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

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 consolidated news, email, and Slack digest (29:48) How Perplexity Computer handles authentication and deployment (31:46) Team use case: Prototyping persona-based learning journeys for Clay University (35:49) Lightning round and final thoughts — Tools referenced: • Perplexity Computer: https://www.perplexity.ai/computer/new • OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai/ • Discord: https://discord.com/ • Claude Code: https://claude.ai/code • Codex: https://openai.com/codex/ • Asana: https://asana.com/ • Airtable: https://airtable.com/ • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Vercel: https://vercel.com/ • ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ — Other references: • Slack: https://slack.com/ • Notion: https://www.notion.so/ • Superhuman: https://superhuman.com/ • Clay University: https://www.clay.com/university • Kanban boards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board — Where to find Yash Tekriwal: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yashtekriwal/ X: https://x.com/yash_tek Company: https://www.clay.com/ — Where to find Claire Vo: ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/ Website: https://clairevo.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/ X: https://x.com/clairevo — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [redacted email].