel Lam: cursor, and I’m seeing, like, GitHub using these ways. How are you guys using it? And I think really trying to understand the sort of adoption process for all these things, and I think the first part was really understanding, like.
29 00:04:00.600 ⇒ 00:04:15.449 Gabriel Lam: at the very ground level, like, what are people trying to get out of it, right? Like, is it, like, email campaigns, LinkedIn posts? Is it SOWs? Like, what are the final deliverables? And so, yeah, like, this week and next week will just be me going around, like, hey.
30 00:04:15.490 ⇒ 00:04:25.640 Gabriel Lam: what do you got on your plate? Like, what does it look like? If there’s, like, an example that you can show, I’d just love to see… is it calling the right places? Since…
31 00:04:25.930 ⇒ 00:04:30.319 Gabriel Lam: Last week, we moved everything into one central location. We were like, okay, this should…
32 00:04:30.480 ⇒ 00:04:44.159 Gabriel Lam: get rid of some of the pain points that, like, people have been telling us about. They’re like, oh, you know, it’s referencing the wrong meetings, or like, I’m not… I can’t even see my meetings, and things like that, so… Yeah. Yeah, quick, sort of, sort of discovery call, just like, hey, Greg, like.
33 00:04:44.160 ⇒ 00:04:44.580 Greg Stoutenburg: Sure.
34 00:04:44.580 ⇒ 00:04:52.560 Gabriel Lam: what’s on your plate, if I could, like, just get a screen share of, like, yeah, I’m working on this thing right now, I, like, use Cursor, and I, like, wrote these prompts, like.
35 00:04:52.870 ⇒ 00:04:58.120 Gabriel Lam: There’s, you know, as basic as it gets, there’s really no agenda.
36 00:04:58.310 ⇒ 00:05:07.060 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, sure, yeah, so I, I mean, I guess for background, like, I’ve been using GitHub for a few years, I’m a comfortable GitHub user,
37 00:05:07.070 ⇒ 00:05:24.559 Greg Stoutenburg: And I pay for my own Cloud subscription, so sometimes if it’s, yeah, I just… I never canceled it when I started. I’m like, that’s sweet that I’ll get, you know, I can use cursor as much as I want, but I still use… I still just use my own Cloud for a lot of things, just because I have it anyway, and frankly, the user interface is better than Cursors.
38 00:05:24.560 ⇒ 00:05:25.220 Gabriel Lam: I agree.
39 00:05:25.220 ⇒ 00:05:36.800 Greg Stoutenburg: So… I agree. So, a little bit is that. Now, as far as, like, as far as using it, I kind of choose between clawed or cursor based on what it is I’m trying to do. So, like…
40 00:05:36.800 ⇒ 00:05:37.240 Gabriel Lam: Hmm…
41 00:05:37.240 ⇒ 00:05:48.160 Greg Stoutenburg: if I’m… if I’m going to be interacting directly with GitHub, I will use Cursor every time, because that relationship just functions more smoothly, since, you know, it’s built on VS Code.
42 00:05:48.820 ⇒ 00:06:03.250 Greg Stoutenburg: if I’m doing something that’s more like, I want something written, or, I want something that’s going to be a well-polished deliverable that I want to put in front of a client, I actually kind of prefer Claude, just because
43 00:06:03.820 ⇒ 00:06:23.470 Greg Stoutenburg: some of the outputs are just better looking. And now, I also realize that there’s, like, a growth opportunity for me here, because I feel like there’s something that… I feel like there’s a hurdle I need to get over, where now that the vault has been reorganized, I’m able to see all these folders and all these READMEs where there are more examples of.
44 00:06:23.470 ⇒ 00:06:23.990 Gabriel Lam: Hmm.
