Inference Is the COGS of AI: Gross Margin Is Set by Token Cost and Speed
le_james94 · x · 2026-09-26
Lecture 7 of Stanford's MS&E 435 (Tuhin Srivastava):
- Inference is the COGS of AI value delivery; gross margin is determined by what your tokens cost and how fast they arrive.
- Post-training has fixed build costs and saves money with volume, so it pays off above a threshold — one nobody in the session was willing to name.
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