🤖 AI Summary
Overview
Andrew Wilkinson, cofounder of Tiny, shares how Anthropic’s Opus 4.5 and Claude Code have revolutionized his work and personal life. From automating daily tasks to building innovative tools, Wilkinson discusses the transformative potential of AI, its implications for software businesses, and how it’s reshaping creativity and productivity.
Notable Quotes
- It literally feels like I have 30 free employees working 24/7, and I’m paying them $40 a day.
– Andrew Wilkinson, on the power of Opus 4.5.
- In 25 minutes, you’ll understand yourself better than a therapist would after 10 sessions.
– Andrew Wilkinson, on his AI-powered relationship tool.
- The moat for software used to be that it’s expensive to hire programmers. Now it’s basically free.
– Andrew Wilkinson, on the shifting landscape of software businesses.
🚀 The Power of Opus 4.5 and Claude Code
- Wilkinson describes Opus 4.5 as a game-changer, likening it to having a $100,000-a-month engineering team at his disposal.
- He predicts that traditional programming roles will evolve into more architectural and strategic positions within 2-3 years.
- Tools like Claude Code allow for seamless automation and app creation, enabling users to move at the speed of thought.
💡 AI in Personal Life: Automations and Innovations
- Wilkinson has built a range of personal AI tools:
- Deep Personality: An AI relationship counselor that predicts conflicts and offers solutions based on personality assessments.
- Personal Stylist: A system that generates daily outfit recommendations based on his wardrobe and local weather.
- Parenting Assistant: Automates school-related tasks, such as tracking emails and adding events to his calendar.
- These tools demonstrate how AI can simplify and enhance everyday life, from relationships to parenting.
📧 Reinventing Email and Productivity
- Wilkinson created a custom email client tailored to his workflow, reducing his email load by 50%.
- Features include automated triage, priority ranking, and multiple-choice response options, streamlining communication.
- He emphasizes the importance of using AI to eliminate coordination problems and focus on creative work.
📉 The Future of Software Businesses
- Wilkinson warns that the traditional software business model is under threat as AI makes coding accessible and inexpensive.
- He compares the shift to the pizza industry: while consumers benefit from better products, margins for businesses shrink.
- Tiny, his investment firm, has slowed its acquisition of software companies, focusing instead on businesses with strong distribution or hardware moats.
🧠 Ethical and Strategic Use of AI
- Wilkinson stresses the importance of prompt hygiene, avoiding bias in AI inputs to ensure accurate outputs.
- He uses AI tools like Lindy to flag manipulative behavior in meetings and improve interpersonal dynamics.
- Looking ahead, he envisions AI replacing many traditional software tools, with users relying on dynamic, on-demand solutions.
AI-generated content may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon as a sole source of truth.
📋 Episode Description
Entrepreneur Andrew Wilkinson used to sleep nine hours a night. Now he wakes up at 4 a.m. and goes straight to work—because he can’t wait to keep building with Anthropic’s latest model, Opus 4.5.
Two years ago, Wilkinson was obsessed with vibe coding on AI software development platform Replit. It was thrilling to describe something in plain English and watch an app appear, less thrilling when the apps were always broken in some way, often full of maddening bugs. So he set his app creation ambitions aside until technology caught up with them.
Then, a few weeks ago, he started playing with Claude Code and Opus 4.5. It felt, he says, like having a “$100,000-a-month payroll of engineers” working for him around the clock.
Wilkinson is the cofounder of Tiny, a company that buys profitable businesses and holds them for the long term. The Tiny portfolio includes the AeroPress coffee maker and Dribbble, a platform where designers can share their work and find jobs. Dan Shipper had him on AI & I to talk about the automations Wilkinson has built for his work and personal life, including an AI relationship counselor, a custom email client, and a system that texts him outfit recommendations each morning. Wilkinson revealed how all of this individual exploration has changed the way he thinks about buying software companies at Tiny.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Start
00:01:07 - Introduction
00:02:48 - Why Opus 4.5 feels like the iPhone moment for vibe coding
00:08:31 - Why designers have a unique advantage with AI
00:14:10 - How Wilkinson built a custom email client with Claude Code
00:18:13 - An AI trained on your relationship that predicts your fights
00:30:40 - Using AI meeting notes to make your life better
00:35:11 - Don't inject your opinion into prompts
00:40:21 - Wilkinson’s Claude Code tips and workflows
00:47:59 - Your personal stylist is a prompt away
00:53:17 - How AI is changing the way Wilkinson invests in software
Links to resources mentioned in the episode:
Andrew Wilkinson: Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson)
The book Wilkinson references in his prompts, when writing copy with AI: Made to Stick
Every’s co