Back in the fall of 2008, as the world economy plunged into recession, doomsayers warned of a drawn-out slump reminiscent of the mid-1970s. Yet, it was in that very climate that tech titans like Microsoft and Apple were born. Fast forward to 2025: history seems to be repeating itself, but this time, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is center stage.
Conventional wisdom says downturns are the worst time to start a business. But in today’s AI landscape, that logic doesn’t hold. Economic cycles have only a marginal impact on technological progress; it’s the caliber of founders that truly decides the outcome. If you’re the “right person,” you can win even in the toughest economies. If not, no economic tailwind can save you.
The Relentless AI Wave: Trillion-Dollar Opportunities Amidst the Chill
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has highlighted that, in 2025 alone, over $1 trillion has already poured into new AI projects—including OpenAI’s own $500 billion “Stargate” project in Abilene, Texas. This signals an era where AI is advancing at breakneck pace; market demand is so strong it can “steamroll any market volatility.” AI is now seen as “the most transformative technology of our time,” potentially “at least as big as the internet, if not bigger.” The pace of innovation is “faster than ever,” closing the gap between sci-fi and reality at an astonishing rate. For aspiring AI founders, “the best time to act is always now.”
But even with all this momentum, not every sign points to an easy ride.
Despite the investment frenzy, reports from April 2025 show a cooling in global compute infrastructure spending. Microsoft, for example, walked away from a data center lease with planned power consumption exceeding 2GW, and recently froze another 1.5GW self-built data center project—both slated for 2025–2026. Amazon, too, is pausing further data center leases. Industry analysts at Semianalysis say this is more of a cyclical adjustment than a long-term trend, but it suggests current business demand isn’t quite keeping up with early compute ambitions. In April, Nvidia’s stock price was also volatile, dropping as much as 20%.
And while AI startups with “beautiful demos” are popping up everywhere, Sequoia Capital warns that “scaling a slick demo into real-world production is a different beast entirely.” Many companies that dazzle in demo mode ultimately “fail” to make the transition to full-scale deployment.
From “Selling Tools” to “Selling Outcomes”: AI Is Reshaping Business Models—But Beware the “AI Slop”
Sequoia partner Pat Grady makes it clear: AI is experiencing a fundamental shift from “selling tools” to “selling results.” Enterprise customers no longer pay for what could be useful—they pay for “outcomes that hit the bottom line.” For example, an AI-driven CRM agent isn’t just a “customer management tool”—it promises to “deliver X customer conversions.” AI’s value is moving beyond models and services into the labor market itself. Success will be measured not by features or usage stats, but by “how much value it actually delivers.”
But this “outcomes-first” approach brings tough product quality challenges.
Many AI products—especially those that just bolt AI onto existing software—are stuck in “old-world thinking.” It’s like early “horseless carriages” that were just carriages without horses, rather than true cars. The result? “AI slop.” Gmail’s AI email draft tool is a classic example: generated emails are overly long, awkwardly formal, and unlike anything a real user would write. In fact, users often spend more time tweaking prompts than just writing the email themselves.
A veteran product manager notes that, in the mobile era, core features were locked before launch. AI products, on the other hand, rely on large models with inherently unpredictable outputs, introducing massive uncertainty into the user experience. OpenAI researcher Yao Shunyu adds, “Evaluation is now more important than training.” He found that, despite newer models scoring higher on benchmarks since August 2024, their actual product capabilities in handling novel tasks or deeper cognitive workload haven’t improved much. OpenAI CPO Kevin Weil says, “Designing evaluation methods will become a core product management skill—a key to great AI products.”
For Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) platforms that simply resell AI APIs, profitability is no sure thing. Yu Yang, founder of Luchen Tech, points out that smaller cloud platforms reselling DeepSeek APIs can lose up to $400 million a month. He believes pure API sales make sense only for major cloud providers or companies with proprietary, deeply optimized models.
Lean Startups: “AI-Native” and Cost-Effective—But Far From “Pain-Free”
In uncertain times, the “cockroach philosophy” of surviving by operating at the lowest possible cost becomes even more vital. Fortunately, AI naturally supports this strategy: in the past 12–18 months, per-token costs have fallen by 99%.
But rock-bottom costs are not a universal fix—user experience remains a pain point.
Anthropic CPO Mike Krieger believes most AI products are “still tough for first-time users to use effectively.” Products need to tightly integrate with user workflows to build defensibility, but helping users understand and unlock the power of AI tools remains a huge challenge. Many users, when trying an AI product for the first time, are left confused by unintuitive design, making it hard to achieve “wow” moments.
