OpenClaw, Claude Code, and the Future of Software | Peter Yang on The a16z Show

1. 0:00 – 1:56

   Intro

   1. PYPeter Yang0:00

      And since that software will eat the world, I, I feel like coding will eat all knowledge work, right?

   2. AAAnish Acharya0:04

      Yeah.

   3. PYPeter Yang0:04

      And we're kind of going that direction already, like-

   4. AAAnish Acharya0:06

      The whole agent stack is emerging.

   5. PYPeter Yang0:07

      Yeah.

   6. AAAnish Acharya0:07

      Identity, payments, marketing, even CLI versus MCP. Like-

   7. PYPeter Yang0:13

      Yeah

   8. AAAnish Acharya0:13

      ... all of these are really new things, and I think a lot of the old playbook goes away.

   9. PYPeter Yang0:17

      Yeah, it's, it's a whole whole new world. I hope more companies will stay small, and, and I think the founders of this generation realize that. Like they-

   10. AAAnish Acharya0:22

       Yeah

   11. PYPeter Yang0:23

       ... wanna stay as small as possible.

   12. AAAnish Acharya0:24

       Yeah.

   13. PYPeter Yang0:24

       And instead of having like a 10-person product team, you have like a three or three-person product team-

   14. AAAnish Acharya0:28

       Yeah

   15. PYPeter Yang0:28

       ... and just have a bunch of a- agents help, help you.

   16. AAAnish Acharya0:30

       Yeah.

   17. PYPeter Yang0:30

       Someone tweeted that like the, the job market is so bad that I can only pursue my dreams now or something like that.

   18. AAAnish Acharya0:35

       Yes. [laughs]

   19. PYPeter Yang0:35

       So like it's, it's like, you know. It's like, yeah, so maybe you lost a job, but like now you can actually do your own thing. Just go pursue your dreams.

   20. AAAnish Acharya0:39

       Yeah, 100%, and have a shot at actually achieving it, you know?

   21. PYPeter Yang0:42

       Yeah.

   22. AAAnish Acharya0:42

       Yeah. All right. Welcome, everyone. I've got my friend Peter Yang here. Peter, welcome.

   23. PYPeter Yang0:53

       Yeah, great to be here. It's good to see you again. Yeah.

   24. AAAnish Acharya0:54

       Yeah, yeah. It's great to see you. Peter and I worked together at Credit Karma-

   25. PYPeter Yang0:57

       Mm-hmm

   26. AAAnish Acharya0:57

       ... for a brief stint, um, and then we went our separate ways and, um, you know, I rediscovered, um, Peter from his prolific posts on X and your YouTube and-

   27. PYPeter Yang1:07

       Yeah

   28. AAAnish Acharya1:07

       ... you know, you've got a little bit of a, a Clark Kent Superman thing going 'cause you've still got a day job, right?

   29. PYPeter Yang1:11

       That's right. I still have a day job, yes.

   30. AAAnish Acharya1:12

       Yeah. Can you share where?
2. 1:56 – 6:14

   Using OpenClaw for voice, memory & daily life

   1. PYPeter Yang1:56

      Yeah.

   2. AAAnish Acharya1:56

      Peter, tell me a little bit about, you know, OpenClaw, how you discovered it-

   3. PYPeter Yang2:00

      Yeah

   4. AAAnish Acharya2:00

      ... um, how you're using it today, and, and what you think the implications are.

   5. PYPeter Yang2:04

      Yeah. I was lucky to interview Peter Steinberger before he became super famous and the whole thing blew up. And, um, then right after I interviewed him, I, I like set up the thing. It took forever to set up. It was super janky.

   6. AAAnish Acharya2:14

      Mm-hmm.

   7. PYPeter Yang2:15

      Um, and, and yeah, it does a lot of things for me. It, it, like, pulls analytics for me across, um, YouTube and, like, my Mercury Bank account.

   8. AAAnish Acharya2:21

      Mm-hmm.

   9. PYPeter Yang2:22

      It, um, can update Google Documents for me, it can build little web- websites for me. But if I was honest with you, dude, like I mostly just talk to it through voice and get voice replies, and like every other day I ask it to give me like a pep, pep talk. [laughs]

   10. AAAnish Acharya2:34

       Yeah. [laughs]

   11. PYPeter Yang2:34

       Or like, you know, give me, give me like, like, "Look, look through all your memory and, like, give me some, like, deep insights that I, I don't know about."

   12. AAAnish Acharya2:40

       Okay.

