Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan says he spends about $100,000 to $200,000 a year on AI agent tokens, a figure he shared on Walter Isaacson’s podcast The Builders, set to publish Tuesday, according to TechCrunch. Tan has previously joked about suffering from ‘cyber psychosis’ and barely sleeping because he is excited to work with agents; he has now published gstack, a set of 23 Claude Code skills, on GitHub to help teach what agents can do.

Tan uses his agent both the way many people use AI, such as researching Isaacson’s podcast and preparing for possible questions, and to run his life. He says it has read all of his email and Dropbox, all of his Apple Notes, and even his therapy notes going back 20 years. He likens it to a ‘Jiminy Cricket on your shoulder’: it knows you, helps you see around corners, and can run ahead with suggestions.

As an early OpenClaw adopter who now describes himself as a power user, Tan says the key lesson is not to treat AI agents like traditional software. He warns that worrying too much about repeatability and safety can sacrifice the human-like qualities that make agents valuable. At Y Combinator, an internal agent named Stray Light has a personality plus a ‘company brain’ holding context on every founder YC has backed, every email, and all applications. Tan says it is ‘rebuilding the way we operate at YC.’

Tan believes personal AI agents can become mainstream once costs come down; right now the expense is ‘a crazy privilege that not everyone can do.’ He is also skeptical of freebie agents controlled by Big Tech, pointing to Meta’s control of its algorithm. The future he wants is a personal AI that you control and program.