Insiders React: How OpenClaw and Claude Cowork changed Gary Lo’s approach to startups w/ Gary Lo, Open BA
The agentic AI revolution is finally escaping the coding bubble. What does that mean for startup founders?
Just 13 days after recording his first conversation with Yaniv, Gary Lo called to re-record. The reason? OpenClaw and Claude Cowork dropped some huge AI agent updates, and it shifted Gary's perspective enough to change the whole conversation.
In this episode, Yaniv Bernstein sits down again with Gary Lo – founder of OpenBA, one of Australia's most compelling pre-seed AI startups – to unpack why OpenClaw and Claude Cowork news marks a 'Cursor moment' for the rest of the world: the inflection point where AI stops being a productivity tool for tech teams and starts fundamentally reshaping how every industry works.
They break down why tool use will make LLMs genuinely transformative, why non-technical business owners are already buying Mac Minis to run AI agents, and what the shift from "human-first" to 'LLM-first' product design means for how you build and position your startup today.This episode is essential listening for any founder trying to figure out where to place their bets in an agentic world.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why OpenClaw and Claude Cowork signal a 'Cursor moment' beyond software engineering
- How tool use transforms LLM weaknesses into strengths
- Why the long-promised vision of "everything as an API" is finally becoming real
- How to think about building for agents vs. humans, and why most current tools aren't optimized for either
- The "done list" mental model: how agentic coding is collapsing the coordination layers in software workflows
- Why being "a tool worth calling" – like Supabase – is a smarter bet than competing directly with AI models
- How Gary is applying LLM-first thinking to OpenBA's roadmap right now
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai/
- Claude Cowork (Anthropic's agentic desktop tool): https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-cowork
- Cursor (AI-native code editor, referenced as the original 'Cursor moment' for coding): https://www.cursor.com
- Supabase (referenced as an example of a tool that rides the agentic AI wave): https://supabase.com
- OpenBA (Gary Lo's startup - AI platform for buyer's agents): https://openba.com.au
- Gary Lo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-lo-engineer/
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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/
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Producer: Justin McArthur https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-mcarthur
Intro Voice: Jeremiah Owyang https://web-strategist.com/