   13. PYPeter Yang2:41

       And, and like it, it gave me like... Like I remember I was on a walk and it gave me like a three-minute pep talk that was like really amazing. Really amazing. Like it was some-something about like, uh, like, oh, you're like talking to me about your creator business and blah, blah, and like your, your job, but, like, just remember that your kids, you know, seven and four, are gonna grow up very soon, and they're gonna wanna spend time with you.

   14. AAAnish Acharya3:00

       Wow.

   15. PYPeter Yang3:00

       So like you should reoptimize for, you know, them instead.

   16. AAAnish Acharya3:03

       Yeah.

   17. PYPeter Yang3:03

       Yeah.

   18. AAAnish Acharya3:03

       That's really cool.

   19. PYPeter Yang3:04

       Yeah.

   20. AAAnish Acharya3:04

       And I mean, very cool, but also something that all the language models could have done prior.

   21. PYPeter Yang3:08

       Yeah.

   22. AAAnish Acharya3:08

       So what's the difference between this in, in a use case like that?

   23. PYPeter Yang3:11

       Yeah, that's a very good question. So I don't know. I, because I have it installed on Te- Telegram, it just feels like more personal-

   24. AAAnish Acharya3:17

       Mm-hmm

   25. PYPeter Yang3:17

       ... than using like Claw or ChatGPT, and, and it just feels like something I can like text in bed. [laughs]

   26. AAAnish Acharya3:23

       Yeah.

   27. PYPeter Yang3:23

       Which is probably not very healthy, but like I text to it in bed, I, I talk to it during my commute, and it feels like it feels more like a personal, like, like a actual hu- human.

   28. AAAnish Acharya3:31

       Yeah.

   29. PYPeter Yang3:31

       Yeah.

   30. AAAnish Acharya3:32

       So then, so how much for you is OpenClaw about the kind of interface, like pushing it to messaging-
3. 6:14 – 11:57

   Will agents kill apps & SaaS?

   1. PYPeter Yang6:14

      Sure.

   2. AAAnish Acharya6:14

      Um, you know, you'd said that apps will die, Claude's gonna be everything and everywhere.

   3. PYPeter Yang6:19

      [chuckles] Yeah.

   4. AAAnish Acharya6:19

      I mean, talk us through that, that point of view.

   5. PYPeter Yang6:21

      Yeah. Well, f- first of all, I, I tweet all, all kinds of random crap-

   6. AAAnish Acharya6:24

      [laughs]

   7. PYPeter Yang6:24

      ... that's like not super well thought out.

   8. AAAnish Acharya6:26

      We take it all as fact.

   9. PYPeter Yang6:27

      Yeah.

   10. AAAnish Acharya6:27

       Yes.

   11. PYPeter Yang6:28

       Um, but I do think like, um, like ever since I set up all these apps like Mercury, MCP, and all this kind of crap on my OpenClaw, like I, I don't actually open those apps much anymore.

   12. AAAnish Acharya6:38

       Mm-hmm.

   13. PYPeter Yang6:38

       You know? But I do agree with you. Like I, I, I think the ones that are gonna die first or like maybe get less usage first is like apps that you're just opening to try to complete a task.

   14. AAAnish Acharya6:47

       Right.

   15. PYPeter Yang6:47

       Like you actually are trying to do something, you know? Like apps that you're opening to like get entertainment pro- can probably survive a little bit longer, but like apps that I'm opening to complete a task, like it's just way easier to text my agent to do it for me.

   16. AAAnish Acharya6:58

       Yeah.

   17. PYPeter Yang6:58

       It's like, it's like you have a really good admin just to do stuff for you.

   18. AAAnish Acharya7:01

       Yeah.

   19. PYPeter Yang7:01

       Yeah.

   20. AAAnish Acharya7:01

       And so how much are you finding... Has this like reduced your smartphone usage outside of modulo OpenClaw?

   21. PYPeter Yang7:06

       Yeah. Um, no, because like I'm, I'm like a Twitter addict, so I still use my [chuckles] phone way, way too much. But yeah, in terms of using those apps, it's definitely re- reduced it. Yeah.

   22. AAAnish Acharya7:14

       Yeah.

   23. PYPeter Yang7:15

       Like... Yeah.

   24. AAAnish Acharya7:15

       Yeah, 'cause you're not gonna ask Zoe like, "Hey, read my X for me and tell me what's interesting."

   25. PYPeter Yang7:19

       I mean-

   26. AAAnish Acharya7:20

       Zoom

   27. PYPeter Yang7:20

       ... it, it sends me like a morning briefing with like the top two tweets and stuff that like tr- trends but, but yeah, I, I still open X and look through it.