45 00:06:23.990 ⇒ 00:06:25.140 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s not just…
46 00:06:25.730 ⇒ 00:06:35.450 Greg Stoutenburg: templates in Markdown. You know, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to… templates in Markdown are important, but, there’s, like, more… I feel like I’m seeing more kinds of work that are in
47 00:06:36.240 ⇒ 00:06:46.890 Greg Stoutenburg: and that people are referencing, in cursor to build things. And so, I’m kind of at the point where I’m like, alright, I realize I need to, like, I need to make some…
48 00:06:47.040 ⇒ 00:06:51.369 Greg Stoutenburg: I need to head in this direction a little bit more. So, like, if I look at my own GitHub.
49 00:06:51.780 ⇒ 00:06:58.119 Greg Stoutenburg: activity, tons of, tons of fetching origin, very little pushing into.
50 00:06:58.120 ⇒ 00:06:58.790 Gabriel Lam: Hmm.
51 00:06:58.790 ⇒ 00:07:02.259 Greg Stoutenburg: Into any repos in GitHub.
52 00:07:04.100 ⇒ 00:07:12.709 Greg Stoutenburg: Partly because I don’t always know what should go there, and partly because it’s like, well, if I’m making something, what I really need are those examples that I’m going to find in the vault.
53 00:07:12.710 ⇒ 00:07:13.630 Gabriel Lam: Yeah.
54 00:07:14.420 ⇒ 00:07:27.420 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, so… so that’s… that’s some of my experience, using the tools here. Or, like, another example, I wanted to put something in front of a client, so I just made a private Notion page.
55 00:07:27.420 ⇒ 00:07:27.960 Gabriel Lam: Hmm.
56 00:07:28.570 ⇒ 00:07:42.449 Greg Stoutenburg: It would be… it’ll be helpful, and I need to, like… I have a note to self to, like, make it into… make it into an SOP, and push it somewhere, but I haven’t taken the time to figure out where that should be.
57 00:07:42.450 ⇒ 00:07:42.820 Gabriel Lam: Yeah.
58 00:07:42.820 ⇒ 00:07:52.480 Greg Stoutenburg: should be, right? Like, I know what I did, and well, actually, I did it all through Claude, too. That’s another example. Because I wanted it customer-facing, I did it through Claude.
59 00:07:52.650 ⇒ 00:07:53.320 Gabriel Lam: Yeah.
60 00:07:54.100 ⇒ 00:08:02.269 Gabriel Lam: No, that’s… I mean, that’s great to… yeah, I think this is, like, sort of exactly the information we were trying to understand of, like.
61 00:08:02.510 ⇒ 00:08:12.360 Gabriel Lam: Yeah, you have your notes, you have your, like, interim deliverables, right? Like, whatever you pushed out, your SOP, for example. It’s like, where do I put it? And…
62 00:08:12.360 ⇒ 00:08:23.310 Gabriel Lam: for us, we’re like, oh, of course you put it in, like, this, you know, directory, like, it makes sense to us. But then, to hear it from the other side, you’re like, actually, I have no idea where to put it, and that’s something we need to address. I’m curious, you know.
63 00:08:23.750 ⇒ 00:08:26.789 Gabriel Lam: Is there… sort of…
64 00:08:28.100 ⇒ 00:08:46.180 Gabriel Lam: haptic difference between how you’re using Cursor versus using Claude? Are you sort of using Claude more, like, as a sort of LLM chat interface versus Cursor as, like, you’re also using, like, CLIs, or you’re also, like, being a little more prescriptive with your calls? Or do you feel like
65 00:08:46.380 ⇒ 00:08:52.079 Gabriel Lam: you’re, you know, you’re on cloud code, you’re pretty much using it side by side. It’s just, like, really the output that it’s using it for.
66 00:08:52.570 ⇒ 00:09:00.200 Greg Stoutenburg: I’ve used… I’ve used Claude for much more, like, thought partnership.
67 00:09:00.200 ⇒ 00:09:13.140 Greg Stoutenburg: Or for asking questions, and I’ve started to change that habit, like, probably just this week, where I’m trying to… I’m trying to just sort of, like, develop more of a practice of go to Cursor for those things, too.
