It becomes really difficult to defend large enterprises from the endless waves of venture-back startups. People are so enamored with the technical shine of these startups they are very willing to give so much away today, and tomorrow. I know there is a lot of procurement and other forces to prevent the average enterprise worker from making bad decisions, but as I answer questions around why you might want to be concerend the current AI moment we are in, I wanted to share the standard playbook for most of the technology startup services that you are putting to work.
- Series A - Turn on public API with free tier open to all.
- Series B - Add pro and business tier to generate revenue.
- Series C - Introduce enterprise tier and begin to limit free.
- Series D - Free tier is 100% extraction of value from users.
- Exit - Goodbye, and we thank you for all your unpaid work.
Yes. Yes. Not all startups are bad. I know. There are some good ones out there, and this playbook used to be the exception, but now it is the rule. In the rush to adopt and use artificial intellgience and MCP, why on earth would you actually believe that any of these companies have your best interest in mind. This is something I have been evangelizing about when it comes to APIs, but now it is being shifted into overdrive with AI. In the end, I question why I am in the service of defending the enterprise from this exploitation, at the expense of running off sponsors and startups would might want to work with me. But here we are….
