AI startups require new strategies: This time it's actually different

there is a faster-horse problem in AI that seems to be infiltrating the venture capital and startup ecosystem discourses rapidly. it is opportunistic at best and myopic at worst. when it comes to AI, I think we should make fewer declarative statements and ask more questions. I… Show more

While many of the prior innovations in AI were striking and exciting (AlexNet, CNNs, RNNs, GANs etc) this time does feel different for a few reasons. There is reason to believe while incumbents should capture a good amount of the value in this wave, startups will take a bigger share of AI generated value this time around.

However, a key risk with several of these startups is the potential lack of a long-term moat. It is difficult to read too much into it given the stage of these startups and the limited public information available but it’s not difficult to poke holes at their long term defensibility. For example:

• If a startup is built on the premise of taking base L

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