AI Cuts Startup Costs From Millions to Thousands, Ending the VC Exit Playbook
akumar · x · 2026-10-15
The author traces the inherited founder chain: expensive software → raise VC → LPs want returns in 10 years → your company is built to be sold from day one.
AI broke it: what cost millions now costs thousands, and a ten-person team's work takes two. Founders no longer need the first check — so they never inherit the timeline. VCs, in turn, are pushed toward actual venture risk: funding crazy ideas that won't revenue for years.
Software economics are shifting too. The old 90% margins rested on nobody redoing a decade of painful engineering to compete; AI compressed that decade into months, pushing margins toward 30% — terrible for a company built to flip, fine for one built to run.
For the first time in decades, founders can build to keep, and generational tech companies may return.
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