Y Combinator’s Garry Tan uses AI agents so much, he spends up to $200K a year on tokens
Garry Tan just put a price tag on founder obsession: $200K a year in AI tokens. He says he barely sleeps because he's so excited working with his agents, and he jokes about cyber psychosis. That kind of admission makes you pause, because Tan isn't some random tech evangelist. He decides which startups get into Y Combinator, and his habits shape what thousands of founders think is normal.
To me, this is a sign that AI agents have crossed from tools to collaborators in the minds of the people funding the next wave. If Tan is spending like this, imagine what the startups he backs are doing. The cost is real, but so is the leverage. I'd want to know how much of that token spend is actually producing durable output versus just being an expensive way to tinker. Either way, the fact that a top investor openly treats this as a necessary expense tells you where the market is heading.