Y Combinator’s Garry Tan uses AI agents so much, he spends up to $200K a year on tokens
Y Combinator Garry Tan has, in the past, jokingly admitted that he's suffered from "cyber psychosis” and barely sleeps sometimes because he’s so excited to be working with his AI agents. On a new episode of Walter Isaacson’s podcast, The Builders, set to publish on Tuesday, Tan put a price tag on his passion.
Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan has revealed that he spends between $100,000 to $200,000 annually on AI tokens. Speaking on Walter Isaacson's podcast The Builders, Tan explained that he uses AI agents for a wide range of tasks, from coding to managing his personal life. He has shared his set of 23 Claude Code skills, called gstack, on GitHub to help others understand the potential of AI agents.
Tan's AI agent, named Stray Light, even has a company brain, providing Y Combinator with an internal AI persona that has context on every backed founder and applicant. While Tan acknowledges the high costs, he believes personal AI agents will become mainstream once these costs are reduced. He also expresses concern that controlling one's own AI agent, as opposed to a large tech company's, could offer a better solution, as it would be fully under the user's control.
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