AI will kill most startups-and that's a good thing

"In the past, bringing that idea to life required capital, a team, and time. Today, it requires a laptop and a collection of AI tools. With AI filling the gaps, a working prototype can be vibe coded in weeks, if not hours. The product is tested, refined, and launched, and for a brief moment it appears successful. Then reality intervenes. Within months, near-identical products emerge, copied and shipped at machine speed."

"This outcome is no longer unusual. It is becoming the norm. What this reveals is uncomfortable but important. AI does not kill startups. It exposes ideas that never earned credibility. If a product can be imagined, built, and shipped by almost anyone, it can also be copied by almost anyone. That is not a failure of innovation so much as a stress test - one that reveals how thin many ideas were to begin with."

"Within months, near-identical products emerge, copied and shipped at machine speed. What began as a solo effort quickly becomes a crowded category, and any early differentiation disappears. Soon after, a large technology company notices the pattern. Without meaningful distribution or a loyal audience to defend it, the idea is absorbed into an existing platform as a feature. A few months later, the startup is effectively gone."

Ordinary designers, developers, and product managers can now build functional prototypes using AI and a laptop, eliminating many traditional resource barriers. Rapid prototyping enables quick testing, refinement, and launch, but replication follows as near-identical products appear within months, erasing early differentiation. Crowded categories and lack of meaningful distribution or a loyal audience make standalone survival difficult. Large technology companies frequently absorb reproducible features into existing platforms, ending independent ventures. AI acts as a stress test that reveals ideas lacking credibility or defensible distribution, even in narrow, real-problem niches.

Read at Medium