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Comment by lemmsjid | Hacker News Reader

I think you're really re-stating his case, which is interesting because you then call it 'empty virtue signaling'.

He's applying a standard analytical lens to AI startups, e.g. looking for their moats through finding differentiators in economics, data, scalability, etc. He finds that "doing AI" is not a stable enough differentiator to compel him as a VC. He then lays out his reasons. There are plenty of startups selling themselves on their AI platform and/or acumen, so it's rather automatically relevant to a VC at least.

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> finds that "doing AI" is not a stable enough differentiator to compel him as a VC

This is a better thesis than the article's. Uber for X / AI for Y is not a valid pitch.

But the article goes further. It surmises the only two valid moats are a capital advantage (compute) or intellectual property (data). These are the most trivially-verifiable moats for a third party. Which makes sense for a VC to prioritise them. But they're far from the dominant mode of differentiation.

Plenty of "AI" start-ups will do well because they found a niche, had the right team to sell to it, and developed quickly enough to keep customers hooked. They won't win because of AI per se. But they won't lose for lack of access to more compute or special data either.

Exactly. Scale, stickiness and getting the details right via focus are all things.

The author seems to be misguided - no one is really suggesting AI is a way to win. It's a value prop thing, not a competitive thing. SaaS was a value prop thing, not a competitive thing. Mobile was a value prop thing, not a competitive thing. WWW was a value prop thing, not a competitive thing.

If we replace all instances of AI with SaaS, his point still stands.

However, many VCs aren't looking for a moat when they invest in Saas, they're looking for a good product with good founders and a good team.

IF you're only looking for moats, you're going to be a bad VC.

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