-2
Had a talk with a founder last week that flipped my view on AI startups here
He told me most of these local AI companies are just wrappers on top of OpenAI's API and have zero moat (which stung because I was about to invest in one). Has anyone else gotten past the hype and found a local AI play with actual defensible tech?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
fiona_west211mo ago
Honestly, I was just reading a report from one of those tech analysts that said the same thing - most of these "AI startups" are just reselling OpenAI with a different color scheme. Tbh, the ones that actually have something going for them are the ones building their own models on top of niche data sets nobody else has. Ngl, I heard about this company in Europe that trained a model on like 50 years of medical records from a specific hospital chain - that's real moat because you can't just copy that data overnight. The whole "wrapper" thing is a bubble for sure, but there's gold if you find someone solving a real problem with proprietary data or hardware costs that keep competitors out. Feels like the smart money right now is on founders who talk about their data pipeline and training process, not just their fancy chatbot interface.
7
murphy.aaron1mo ago
That line about "just reselling OpenAI with a different color scheme" hits close to home, I've seen that playbook way too many times. @fiona_west21 is spot on about the niche data being the real moat. My advice is to dig into what data they're using and how they got it. If a founder can't explain their data sourcing and cleaning process in under 30 seconds, they're probably hiding something. The hardware cost angle is real too, but for most early stage deals, the data is the only thing that's hard to copy fast. Have you looked at any founders who are working with government or industry specific datasets that are locked down by regulation?
6