Why Gary Lo's product strategy has evolved in the era of DIY software

What if writing software became as easy as taking a selfie?

This episode, Yaniv Bernstein sits down with Gary Lo - founder of OpenBA and one of the sharpest AI-and-startups thinkers Yaniv knows - to discuss the concept of 'selfie software': disposable, hyper-personal, AI-generated tools that anyone can create for themselves, with no hand-written code.

AI-generated tools like these are changing the startup landscape. While founders now have more tools at their disposal, it's now necessary than ever to create a product that truly disrupts the market.

Gary and Yaniv discuss all of this and more, likening Claude and ChatGPT to Windows and Mac, and exploring what this tech landscape means if you're building a software startup today.

In this episode, you will:

• Understand the 'selfie software' concept: why AI is making software disposable, personal, and low-stakes, and what that means for the market you're building in

• Learn why AI platforms are forcing startups to rethink whether they should build on their own infrastructure or embed into Claude and ChatGPT instead

• Hear Gary's 'burn it down' exercise: how to identify which parts of your product are genuinely defensible, and which will simply catch fire in the next AI wave

• Understand why software engineering isn't dead, but the problems worth solving with it have fundamentally shifted

  
  

Timestamps

00:00 Coming Up...

01:09 On Today's Show: Gary Lo on 'Selfie Software'

02:48 About Gary

03:16 How 'Hyper-Personalized' AI Is Like Photography

05:36 Gary's Real Estate Workflow (OpenBA)

07:29 Defining 'Selfie Software': Why Custom Tools Win

10:33 So... Is It Bad Software?

13:29 'Can’t You Just Add This One Thing...'

15:30 When Personalization Becomes Bloat

17:42 Working In-App with Anthropic and OpenAI APIs

20:29 Token Economics and Moats

25:28 Microsoft's Lessons in Platform Power

30:27 But What If Anthropic Comes For My Vertical?

32:48 How Open Source Keeps AI in Check

35:18 Unlearning and Rebuilding

39:05 Gary's 'Burn It Down' Test

44:01 Is Software Engineering Dead? (No.)

50:17 Closing Thoughts

Resources in this episode

• Gary Lo's previous TSP episode (on OpenClaw and Claude Cowork): https://youtu.be/V3YFghiy8p0

• Garry Tan's gstack: https://github.com/garrytan/gstack

• Andrej Karpathy on Software 2.0: https://karpathy.medium.com/software-2-0-a64152b37c35

• Vera (Yaniv's startup, AI-supported guidance for people caring for ageing parents): https://vera.guide

  
  

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Key links

This episode of the Startup Podcast is sponsored by .tech domains. Forget weird prefixes and creative misspellings; the availability for .tech domains is simply way better than .com. For a clean name that highlights your tech credentials, get a .tech domain at your favorite registrar.

This episode of the Startup Podcast is sponsored by Vanta. Vanta helps businesses get and stay compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in demand compliance frameworks. With over 200 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on. For a limited time offer of US$1,000 off, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://⁠www.vanta.com/tsp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

The Startup Podcast website: https://www.tsp.show/episodes/

Learn more about Chris and Yaniv

Work 1:1 with Chris: http://chrissaad.com/advisory/

Follow Chris on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissaad/

Follow Yaniv on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ybernstein/

Producer: Justin McArthur https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-mcarthur

Assistant Producer: Steph Hefferan https://www.linkedin.com/in/steph-heff/

Intro Voice: Jeremiah Owyang https://web-strategist.com/