Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Wu: AI startups fail from lack of customer resonance, not OpenAI competition

Sherwin Wu · OpenAI’s head of platform engineering on the next 12-24 months of AI | Sherwin Wu · Feb 12, 2026 · at 58:09

Sherwin Wu, OpenAI's Head of Platform Engineering, addresses founder concerns that foundational AI labs will crush startup ideas by building competing native features.

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“Every startup that I've seen that is kind of fizzled out is not because open AI or, you know, big lab or Google or something has come to squash them. It's because they built something and it like really didn't resonate with the customers.”

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