Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan says he spends up to $200,000 a year on AI tokens
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Y Combinator President and CEO Garry Tan said on Walter Isaacson's podcast "The Builders" that he spends up to $200,000 a year on AI tokens, underscoring how intensively he uses AI agents in his daily work. Tan, who has previously joked about suffering from "cyber psychosis" and losing sleep over his enthusiasm for working with AI agents, revealed the figure in an episode set to publish Tuesday. The disclosure offers a rare concrete data point on individual AI spending at the top of the startup ecosystem, where Y Combinator has been pushing its portfolio companies to adopt AI tools aggressively. The comments signal that heavy AI-agent usage is becoming normalized even among the most senior figures in venture capital, with token costs now a meaningful line item. Investors and founders will be watching whether Tan's spending habits foreshadow broader AI adoption across Y Combinator's portfolio and how token economics scale as AI agents become more embedded in startup workflows.
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Garry Tan, Y Combinator