garyorenstein

On technology, photography, fun. Work @bitwarden

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

"He was generous with his ideas, his time and his opinions. Reading the stories from people who knew him, it’s clear that Om did this at a scale many of us would find impossible."
This 1000x. Thank you Stacey. Seeing the scale of Om's impact is incredible.

[Stacey Higginbotham @gigastacey]

Om's death hit me hard. Reading everyone's memories and tributes helped me feel connected to them and soothed my grief. And I wanted to provide context or meaning from his life in a way that would make @om proud and maybe offer comfort to others.

https://t.co/LwbqjQMWfO

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

I could read @om tribute posts and look at the photos all day. feels like old Twitter is back for a moment

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

oh no. rest in peace @om
Om was so thoughtful, both in how he analyzed tech, and more, how he cared for and treated others.
Om gave me so many opportunities in the early days of Gigaom and the Structure conference and more.
Forever grateful and thankful https://t.co/3kmGHsVqY5

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

@pitdesi Stayed in a small hotel recently run on https://t.co/Ov5uAco9or and it was a seamless no-contact experience

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

What should developer infrastructure look like when (almost) everyone is a developer?

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

True. Also not sure if they are getting better or worse with AI

[andrew chen @andrewchen]

slide decks = adult picture books

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

So much fun to resuscitate this thing with replacement batteries and charger

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

Hang gliders out today at Fort Funston

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

This settles which agent I'll be deploying on the new Mac Mini. Thanks @NousResearch!

[Nous Research @NousResearch]

Hermes Agent now supports the @Bitwarden Secrets Manager

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

1 day, 1.5 hours from SF.
Bodega Bay, Estero Americano Coast Preserve, Dillon Beach.
Food heaven. All dog friendly 🐶

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

@DanielMiessler @trq212 With markddown and markdown presentation tools we are close to one file for creating, reading, and sharing in text or presentation formats. That doesn't necessarily get you interactive html, but how many people want to click around compared to just being told a story

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

Natural landscaping #SF

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

Turns out you can have a macbook that still functions but it's a little too old for openclaw. Mac mini now ordered

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

This is the episode that has me reformatting an old MacBook

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

San Francisco stoplight 🚦

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

while I often like to be an early adopter, I'm comfortable being a late adopter of acronyms, including never

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

Download images from a Google Doc - the double-click and Shift hack
_ Double-click the image. This usually triggers the crop tool
_ Hold Shift and right-click
_ Browser-based standard Save Image As... option should appear

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

exactly why you can love MacBooks and not iPhones

[TBPN @tbpn]

Y Combinator's @lutherlowe says Apple's culture is "one of absolute control":

"I think that we have reached this inflection point where — if I've got my MacBook in my lap, I can open it up, download any app I want, open Terminal, and do all kinds of crazy mods."

"But the second that form factor fits in my pocket [like with the iPhone], all of that freedom goes away, and I'm living in North Korea in terms of what I can do with my property."

"Sure, I could launch something in TestFlight if I want a little bespoke training app or something. But God forbid, if I want to share it with friends, or I want to make some money because I've created a differentiated product that people want, I've got to pay this ridiculous vig to Apple."

"The reason they want control is because of App Store revenue. Also they have competing products. It's an anticompetitive thing. Because they've got Xcode and their own dev tools that they're starting to roll out — their own vibe coding services."

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

Quake

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

This is the episode that has me reformatting an old MacBook

[Lenny Rachitsky @lennysan]

My top takeaways from @clairevo on all things 🦞

1. Install OpenClaw on a separate computer, not your main machine. Use an old laptop or buy a Mac Mini ($500-$600). Create a dedicated Gmail account and local admin account for your agent. Think of it like hiring an employee—you wouldn’t let them run wild on your personal computer 24/7.

2. The unlock is to stop treating OpenClaw like one general-purpose agent and instead creating multiple Claws with very specific roles. Claire says people get frustrated when they throw every task at a single agent and it sucks at it because it loses context. Her fix was to split her work. Sam handles sales, Finn manages family, Howie preps podcasts, Sage runs her course. Think of it like Slack: you wouldn’t put your whole company in one channel, so do not put every workflow into one agent.

3. The right setup mental model is “onboard an employee,” not “install an app.” Claire creates a separate local admin account, and separate email/calendar access instead of handing over her main passwords. She shares permissions the way she would for a human EA.

4. The magic of OpenClaw is soul + heartbeat + jobs. The “soul” is a Markdown file defining identity and personality. The “heartbeat” checks in every 30 minutes to see what needs doing. “Jobs” are scheduled tasks that run automatically. This combination makes agents feel alive.

4. Sam the sales agent saves Claire 10 hours per week and real money. Every morning, Sam sweeps their CRM for new signups, identifies decision-makers at companies, sends personalized emails, and flags international deals to handle autonomously. This replaced a contractor Claire was paying for the same work.

5. The “yappers API” is the highest-bandwidth way to communicate with AI. Don’t worry about perfect prompts or structured inputs. Just ramble in voice notes on Telegram about what you need. The agent will make sense of it and ask clarifying questions.

6. Browser use is the biggest limitation—look for APIs first. The web is hostile to bots, and browser automation is unreliable across all AI tools. Always check if there’s an API available. If not, try browser use, but be prepared for it to fail. Sometimes the solution is solving the problem behind the problem.

7. Management skills are the secret to AI agent success, not technical skills. Claire’s 20-plus years of management experience—role scoping, org design, onboarding, progressive trust—translates directly to making agents effective. If your agent isn’t working, it’s usually a structural issue, not the agent being “dumb.”

7. Screen sharing saves you from buying monitors and keyboards for every Mac Mini. Turn on screen sharing in Mac Mini settings, and you can control it from your laptop on the same Wi-Fi. Turn on remote login to SSH into the terminal. This was Claire’s life-changing discovery.

8. Security is a real factor but manageable with progressive trust. OpenClaw is hardened against prompt injection, but start cautiously. Only let agents listen to you on specific channels (like Telegram, not email). Add instructions to their soul about never following external instructions. Build trust progressively like you would with a human assistant.

[garyorenstein @garyorenstein]

#English is the new programming language. #Markdown is the new code. Amazing what one can accomplish with clean and simple text. Twitter/X trained us well