68 00:09:14.320 ⇒ 00:09:16.200 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Yeah.
69 00:09:16.200 ⇒ 00:09:16.860 Gabriel Lam: Okay.
70 00:09:17.900 ⇒ 00:09:23.409 Gabriel Lam: And then… last couple questions. I think you had mentioned,
71 00:09:24.350 ⇒ 00:09:31.210 Gabriel Lam: in the survey that you’re like, hey, a lot of what I do are, like, analyses and, like, segmentation work, like…
72 00:09:31.210 ⇒ 00:09:31.630 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
73 00:09:31.630 ⇒ 00:09:32.380 Gabriel Lam: Does that…
74 00:09:34.450 ⇒ 00:09:46.269 Gabriel Lam: where does that sit, sort of, in the ecosystem of, like, how you’re working? Are you, like, still trying to leverage some of the transcripts and some of the stuff that, like, you’re trying to call those for information, or…
75 00:09:46.520 ⇒ 00:09:53.409 Gabriel Lam: do you, like, bring that into, like, a sort of Notion document, and you, like, are referencing that sort of by eye and by hand? Like, how does that work?
76 00:09:53.680 ⇒ 00:10:12.680 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, so, so now that… with the… with the GitHub reorganization, I am now doing more things like going into Cursor and just saying, find all the calls for client name, you know, and then asking a question, or, you know, giving an instruction. So, that’s…
77 00:10:12.680 ⇒ 00:10:19.820 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s been good. As far as, like, broader context, you know, screenshots, links, things like that.
78 00:10:19.820 ⇒ 00:10:20.460 Gabriel Lam: No.
79 00:10:20.460 ⇒ 00:10:34.529 Greg Stoutenburg: Claude still seems to do a better job with, like, some of its connections staying up to date. Like, anytime I use MCP for anything on cursor, and then, like, a day goes by, I have to… I feel like I have to restart it and reset the connection at the
80 00:10:34.860 ⇒ 00:10:37.389 Greg Stoutenburg: This is kind of annoying. Yeah.
81 00:10:38.450 ⇒ 00:10:47.099 Greg Stoutenburg: So, yeah, yeah, so, like, some of this is my usage, and some of it is, like, I could use… I could actually just use some guidance on, like.
82 00:10:47.830 ⇒ 00:11:04.119 Greg Stoutenburg: So, so here’s an example. I, I made an experimentation process improvement doc for Eden, and what I did is I looked at their existing doc, so Google Sheet, I looked at… sorry, as a Google Doc.
83 00:11:04.450 ⇒ 00:11:08.890 Greg Stoutenburg: some other stuff where they documented some experiments in a Google Sheet.
84 00:11:09.020 ⇒ 00:11:18.990 Greg Stoutenburg: I looked at their Monday board, where they track these things and document them. I looked at their Monday board, where they specify what their experimentation process is.
85 00:11:19.720 ⇒ 00:11:31.149 Greg Stoutenburg: I took a bunch of screenshots, and I took links, and I took copy and paste, and I put it all into Claude, and said, give me an experimentation roadmap. And I have a trained project where I, you know, I’ve…
86 00:11:31.520 ⇒ 00:11:46.209 Greg Stoutenburg: instructions to use writing samples I’ve provided so it’s in my voice to, you know, do certain types of outputs and things. And then I took this very long, comprehensive document, and then chopped it up, and put it into a Notion doc to share it.
87 00:11:46.690 ⇒ 00:11:47.450 Gabriel Lam: Mmm.
88 00:11:47.450 ⇒ 00:11:52.430 Greg Stoutenburg: I… that’s very natural to me with Claude. That’s less natural to me with Cursor.
89 00:11:52.580 ⇒ 00:11:58.249 Greg Stoutenburg: Got it. And so, something that would help me is, like, Greg, here’s how…
90 00:11:58.380 ⇒ 00:12:01.330 Greg Stoutenburg: Here’s how all of the client repos are organized.
