Grinberg: AI startups ignoring sales will fail when market gravity returns
Matan Grinberg · OpenAI vs Anthropic vs Open-Source | Token Maxing, AI Hangovers & The Coming ROI Reckoning · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jun 13, 2026 · at 26:36
Matan Grinberg, founder and CEO of Factory, warns that AI companies currently benefiting from easy demand will struggle when sales execution matters again.
“I think that the reality is it will come to haunt some of these companies one day, because I think right now where there's a gold rush and everyone's like desperate to sign, you know, and get more tokens from these people, it's easy. They're kind of like, in my mind, it's kind of like they're astronauts in space where there's no gravity. Your muscles will atrophy. Gravity will come back, and if you don't have a good sales and marketing team, because you don't give it respect, the second gravity returns, all of your muscles will be atrophied, and you won't be able to compete.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →