Comment by playorizaya
6 hours ago
Everyone is saying "AI looks cheap" and I'm saying "AI is cheap"!
Before AI, your favorite B2B SaaS codebase wasn't poetry in motion. It was just in motion. The code always sucked! Now it sucks at a lower cost.
Seems like basic math. If it became suddenly trivial to build anything else but the valuation was the same investors would be all over it.
Surely I'm missing something or the industry is waiting for something - but what?
If a startup can be throw together quickly with an LLM, where is the moat? Anything they make could be ripped off by a big player overnight.
If the cost to build drops, it stands to reason that the valuation drops as well, unless they can actually get traction in the market.
I’m not sure if you’ve watch the show Shark Tank, but Kevin brings this idea up a lot. If they have a generic product and no protection around it, it can be easier and cheaper to just spin up a clone with their own team than to take on the risk of an investment.
The market seems flooded with slop startups. I’ve seen many where people use AI to make a site to pitch the idea, but there isn’t even a product. It’s all smoke and mirrors. The industry is full of opportunistic charlatans right now. A good crash is needed to clear the field before real growth can happen.
Those who are building products with AI, probably aren’t advertising the fact. I’ve seen some stuff in the App Store tho I assume nothing of at first, then read the description and it was clearly written by AI, which makes me assume the whole thing was vibe coded. The stuff is out there, but it’s all so small and spread out, that all noise and no signal.
I could be way off, but that’s my read on the situation.