Rory Driscoll

Mentally thinking of some companies that have gone through that, you're exactly right.

It's like, hey, your SaaS product isn't enough.

Let's get profitable.

OK, you got profitable.

Nobody cares.

You need an AI product.

Oh, my God, you've delivered an AI product.

Your customers love it.

And now you're at the next shoe to drop is how are you going to finance this thing?

Because you're up against people who can raise $200 million on a dream.

And I acknowledge that.

And rather than telling you I have the answer, it's an issue I'm wrestling with.

I can think of two boardrooms in the next two months, maybe one month, as we do annual planning.

How aggressive can you be in this market?

Because if you play deep, I mean, if you try and meter it to your cash constraints, you're going to get left behind.

So the gut level comes, and this is how capitalism, I suppose, is meant to work.

The gut level test comes if your customers are getting value from your AI agent that they can't get anywhere else, and you can make that value clear, then you can charge enough to pay for your tokens, and yay you.

If you're not giving value, or if you're locked in a war with someone else who has infinite capital and is willing to give it away longer than you, then you're probably going to lose, and you should figure out how to exit now.

And to some extent, the mid-year kind of coding wars where, oh my gosh, it's

Windsurf looked to exit.