YC's Garry Tan spends up to $200k annually on AI
Garry Tan, who leads startup accelerator Y Combinator, shared on Walter Isaacson's podcast that he spends up to $200,000 every year on AI tokens.
He relies on AI agents for everything from reading his emails to pulling up personal notes from two decades ago.
To help teach others what agents can do, he's even posted 23 Claude Code skills on GitHub under the name gstack.
Garry Tan seeks cheaper, customizable AI
Tan calls his AIs his own "Jiminy Cricket," always ready with advice and insights.
At work, an agent called Stray Light builds a "company brain" by organizing info about founders and conversations.
Still, he admits the high cost of these tools keeps many people out and worries about big tech companies having too much control.
He's hoping for cheaper, more customizable AI in the future so everyone can benefit.