For AI startups, this means you can’t just count on lower costs—massive effort must go into product design and UX, embedding AI seamlessly into workflows, not just “offering a tool that works.”
The Agent Economy: The Future Is Here—but Full of Hurdles
A major 2025 trend: the rise of the “agent economy.” Agents are no longer just invoked models—they’re autonomous actors, decision-makers, and collaborators in the economy. Sequoia partner Konstantine Buhler says three big technical challenges must be solved:
- Persistent Identity: Agents need to remember “who you are”—and who they are—over long periods, maintaining personality and cognition. It’s a tough problem.
- Seamless Communication Protocols: We need TCP/IP-like protocol layers for passing information, value, and trust between agents and systems—think MCP (Model-to-Computer Protocol).
- Security: In the agent era, trust and security become paramount, spawning new industries around these issues.
But the agent economy is no smooth ride—massive social and technical risks lurk behind the hype.
Most current agents are still “toy-like” at multi-step tasks—errors compound, and true planning, execution, and integration skills are still lacking. As agents move into “labor” roles, technical maturity and viable business models remain unproven.
The bigger dangers are societal:
- Deepfakes & Misinformation: AI-generated deepfakes are increasingly hard to spot and can be used for scams, disinformation, or even psychological harm. There are cases of bank execs losing tens of millions to voice spoofing.
- Bias & Discrimination: AI models can perpetuate or amplify biases—like antisemitic rhetoric. This demands collaboration with civil society to set standardized evaluation benchmarks.
- Privacy & Data Control: AI agents will amass huge troves of personal data, raising fears over data ownership—and the risk of government agencies accessing sensitive info through agents, threatening individual freedom.
- Mass Unemployment: Experts warn AI could replace up to 70% of jobs, leading to “major social upheaval.” Rapid adaptation will be needed to avoid the shock of mass job loss.
- AI for the Elite: There’s growing concern that advanced AI capabilities may become the preserve of a privileged few, deepening inequality.
- Environmental Impact: Training and running AI demands massive compute infrastructure, putting strain on power grids and water supplies, and driving up carbon emissions.
Winning as a Founder: Speed, Trust, and the Data Flywheel—But Beware Burnout and Complacency
Sam Altman once noted that ChatGPT now boasts over 500 million weekly users, with daily-to-monthly active ratios on par with Reddit. This marks a shift from “curious trial” to “everyday dependence”—not in the old sense of sticky engagement, but in a “make a request → leave → await the result” workflow.
For founders, the keys are:
- Move fast: In a world of rapid technical change, waiting for “the right moment” or perfecting your product can mean missing the boat.
- Build trust: Early on, “trust matters more than the product itself.” Customers need to believe your product will keep getting better.
- Harness the data flywheel: Use product data to continually refine and strengthen your offering, building defensibility.
- Embrace Evals: In the “second half” of the AI game, “evaluations trump training”—they’re what separates winners from losers.
Yet founders face their own risks: burnout and inertia.
“The dumb investor and the ivory tower hacker:” Even though downturns are a great time to “buy in” (by earning equity through work), investors are often reluctant, and many hackers opt for grad school over startups in tough times. Even the most ambitious founders may default to safety in uncertain times.
The Innovator’s Dilemma for Big Tech: Large companies, for all their resources, often struggle to go “all in” on AI-native product development. Entrenched processes, KPIs, and bi-monthly meetings make them slow to experiment and iterate. This is Clayton Christensen’s “innovator’s dilemma” in action—and it leaves room for startups that can move fast, focus deeply, and deliver tangible results.
Regulatory Uncertainty: The US could see “fragmented regulatory regimes” across states, which could “significantly hurt” competitiveness and “slow down” innovation, as complying with 50 different rulebooks is a nightmare. Copyright and IP issues around AI-generated content remain unresolved, potentially impacting creators’ rights.
2025: No Time to Wait and See—But Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid
The AI startup world of 2025 is not a time for hesitation, but it’s also not a golden-brick road. Winning takes rule-breaking, rapid iteration, laser focus on real-world problems, and a relentless drive to deliver visible results. This isn’t just a tech race—it’s a battle to redefine work, life, and business, all while managing the massive risks AI brings. AI is reshaping everything. Now is the best moment to help shape that future—but do it with clear eyes and plenty of grit.
