<p align="center">
<img src="docs/icon.png" width="132" alt="Dalton + Michael pixel-art icon">
</p>
<h1 align="center">Dalton + Michael</h1>
<p align="center">
Ask a startup question in Claude Code.<br>
Get the answer from Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel, cut from their real videos and playing right next to your chat.
</p>
<p align="center">
<a href="#install">Install</a> ·
<a href="#usage">Usage</a> ·
<a href="#how-it-works">How it works</a> ·
<a href="docs/demo.mp4">Download the demo</a>
</p>
<p align="center">
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Claude%20Code-skill-d97757?style=flat-square" alt="Claude Code skill">
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/python-3.9%2B-3776ab?style=flat-square" alt="Python 3.9+">
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/corpus-106%20videos%20·%2032%20hours-ff6b35?style=flat-square" alt="106 videos, 32 hours">
<img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-444?style=flat-square" alt="MIT license">
</p>
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/83ccdd6e-124f-4325-97ef-ea5dd99ef03d
<p align="center"><sub>49 seconds, sound on: "Should I pivot my startup?", then "is eating pizza gets me more customers?"</sub></p>
---
## What it does
Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel are two of the best startup advisors out there. Both spent years as partners at Y Combinator, running office hours with founders. What if they were sitting in the room with you?
This skill lets you ask them directly. It answers from the startup advice they've given on camera: **106 videos, about 32 hours**, from YC's *Dalton & Michael* series (2019 to 2024), their own *Dalton + Michael* channel (2025 onward), and 18 solo YC talks.
For example, type `/dalton-michael Should I pivot my startup?` and about half a minute later:
- **A reel plays beside your chat.** A "great question" cold open, a smash cut into the episode where they cover it, then 3 to 6 moments where they actually answer, with a beat title over each one and live word-by-word captions.
- **Claude answers in chat.** A one-line verdict and a few bullets, one per point they made.
- **Nobody puts words in their mouths.** Every line attributed to Dalton or Michael is a real clip at a real timestamp. Claude writes the titles and the summary, and they're labelled as Claude's.
- **Silly questions get the answer they deserve.** Ask whether eating pizza gets you more customers and you get five seconds of "No." from them.
## Install
One line, on macOS or Linux:
```bash
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AKamaly/dalton-michael-skill/main/install.sh | bash
```
It takes about a minute:
1. Checks you have Python 3.9+ (nothing else to install from pip).
2. Puts the skill in `~/.claude/skills/dalton-michael`, where Claude Code finds it.
3. Makes sure you have a recent [yt-dlp](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp), through Homebrew or its official standalone download. It fetches captions only, never video.
4. Starts building the transcript index in the background. It's searchable after about 5 minutes and complete in about 30, because YouTube rate-limits caption downloads.
5. Opens a sample answer in your browser, so you can see it working right away.
Then, in [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code), ask:
```
/dalton-michael Should I pivot my startup?
```
Restart Claude Code if it was open while you installed. The desktop app plays the reel in its built-in browser pane, next to your chat; the CLI opens it in your default browser.
<details>
<summary>Prefer to do it by hand?</summary>
```bash
git clone https://github.com/AKamaly/dalton-michael-skill ~/.claude/skills/dalton-michael
```
```bash
brew install yt-dlp
```
```bash
python3 ~/.claude/skills/dalton-michael/scripts/dm.py ingest
```
</details>
### Something not working?
```bash
python3 ~/.claude/skills/dalton-michael/scripts/dm.py doctor
```
It checks Python, yt-dlp, the index and the player port, and prints the exact fix for anything missing. Claude runs it on its own when something fails. Common fixes:
- **YouTube asks yt-dlp to "confirm you're not a bot".** Let yt-dlp use your browser's YouTube cookies: `export DM_COOKIES_FROM_BROWSER=chrome` (or `safari`, `firefox`), then run `ingest` again.
- **Captions fail.** YouTube breaks old versions of yt-dlp within a few months. Update it with `brew upgrade yt-dlp`, or run the installer again, then run `ingest` again; it only fetches what's missing.
- **Port 8765 is taken.** `export DM_PORT=8766`.
### Update or remove
```bash
cd ~/.claude/skills/dalton-michael && git pull && python3 scripts/dm.py ingest
```
The `ingest` at the end picks up any new episodes. To uninstall, delete `~/.claude/skills/dalton-michael`.
## Usage
In Claude Code, type the command and your question:
```
/dalton-michael Should I pivot my startup?
