Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan told Walter Isaacson’s podcast The Builders that he spends “maybe $100,000 to $200,000 a year on tokens” running AI agents.
He uses them for research, prep and lots of coding. He’s shared his set of 23 Claude Code skills, called gstack, on GitHub. He also says his agent has read his email, his Dropbox, and all of his Apple Notes, including 20 years of therapy notes.
My take
I run a little zoo of agents myself, so I get the excitement. But two things jumped out.
- Cost. Most of us aren’t spending YC money. Put spend caps on your keys and keep each bot scoped to one job. That keeps the bill sane.
- Privacy. Giving one agent your whole email, files and therapy notes means one leaked token gives someone all of it. I’d rather give each agent only what its job needs.
Skills are the part worth copying. Do it by hand first, then save the method as a skill.
God Bless, and Happy hacking!
