Join the Latticework AI Bootcamp and progress at your own pace. Participation is open to members and paid subscribers.
I’ve been working on an AI-powered system to help generate investment ideas in line with my own approach: value-oriented, quality-tilted, with room for special situations and small-caps. The tools available are capable, but the instructions for using them are scattered, and there isn’t much guidance aimed at investors who are sophisticated but haven’t written a line of code.
Rather than wait until I had worked it all out, I shared the process as I went and invited interested members to learn alongside me. I completed every lesson on the same tools, with the same constraints, that you will use.
Bootcamp overview
Sixteen lessons, designed to be completed at your own pace. Each lesson is about 30 minutes of focused work that ends with one tangible deliverable, plus optional “Go deeper” content (podcasts, videos, papers) for those who want to spend more time on a topic. By the final lesson, the goal is to have a personal investment-idea engine that runs on your schedule, screens with your criteria, and delivers ideas in your preferred format.
This is not a polished syllabus. Some lessons will land well. Some will lead to dead ends and require rework. We’ll iterate here on Latticework, share what’s working, and improve the curriculum in real time as we go.
Why I’m doing it this way
Active investing using AI tools well is a real edge, but only for investors who learn to use them in a way that respects their own philosophy. Generic AI advice produces generic ideas. We don’t want generic ideas.
The best way to learn is to build. Every lesson produces something concrete. Reader replies and Latticework comments will sharpen the curriculum as we go, so use the comment function under each daily post to ask questions and share your experiences.
Bloomberg terminal not needed. The bootcamp uses two paid subscriptions (Claude and Perplexity) and (mostly) free APIs. Total cost: about $40 per month. (If you already have access to expensive data APIs, you can certainly use them.)
What you’ll build
Four phases:
Lessons 1 to 3, Foundations. How AI models actually think. Prompt patterns that outperform 90% of casual prompting. Setting up your stack.
Lessons 4 to 7, The data layer. Mastering EDGAR, FRED, and a data service. Where investors get clean, free, reliable data, and how to pull it on demand.
Lessons 8 to 11, Perplexity and Claude as research partners. Spaces, Projects, connectors, memory, sub-agents, scheduled research, and wide screening.
Lessons 12 to 16, Build and ship your idea engine. Using Claude Code (a terminal pair-programmer for non-coders) to build real screeners and analyzers in plain English. Design, build, schedule, refine.
Every lesson includes a “Make it yours” callout, i.e., how to flex the same machinery to fit your philosophy. High-ROE only? Owner-operator small caps? Special situations and spin-offs? Macro-driven cyclicals? The default examples are in the MOI tradition (value, quality, special situations), but the engine you build is yours.
What you’ll need
Two paid subscriptions (~$40/month total):
Perplexity Pro (~$20/mo): access to Computer, Spaces, connectors
Claude Pro (~$20/mo): includes Claude Code in the terminal
Both are month-to-month. If either one isn’t earning its keep in your workflow, cancel it. We’re recommending them because the free tiers don’t include Claude Code or Perplexity Computer in their full form, and we’d rather have you working with capable tools than bumping into rate limits.
Optional paid API: A financial data service.
Free accounts: GitHub, FRED, SEC EDGAR (no account needed).
Not required: Coding or statistics background.
The community
Discussion happens through Latticework comments and email replies. Most of the lasting value of any joint learning project is the people you do it with, and Latticework is where that conversation lives.
Privacy
Your screeners, write-ups, and capstone outputs are private by default.
How to join
This is a Latticework subscriber benefit.
If you are already a paid Latticework subscriber, you can begin with Lesson 1 immediately. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can subscribe here and then start the course.
A note on transparency: I share what worked and what didn’t as I built this system. Some lessons land cleanly; others required revision based on what we learned. By the end of the 16 lessons, you can have a working investment tool tailored to your philosophy.
See you in Lesson 1.
— John
