Many fast-growing AI startups currently operate with negative gross margins
Leigh Marie Braswell · Windsurf: The Making of a Billion-Dollar AI Company | Leigh Marie Braswell, Kleiner Perkins · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea · May 2, 2025 · at 25:12
Kleiner Perkins partner Leigh Marie Braswell explains how AI wrapper startups incur compounding API costs that exceed customer billing.
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“At least today, you know, there's certainly AI businesses that yes, they're growing really fast, but the margins are quite negative. And so therefore like you have to bet on them raising more venture money until they can like figure that out, whether that's from a, they develop their own models, models just get cheaper naturally.”
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