```
or just say *"ask Dalton and Michael: should I raise or bootstrap?"*.
| Real questions | Questions with the funniest openers | Questions that get "No." |
|---|---|---|
| How do I sell to customers? | How do I win? | Does eating pizza get me more customers? |
| Should I bootstrap or raise VC? | Does my startup need to be in San Francisco? | Should my cat be my CTO? |
| Am I undercharging? | Will OpenAI kill my startup? | Can I pay my employees in shawarma? |
| How do I sell AI to skeptical customers? | How do founders actually get rich? | Do I need a yacht before Series A? |
| Is my startup a zombie? | | |
Add your own context for a sharper cut: *"We have 3 pilots and none convert to paid. Am I undercharging?"* After it plays, steer it: *"make it shorter"*, *"only the 2026 episodes"*, *"show me where they disagree"*.
Every reel you make stays in the player's history menu, next to five sample answers that ship with the skill.
## How it works
```mermaid
flowchart LR
Q["Your question"] --> F["dm.py find<br/>several phrasings,<br/>one call"]
I[("Transcript index<br/>SQLite FTS5<br/>per-word timestamps")] --> F
F --> C["Claude picks 3-6 moments<br/>and writes beat titles"]
C --> R["dm.py reel<br/>snaps cuts to sentences,<br/>adds the cold open"]
R --> P["Local player<br/>localhost:8765"]
P --> Y["YouTube embeds<br/>in the browser pane"]
C --> A["Short answer<br/>in chat"]
```
1. **Index.** `ingest` pulls YouTube's auto-captions as json3, which carry a timestamp for every word and a marker at every speaker change. They're split into sentences and overlapping 60-second passages in a SQLite FTS5 index.
2. **Find.** `find` runs several phrasings of your question at once, merges them with reciprocal rank fusion, keeps at most 3 hits per video, and prints each hit as timestamped sentences, so Claude can choose cut points without reading anything else.
3. **Cut.** Claude picks the moments, preferring the two-person episodes so both of them are heard. Cut points snap to sentence boundaries, and a "great question" sting from a curated bank becomes the cold open.
4. **Play.** The player is a single HTML page that uses the YouTube IFrame API:
- **Two players.** While one clip plays, a hidden second player buffers the next one and starts rolling five seconds early. The cut is then an instant swap, and YouTube's own pause icon has already faded.
- **Live captions.** Captions are drawn from the word timings, karaoke style, and the beat title slides over the top of the picture.
- **Polite in the background.** A reel waits until it's on screen before it autoplays, and pauses when its tab is hidden.
## Commands
All commands are `python3 ~/.claude/skills/dalton-michael/scripts/dm.py <command>`. Claude runs them for you; they're here if you're curious.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| `doctor` | Check the setup and print the fix for anything missing |
| `samples` | Sample answers that play before the index exists |
| `find Q1 Q2 ... [-n N]` | Several queries at once, hits as timestamped sentences |
| `show VIDEO 4:10 5:20` | Read any window of a transcript |
| `reel spec.json` | Build a reel from a list of clips and print its URL |
| `silly "question"` | The five-second "No." reel |
| `reactions` | The curated cold-open bank |
| `ingest` / `index` | Pull new episodes, rebuild the index |
| `stats` | Corpus size |
## Files
```
SKILL.md the instructions Claude follows
scripts/dm.py index, search, reel builder, local server (stdlib only)
player/index.html the reel player
data/reactions.json curated cold opens and "No." clips
player/samples/ five sample answers (no transcript text)
install.sh the one-line installer
docs/ icon, demo video, preview GIF
```
`ingest` creates `data/captions/`, `data/index.sqlite`, and `data/videos.json` locally. They're gitignored, and so are your reels.
## Recording a demo
Recording a screencast and don't want your own company showing up in the answers? Turn on recording mode and the answers stay generic:
```bash
touch ~/.claude/skills/dalton-michael/data/RECORDING
```
Delete that file to turn it off. The demo above was recorded on macOS with [Recordly](https://github.com/webadderallorg/Recordly)'s ScreenCaptureKit recorder, built from source and driven from the command line, with the questions typed by AppleScript and the cut made with ffmpeg. Claude did all of it.
## Notes
- **No video is ever downloaded.** Clips stream from YouTube's embed player, so views count and every clip links to the full episode.
- **Why a local server?** YouTube embeds need a real http origin, so the player runs on `localhost:8765`. The `reel` command starts it on its own.
- **Speaker names.** Captions mark speaker changes, not who is talking, so clips are only labelled with a name in solo talks.
- **Platforms.** Built and tested on macOS. Linux should work. Windows is untested.
## Disclaimer
This is an unofficial fan project. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Dalton Caldwell, Michael Seibel, Y Combinator, or Standard Capital. All video belongs to its owners and plays from YouTube. Transcripts are fetched by each user locally and never redistributed here; the sample answers contain only video IDs, timestamps and Claude's own titles.
Thank you, Dalton and Michael, for years of free office hours.
## License
MIT for the code. See [LICENSE](LICENSE).
