TLDR Founders · MISCELLANEOUS

WHEN BUILDING GETS EASY, WINNING GETS HARD

newsletter.datadrivenvc.io6 min read

Summary from the TLDR Founders newsletter

Sam Altman says we're entering the "fast fashion era of SaaS," and he's right. AI split software into two camps - the hard builds like infrastructure and foundation models, and the easy builds you can ship in a weekend with Cursor. When building gets easy, winning gets exponentially harder because everyone has the same product. The margin reality is brutal. Replit swings between -14% and +36% gross margins, while OpenAI sits at 45% and Nvidia at 75%.