   28. AAAnish Acharya7:27

       Yeah.

   29. PYPeter Yang7:27

       Yeah.

   30. AAAnish Acharya7:27

       You know, it's interesting 'cause I've always had this theory that people open apps on their phone because they wanna feel a feeling.
4. 11:57 – 17:00

   Coding agents: Claude Code vs. Codex

   1. AAAnish Acharya11:57

      to me about coding agents. Like, what's your general view? You know, do you think it's the end of SaaS?

   2. PYPeter Yang12:01

      Yeah.

   3. AAAnish Acharya12:01

      Do you think these are just a toy?

   4. PYPeter Yang12:03

      Uh, well, first of all, I'm, I'm, I'm like not an engineer, so I'm like a novice, but I do hear that, um... Like, I was talking to some folks, uh, the other day, and like, uh, at like a AI native star startup, and they're basically try- trying to... They have a bunch of vibe coders. [laughs]

   5. AAAnish Acharya12:18

      Mm-hmm.

   6. PYPeter Yang12:18

      And, and all the vibe coders are just trying to build internal tools that replace their SaaS that they're paying for.

   7. AAAnish Acharya12:22

      Really?

   8. PYPeter Yang12:22

      Yeah.

   9. AAAnish Acharya12:23

      So it's an actual company that's doing this?

   10. PYPeter Yang12:24

       It's an actual company, yeah.

   11. AAAnish Acharya12:25

       It's an AI native company.

   12. PYPeter Yang12:26

       It's, it's like one of the vibe coding companies, like one of the more popular ones.

   13. AAAnish Acharya12:29

       Interesting.

   14. PYPeter Yang12:30

       Yeah, yeah.

   15. AAAnish Acharya12:30

       It's interest- Oh, oh, I see. So they're actually an AppGen company.

   16. PYPeter Yang12:33

       They're AppGen company and they, they're paying for a bunch of SaaS like, uh-

   17. AAAnish Acharya12:36

       Yeah

   18. PYPeter Yang12:36

       ... and they, they wanna get rid of the payment. They want to just-

   19. AAAnish Acharya12:38

       Got it

   20. PYPeter Yang12:38

       ... buy, buy vibe coding internal tools.

   21. AAAnish Acharya12:39

       By using... Okay.

   22. PYPeter Yang12:40

       Yeah.

   23. AAAnish Acharya12:40

       So in that case, that, that... They might be the most extreme form of adopter 'cause their own product is AppGen, so they should use AppGen for everything.

   24. PYPeter Yang12:46

       Yeah.

   25. AAAnish Acharya12:46

       I guess, is your prediction though that the average company will churn off of Slack or Deal-

   26. PYPeter Yang12:52

       Yeah

   27. AAAnish Acharya12:52

       ... or you know?

   28. PYPeter Yang12:54

       Um, I don't think... I, I, I feel like Slack has a lot of legs, 'cause Slack can also be the place where you talk to the agents them- themselves.

   29. AAAnish Acharya13:00

       Mm-hmm.

   30. PYPeter Yang13:01

       Uh, but some of the other ones, they are pretty complicated, you know.
5. 17:00 – 24:00

   Future of work: small teams, agents & company culture

   1. AAAnish Acharya17:00

      What do you think the future company looks like? Is it just a bunch of agents with a CEO? Is the CEO an agent? I mean, what is-

   2. PYPeter Yang17:06

      Yeah

   3. AAAnish Acharya17:06

      ... the role for people in a company in the future?

   4. PYPeter Yang17:08

      Okay. Well, I have some hot takes. So we, we both worked at, uh, some companies together and, um-

   5. AAAnish Acharya17:12

      Uh-huh. [laughs]

   6. PYPeter Yang17:13

      Uh, let, let me give you a hot take, man. Maybe we cut this out.

   7. AAAnish Acharya17:15

      Yeah.

   8. PYPeter Yang17:15

      But like I feel like as a company gets bigger, it tends to get shit... It tends to become like a shittier, shittier place to work, dude.

   9. AAAnish Acharya17:21

      Yeah.

   10. PYPeter Yang17:21

       Like, like because there's like a lot of people you have to align.

   11. AAAnish Acharya17:23

       I think that's axiomatic, yeah.

   12. PYPeter Yang17:24

       Right?

   13. AAAnish Acharya17:24

       Yeah, yeah.

