The Philosophy of Obsidian, with CEO Steph Ango

[chime] So Steph, I want to ask you, as I ask everyone that comes onto the State of the Workflow series, what is the most important device that you use to get your work done?

I would say my desktop computer now, but it has been a change 'cause my MacBook Air was for probably five or six years the main device that I did almost everything on, and I loved that because I could easily go to my office computer, plug it into a monitor and do it there, or sit on the couch and keep working and have everything be super fluid.

But now I'm a lot more of a mixed device type of person.

I'm switching between my phone, my [chuckles] MacBook Air, and my Mac Mini.

But I think nowadays I'm doing most of my work on my Mac Mini.

So you are the CEO of Obsidian.

Mm.

How would you describe Obsidian to someone who hasn't used it before?

Well, first of all, CEO is a very highfalutin title for a company with, like, seven, eight people.

So, you know, we're a note-taking app where the...

Probably the main differentiator is that it works a little bit like Wikipedia.

So when you're writing, you make links.

So I'm talking to you right now.

I'd say in my diary for today, I was on the Cortex podcast with Mike, and each time I mention something, whether it's a person, a place, a podcast, a book, a concept, I can make that a link just the same way that when you're browsing Wikipedia, everything is a link.

And what's nice about that is the structure comes from that, those links.

So rather than organizing your things with folders and tags, which you can certainly also do in Obsidian if you're that kind of person, you can navigate and browse your ideas through links.

And that's kind of the basic concept.

Then you kind of get into some nerdier topics about how the data is stored.

You know, we use Markdown files, which are very durable.

It will live long beyond the life of Obsidian or if you have been using another app, it's very easy to import.

There's plugins and themes, and we can go there if you'd like.

But the kind of basic idea is how do you create, whether it's a knowledge base, a world that you want to invent, or just your, your own personal journal, a way to connect your ideas.

So we will touch on many more things about Obsidian, the app, I'm sure, throughout our conversation.