91 00:12:01.500 ⇒ 00:12:03.860 Greg Stoutenburg: So when you do work on, like, a new…
92 00:12:04.370 ⇒ 00:12:08.969 Greg Stoutenburg: thing, right? Because no one else has done experimentation process work for them.
93 00:12:09.370 ⇒ 00:12:14.270 Greg Stoutenburg: Also, save it here, and follow these instructions to make
94 00:12:14.690 ⇒ 00:12:22.000 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, an SOP for this, or like… like, that kind of instruction would be helpful for me,
95 00:12:22.580 ⇒ 00:12:23.440 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
96 00:12:25.020 ⇒ 00:12:30.720 Greg Stoutenburg: related is, you know, as I’ve clicked around in the repos, it just seems like some of them
97 00:12:30.890 ⇒ 00:12:35.969 Greg Stoutenburg: the org… in the past, now, I haven’t looked as much since the reorg, but…
98 00:12:36.280 ⇒ 00:12:40.659 Greg Stoutenburg: some client folders are structured a certain way, some are structured a different way, and then I felt like.
99 00:12:40.660 ⇒ 00:12:41.340 Gabriel Lam: Oh, no.
100 00:12:41.340 ⇒ 00:12:45.269 Greg Stoutenburg: maybe how GitHub is used is just sort of dependent on who the CSO is.
101 00:12:45.680 ⇒ 00:12:46.190 Gabriel Lam: the team.
102 00:12:46.190 ⇒ 00:12:49.209 Greg Stoutenburg: I don’t think that’s the intent, so I know that the.
103 00:12:49.210 ⇒ 00:12:49.650 Gabriel Lam: No.
104 00:12:49.650 ⇒ 00:12:51.700 Greg Stoutenburg: Closed. Yeah. Yeah.
105 00:12:52.320 ⇒ 00:12:56.990 Gabriel Lam: No, but I think that, I mean, you bring up a good point, because… we’ve been…
106 00:12:58.140 ⇒ 00:13:03.070 Gabriel Lam: And, like, to be a little more transparent, like, we’ve been trying to get things working, And
107 00:13:03.480 ⇒ 00:13:19.720 Gabriel Lam: every sort of, like, iteration has been like, oh, what if this new structure works? What if that new structure works? And then you end up sort of doing it for new clients or new projects, and then, like, you’re like, the old stuff, well, it’s kind of working for now, like, let’s not really change it, because what if, you know, someone else has been using it the whole time? But I think that.
108 00:13:19.720 ⇒ 00:13:20.280 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.
109 00:13:20.280 ⇒ 00:13:23.120 Gabriel Lam: I think you sort of have hit it on the nail of, like, okay.
110 00:13:24.210 ⇒ 00:13:26.880 Gabriel Lam: You gotta, you gotta standardize it, right?
111 00:13:27.280 ⇒ 00:13:45.659 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, standardize it, and, like, I mean, I think from the people management part is, like, standardize it, provide training sessions, provide reminders, provide examples. Like, I try to keep up, or, you know, you tell me to share a video sometimes, like, here’s how I automated this with Cursor.
112 00:13:45.700 ⇒ 00:13:52.979 Greg Stoutenburg: And, like, I always find those helpful, just, you know, like, personally, because,
113 00:13:53.070 ⇒ 00:13:56.469 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, well, just because, I mean, I used to just use VS Code with no cursor.
114 00:13:57.450 ⇒ 00:14:00.090 Greg Stoutenburg: I used to use GitHub just the old-fashioned way, you know?
115 00:14:00.090 ⇒ 00:14:00.520 Gabriel Lam: Oh, yeah.
116 00:14:00.520 ⇒ 00:14:05.739 Greg Stoutenburg: So, yeah, so… Anyway, those sorts of things are helpful for me,
117 00:14:06.350 ⇒ 00:14:15.819 Greg Stoutenburg: I use the AI tools every day. Again, which one I use, you know, varies, so I’m in… I’m in Claude on my own, and I’m in Cursor for Brainforge.