   14. PYPeter Yang17:24

       And, and I re- I remember at, uh, you know, maybe we shouldn't mention this company, but I remember in our company [laughs]

   15. AAAnish Acharya17:28

       Yes

   16. PYPeter Yang17:28

       ... we used to have all these like OKR meetings and like-

   17. AAAnish Acharya17:30

       Yeah

   18. PYPeter Yang17:30

       ... I remember sitting in a room for like three hours talking about OKRs. I'm just like, "Dude, this is like wasting my life."

   19. AAAnish Acharya17:34

       Yeah.

   20. PYPeter Yang17:35

       So where, where I'm going with this is I hope more companies will stay small. And, and I think the founders of this generation realize that. Like they wanna-

   21. AAAnish Acharya17:41

       Yeah

   22. PYPeter Yang17:41

       ... stay as small as possible.

   23. AAAnish Acharya17:42

       Yeah.

   24. PYPeter Yang17:43

       Um, and instead of having like a 10-person product team, you have like a two or three-person product team.

   25. AAAnish Acharya17:47

       Yeah.

   26. PYPeter Yang17:47

       And you just have a bunch of a- agents to help, help you.

   27. AAAnish Acharya17:49

       Yeah.

   28. PYPeter Yang17:49

       You know? 'Cause I, I, I think it's way easier to cross-functionally align with the agents than with, with humans. [laughs]

   29. AAAnish Acharya17:54

       Yeah, yeah. Well, actually, in a fi- in a sense, the agents actually, because it takes the emotion out of it too-

   30. PYPeter Yang17:58

       Yeah
6. 24:00 – 29:43

   How agents change consumer products & the economy

   1. PYPeter Yang24:00

      I feel like, uh, a lot of people are saying like agents will interact with your product first, right?

   2. AAAnish Acharya24:05

      Yeah.

   3. PYPeter Yang24:05

      And, and then you see all these great companies like, uh, building like APIs and MCPs.

   4. AAAnish Acharya24:09

      Mm-hmm.

   5. PYPeter Yang24:10

      But like how do, how do you think about like, you know... You've been in consumer for a while, so like-The consumer is like, you gotta get the user to come back and use your product, right? [laughs]

   6. AAAnish Acharya24:18

      Yeah.

   7. PYPeter Yang24:18

      But, but now, like the user's just like, "Hey, go send the agent to use it." So how do you think about retention and all this like basic stuff? Like how do you... You know, or even like brand equity, 'cause the agent's just like pulling some API, like-

   8. AAAnish Acharya24:27

      Yeah

   9. PYPeter Yang24:27

      ... you know? How do you...

   10. AAAnish Acharya24:28

       Yeah, I don't... Okay.

   11. PYPeter Yang24:29

       Yeah.

   12. AAAnish Acharya24:29

       So I, I think one of... So I don't know is the-

   13. PYPeter Yang24:32

       Yeah

   14. AAAnish Acharya24:32

       ... is the truth, but, um, there's... I have a few thoughts. So one, I think that a lot of the sophistication, sophistication that happened in consumer happened because we had to have indirect monetization.

   15. PYPeter Yang24:43

       Mm-hmm.

   16. AAAnish Acharya24:44

       Okay? Like we just con- we're never charging consumers directly for these products, which is why you got-

   17. PYPeter Yang24:48

       Got ads and stuff

   18. AAAnish Acharya24:49

       ... ads, and just large scale networks, and we all obsessed with retention and engagement, and whales and-

   19. PYPeter Yang24:55

       Mm-hmm

   20. AAAnish Acharya24:55

       ... all of these things really, really mattered because we didn't simply charge people for products.

   21. PYPeter Yang24:59

       Mm-hmm.

   22. AAAnish Acharya24:59

       So I think one big thing that's actually really helped in the AI era with that is that consumers are now excited to try new things, they're willing to pay, they're willing to pay a really high price point.

   23. PYPeter Yang25:07

       Mm-hmm.

   24. AAAnish Acharya25:07

       Um, there's also consumption revenue in consumer for the first time.

   25. PYPeter Yang25:10

       Like token and stuff?

   26. AAAnish Acharya25:11

       Yeah, yeah, for like tokens. You have your subscription plus your token. So and then the actual like, the, the sort of blessing in disguise is that there are real costs as well.

   27. PYPeter Yang25:19

       Yeah.

   28. AAAnish Acharya25:19

       You have these inference costs.

   29. PYPeter Yang25:20

       Yep.

   30. AAAnish Acharya25:21

       So you're like, "Wow, we have to charge our customer on day one."

Episode duration: 29:44