Source: Every (jonathangreene@gmail.com)
A founder absorbing a 230% jump in AI compute costs without implementing token budgets reveals how early adoption remains. Most companies are still figuring out what works, not optimizing unit economics. The inflection point arrives when cost-benefit math breaks down, forcing trade-offs between feature richness and margin. That separation will distinguish viable AI applications from hype. This mirrors past infrastructure arms races—mobile push notifications, real-time analytics—where initial abundance gave way to efficiency discipline once pricing commoditized.