118 00:14:15.980 ⇒ 00:14:19.319 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Yeah.
119 00:14:20.160 ⇒ 00:14:24.079 Gabriel Lam: I mean, yeah, I… thank you. That’s super helpful.
120 00:14:24.200 ⇒ 00:14:28.540 Gabriel Lam: I… Yeah, I think you, you’ve sort of…
121 00:14:28.820 ⇒ 00:14:31.480 Gabriel Lam: Brought up a lot of the pain points that people are… have…
122 00:14:32.500 ⇒ 00:14:40.790 Gabriel Lam: brought up before, and so… Yeah, no, thank you. I think this has been, like, a really helpful conversation for me as well, just to sort of wrap my head around, like.
123 00:14:41.820 ⇒ 00:14:54.139 Gabriel Lam: the blockers that people are facing, so… I think the office… like, we’ve been talking about office hours, or like, what is it like to hold training sessions, what works for people? I think…
124 00:14:54.470 ⇒ 00:14:58.939 Gabriel Lam: my… Hope, at the moment, is just, like.
125 00:14:59.570 ⇒ 00:15:03.620 Gabriel Lam: do as many one-on-ones as possible, because I think that works best, and then…
126 00:15:04.940 ⇒ 00:15:07.830 Gabriel Lam: That sort of builds the momentum, to come.
127 00:15:08.470 ⇒ 00:15:17.229 Gabriel Lam: So, yeah, I’m, like, I… on my end, I’m, like, gathering a bunch of requirements from people, whether it’s, like, that leads to new features, whether it leads to, like, hey.
128 00:15:17.420 ⇒ 00:15:27.700 Gabriel Lam: like, you know, Greg, we’re able to put out a bunch of SOPs, like, let me run you through them next week, or something like that. And so, we’re gonna probably start that way. And so, yeah, appreciate you taking the call.
129 00:15:27.700 ⇒ 00:15:28.790 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, that’s gone.
130 00:15:28.790 ⇒ 00:15:33.770 Gabriel Lam: some stuff, like, coming your way, or I’ll reach out next week, and you’re like, hey, you want to walk through this?
131 00:15:33.770 ⇒ 00:15:34.770 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, please do.
132 00:15:34.770 ⇒ 00:15:35.829 Gabriel Lam: Make your life easier.
133 00:15:35.830 ⇒ 00:15:45.719 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, please do. And, like, I can tell that there’s serious power here. Like, I can… I see some of the things, like, that, for example, Robert puts out for the GTM folks, and I’m like.
134 00:15:46.390 ⇒ 00:16:04.540 Greg Stoutenburg: he’s leaning on so much information, and doing this so quickly, and I know he’s not just sitting there, you know, just typing the whole thing out. Like, I realize that there’s this… there’s all this information in there, and with some commands, these things are happening, and I want to get there. So, you know, very willing participant here.
135 00:16:04.540 ⇒ 00:16:05.749 Gabriel Lam: I appreciate that.
136 00:16:05.750 ⇒ 00:16:07.749 Greg Stoutenburg: Advice and learning.
137 00:16:08.330 ⇒ 00:16:14.360 Gabriel Lam: Awesome. Well, I hope you have a good rest of your day. I’ll let you get your time back, and I will keep you posted.
138 00:16:14.360 ⇒ 00:16:16.629 Greg Stoutenburg: When you’re visiting friends, sign off early.
139 00:16:17.330 ⇒ 00:16:21.819 Greg Stoutenburg: Go Tell you, Tom, I said it’s fine.
140 00:16:21.820 ⇒ 00:16:23.819 Gabriel Lam: Alright, I appreciate it. Have a great rest of your day.
141 00:16:23.930 ⇒ 00:16:25.429 Greg Stoutenburg: You too, Zia. Alright, bye.