I Gave My Extra Computer a Job and Wrote a Book about It

How 11 days with an AI agent named Elliot changed the way I think about work.

I just released a book I wrote about an AI chat bot that I work with named Elliot

.

But first, a little back story.

I started writing about how AI was changing the way I work last year.

My first post was last February, and it was about how feeding a sales transcript to ChatGPT saved a sale and earned my business a very large annual contract. You can read it here.

My second post was in February of last year. I talked about how AI doesn’t need menus. It just needs access to data, and that one day I think that people will interact with software the same way they communicate with other people, through text messaging, email, phone conversations. You can check that out here.

And my third post was in April. I talked about how people are going to need to shift from being doers of tasks to people who can make good decisions about what needed to be built and what good work looks like. And you can read that here.

And then I stopped writing about it for a while because I was using it. I believe the best way to understand something new is to immerse yourself in it. Because this technology is going to have such a giant impact on my business and the way that work gets done on computers, I felt like it was irresponsible to simply dabble.

What I’m about to say next sounds insane. 11 days ago, I installed a piece of software on an extra computer and accomplished more in that time than I’ve accomplished in the last six months.

But the insane part is that I did most of this by sending messages to that software on Telegram. I asked it to do something. It did it, and I reviewed and gave feedback back on the output.

I immediately began to think about a book that I read back in 2013 that changed the way that I managed time. The book was called The 4-Hour Workweek, and it gave me a framework for creating processes and delegating them to people that I had been missing.

But now that playbook is outdated.

For years I tried to apply those principles with what was available. It worked, sort of. But there was always a gap. The system required you to have enough capital to hire people to delegate to, which is not a reality for most individual workers and definitely not a reality for new founders. We often have to wait for the revenue to catch up in order to put the people in place to do the things that we need to do, and we’re stuck filling in the gaps.

I’ve never been short on good ideas. I have been short on resources and skills to execute on them more times that I like to count.

Three Moments That Broke the Pattern

The first: I handed ChatGPT a legal document. It explained it back to me better than most attorneys I’ve paid. I sat with that for a minute.

The second: I used Claude Code to build software. I am not a programmer. I have never been a programmer. But now I contribute code regularly to my company’s SaaS product and build side projects for fun.

And the third moment was when I installed OpenClaw on that old computer and started talking to it on Telegram.

11 Days

Again, I know this sounds crazy. Hello.

It’s been 11 days since I set that machine up.

In those 11 days I have built two working web app prototypes, both deployed to servers on the internet, a storefront to sell my book, the foundation of an AI agent product for my company, reviewed more than 50 research reports about my industry and technology, my dream digital notebook app, a content automation system, and other projects that I decided to not pursue.

And an 80-plus page book about the AI and the last 11 days.

This is how work is going to be done in the future. It’s how work is being done for me right now. I decide what needs to get done. I delegate it to an AI agent to do it. I review the output, give feedback, and decide what goes out into the world.

The gap between wanting to do something and being able to do it is disappearing.

The 4-Hour Workweek told me to build a team. I just didn’t expect the team to run on a computer on an office shelf.

What I Wrote

The book is called “The Agent-Powered Workweek: How OpenClaw Gives You a Team While You Sleep.”

This is in theory or hype; it’s the actual setup and workflow that I’m using. I share what I delegate, how I interact with the agents as teammates instead of tools, and how to close the gap between when you need to do something and when you can actually do it.

I wrote it because I’d been having conversation after conversation with everybody that I know and love, imploring them to change the way they think about how they work now, before the people who do start working in this new way, leave them behind.

I wrote it for the person doing too much alone. The founder who is also the marketer, the researcher, the writer, the analyst, and somehow also the one responsible for everything.

That was me, and to a degree it still is. I just have some more help now.

The book covers what changed in my thinking, how I setup the system, what I delegate, and what I learned about building trust with an AI agent.

It also covers where it falls short and what I do differently.

The Price

Starts at $10. That’s today’s price.

Every 10 copies sold, it goes up $1. By the time a hundred people have bought it, it’s $20.

This is intentional. Early readers get rewarded. You’ve been here since the idea guy post. You get the best price.

Why I’m Telling You This

Last year, I started writing about a shift I saw happening in real time.

This book is the clearest version of what I’ve learned.

If you’ve been reading since the beginning, this is where it was always headed.

If you’re new here, start with this. Then go back.

The idea guy post was me discovering what was possible.

The interface post was me understanding what was changing.

The workforce post was me getting honest about what was at stake.

This is me telling you that this new reality is here.

Go get the book.

--Scott