Episode

I built a custom Slack inbox. It was easier than you’d think. | Yash Tekriwal (Clay)

Podcast
How I AI
Published
Apr 8, 2026
Duration seconds
2676
Processing state
not_requested
Canonical source
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pen-name/episodes/I-built-a-custom-Slack-inbox--It-was-easier-than-youd-think---Yash-Tekriwal-Clay-e3h9ud2
Audio
https://anchor.fm/s/1035b1568/podcast/play/117815138/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-3-7%2F421619264-44100-2-d0bd204a7d251.mp3
JSON
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Markdown
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Summary

Yash Tekriwal is the head of education at Clay. A self-described hyper-optimizer, Yash has built multiple custom productivity applications using Perplexity Computer and OpenClaw to manage his overwhelming daily workflow—including a Slack digest system that categorizes over 150 daily notifications into actionable priorities, and a consolidated news/email/Slack dashboard that serves as his personal command center. What you’ll learn: How Yash built a custom Slack digest that categorizes 150+ daily notifications into action-required, need-to-read, and FYI buckets Why Perplexity Computer beats Claude Code and Codex for building personal productivity apps His “anti-to-do list” framework: spending an hour daily automating tasks you never want to do again How to use AI for deterministic tasks (APIs, structured data) vs. subjective tasks (categorization, summarization) Why the SaaS apocalypse narrative is wrong—and why we’re about to see an explosion of micro-software How his team uses Perplexity Computer to prototype design systems and communicate with cross-functional partners — Brought to you by: Guru —The AI layer of truth ThoughtSpot —Build AI-powered analytics into your product — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Yash (02:38) The burden of 150 daily Slack notifications (05:45) When to use AI for tasks vs. building deterministic code (06:38) Building the Slack digest with OpenClaw (11:33) Introducing Perplexity Computer and the visual dashboard (14:28) Three reasons Perplexity Computer beats Claude Code (16:14) Using connectors to automate meeting follow-ups across Notion and Asana (18:21) The Kanban-style Slack dashboard (20:15) The long tail of customer requests and the future of micro-software (24:09) The anti-to-do list framework (26:21) Building a con…