Sharing the News on AI
Farley student Noah Edelman writes about AI in a human way
Artificial intelligence (AI) is surging and Noah Edelman (‘25) is not just riding the wave—he is making waves of his own.
Edelman writes The Neuron, a daily newsletter that delivers information about AI trends and tools directly to subscribers' inboxes. He said The Neuron is a result of his unwavering passion for educating audiences on topics he finds to be interesting.
Edelman, a junior majoring in psychology and minoring in entrepreneurship, knows AI is an incredibly transformative technology but recognizes how it is not accessible to many people who would find it useful.
“That's where I think it's important for us to come in and help people understand how they can actually leverage AI technology to get more done and produce higher quality output in whatever work they're doing,” he said.
Edelman grew up in New York City, where his passion for entrepreneurship first blossomed. In high school, Edelman created his first venture, a website that forecasted tennis matches.
“As a kid, I was always looking for solutions when something was wrong,” he said. "I've always had kind of an entrepreneurial inkling, which is this ethos of seeing a better solution, or a better way of doing something and wanting to act on that.”
Learning by doing
Coming to Northwestern, Edelman knew he wanted to pursue entrepreneurship. Though he wasn’t sure at first how to leverage Northwestern’s resources, he quickly discovered the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, seeing it as a place to gain academic experience. Edelman recognized The Garage as a space to connect and grow with likeminded students.
Edelman has explored entrepreneurship in his coursework and has taken up a minor at the Farley Center. He said these courses—ENTREP 225: Principles of Entrepreneurship, ENTREP 473: NUvention: Media, and ENTREP 475: NUvention: AI—have helped him develop skillsets such as market research, financial modeling, and market sizing that are crucial in entrepreneurship but not necessarily inherent to founders. Farley classes also introduced him to a network of advisors, stakeholders, and friends who have provided guidance as he pursued his ventures.
Through his residency at The Garage, he also worked on several other ventures, most notably Authentic Media Ascension LLC (AMA), a YouTube analytics and growth startup. Noah was the Head of Content for AMA before it was acquired by Jellysmack, an experience that showed him the ins and outs of building a small startup. He also wrote several blogs and newsletters that touched on emerging technologies and how to leverage them.
Executive Director of The Garage Mike Raab connected Edelman with alum Pete Huang ('15) because of their shared interests in media and technology. Both Edelman and Huang felt that the rise of AI tools would change the workplace and began ideating a venture that would make them more accessible. The pair launched The Neuron in January of 2023 and have not looked back.
Breaking down AI
The Neuron is a daily newsletter that provides actionable news and guidance regarding generative AI to professionals. Its website features an archive of all its articles, links to the most pertinent AI tools, and courses for those learning how to leverage AI in their workflows.
Edelman handles much of the content, drafting and publishing the daily newsletters and writing advertisements for sponsors. With The Neuron having a small team, however, his duties expand far beyond content.
“With startups, there are a million other things that take up take up my time throughout the week, whether it be meetings, or analyzing our data, or researching different companies trying different AI tools,” he said. “There's a lot of things that have to be done, so I have my head in a lot of different areas on a daily basis.”
Edelman and Huang hope to increase AI’s accessibility and ease of understanding by making his newsletters entertaining, personable, and at their core, human.
“One of the tropes about AI right now is that it's very robotic, it’s inaccessible, and it's impersonal. When most people think of AI writing, they're thinking about blogs and articles that sound very robotic,” Edelman said.” We're trying to do the complete opposite, which is create a very human reading experience where we're telling jokes, giving analogies, and using a lot of pictures and videos so that when people read The Neuron, they know that there are two humans who are producing it.”
Since its launch in January of 2023, The Neuron has amassed 400,000 daily subscribers, with 10,000 taking courses offered on its website. Edelman also competed in VentureCat 2023, Northwestern’s annual student startup competition, where The Neuron won the Audience Favorite Award.
Edelman hopes to expand The Neuron to multiple platforms to provide guidance and news to those who do not read the newsletter. Ultimately, his aspiration is to help others succeed.
Huang recognizes this drive in Edelman, and said he was instantly struck by Edelman’s maturity and work ethic. Those are traits Huang said aid Edelman in his entrepreneurship.
“There's something about him that stands out, which is that he's very comfortable reflecting on his actions, his feelings, and why he’s reacting a certain way,” Huang said. “It leads him to be very smart about his decision-making and learn very quickly about what we're doing and why it is that we're doing what we're doing.”
“I don't personally bet on early talent. But I bet on him because he has all these intrinsic factors that make someone great,” Huang said. “The sky's the limit for someone like that.”
With his remaining time at Northwestern, Edelman hopes to continue taking risks and making the most of Northwestern’s resources.
“I want to try a lot of new things, meet a lot of new people, and completely step outside of my comfort zone,” Edelman said. “I want to continue to focus a lot on The Neuron, create new things that I think can help people, and connect with people who I find interesting and could become good friends and colleagues after Northwestern.”