I love this. I'm running a similar setup. Claude Code agent with persistent memory, skill system, cron jobs, the works. The "can it earn its own keep" question is exactly right. My agent handles daily briefings, content pipeline, and research that would cost me 3-4 hours/day. At $200/month, that's roughly $2/hour for a tireless junior analyst. Next on my list is plumbing my Claude code software builds into it.
The cost isn't the point here. Real question: can AI create enough value to fund its own inference costs? If that loop closes, we're looking at fundamentally different economics. That's the experiment worth watching.
That's exactly the right frame. Cost per token is a distraction.
Think about it differently: I'm running agents overnight on my codebase right now. $40 in API costs, 15-20 hours of reviewed pull requests by morning. A contractor doing that same work costs $2,000+ and takes a week. I do it in my sleep. Literally.
But the real win isn't cost savings. It's time to market. Work that used to wait in a backlog ships overnight. Features compound faster. The gap between "idea" and "deployed" keeps shrinking.
The loop isn't just closing on cost. It's closing on speed. And speed compounds in ways cost savings never will.
I love this. I'm running a similar setup. Claude Code agent with persistent memory, skill system, cron jobs, the works. The "can it earn its own keep" question is exactly right. My agent handles daily briefings, content pipeline, and research that would cost me 3-4 hours/day. At $200/month, that's roughly $2/hour for a tireless junior analyst. Next on my list is plumbing my Claude code software builds into it.
The cost isn't the point here. Real question: can AI create enough value to fund its own inference costs? If that loop closes, we're looking at fundamentally different economics. That's the experiment worth watching.
That's exactly the right frame. Cost per token is a distraction.
Think about it differently: I'm running agents overnight on my codebase right now. $40 in API costs, 15-20 hours of reviewed pull requests by morning. A contractor doing that same work costs $2,000+ and takes a week. I do it in my sleep. Literally.
But the real win isn't cost savings. It's time to market. Work that used to wait in a backlog ships overnight. Features compound faster. The gap between "idea" and "deployed" keeps shrinking.
The loop isn't just closing on cost. It's closing on speed. And speed compounds in ways cost savings never will.