The Smartest Founders Never Bought the AI Hype

The pendulum is swinging back, and for most people, it's the best news in years.

The AI hype cycle had one message: adopt AI, cut headcount and replace your people.

Now, the pendulum has shifted.

Most giants realized they were wasting money paying Anthropic and getting back nothing but slop.

So, Tesla capped AI spend at $200 per employee/ month.

Uber started capping AI spending after costs spun out of control.

And it didn’t stop there.

Ford rehired 350 veteran engineers who worked on design because AI was not capable of outputting properly designed parts.

Oracle reengaged senior developers they had let go.

So the question remains:

Where does the opportunity sit for early-stage founders?

I have a hint for you: we’re going old school, but with new tools.

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The pullback is happening beyond the enterprise level.

Freelancers and artists figured it out too.

AI gives them output they can’t edit manually afterward: it doesn’t give you layers and it doesn’t create elements you can modify.

It works for prototyping an idea, but you still have to go into Photoshop and rebuild everything from scratch to have assets you can actually use across formats.

Which means it costs them more time than it saves.

Engineers and developers started limiting their AI use as well.

The code was breaking randomly, services were crashing, and employers were firing the people responsible.

And on the consumer side, the market spoke even louder.

When you call a call center and an AI answers, what’s your reflex?

“I want to talk with a human”

People want art made by humans too.

There’s no soul in AI-generated art, so it becomes a tool for a director who uses AI to make a background or one element.

The storytelling, the idea, the concept, the characters - all of that has to be human.

Everything AI-generated in the creative industry is dead. Done.

Doesn’t matter how fast it gets the job done anymore.

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Underneath all of this, there’s an even bigger shift in the education segment.

The US government has effectively dismantled the entire education system and given parents school vouchers to educate their children at home.

Parents were using those vouchers to buy gaming consoles, Disney trips, and sex toys. There’s a class action suit over it now.

This leads to a generation that arrives in the workforce underprepared, which forces a renaissance of L&D (learning and development) inside companies.

Brace yourself for a huge wave of startup opportunities in the L&D space:)

As a result, AI is becoming what it should have always been: a tool

A great tool in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.

You’re not losing your job to AI. You’re losing your job to someone who’s using AI.

That should have always been the message.

But in the rush to build AGI, to raise as much money as possible, to make companies as big as possible, someone pulled out of nowhere this idea that everyone needs to fire their people and replace them with AI.

No.

We’re going back toward expertise.

Back toward seniors.

Back toward people who have been doing something for 20 years and know where things get stuck.

Remember the hint from the beginning?

We’re going old school, but with new tools.

To see where the bottlenecks are, you have to watch someone who has been doing something for 20 years and observe where they stop, where things get stuck.

Observe their process and identify the bottlenecks.

And then don’t come in and say:

• “I built something 100 times better than how you’ve been doing it.”

Come in and say:

• “This version works, it’s been used for 20 years. How can we make it more efficient?”

Don’t dismiss what was built until now to build something entirely new.

Because all the completely new things have already been thought, rethought, and turned over from every angle.

So here’s your playbook:

• Find an expert who has been doing something for 20 years

• Watch where they slow down, where things get stuck, where they lose time

• Ask: can AI make that specific step faster, cheaper, or more efficient?

• Don’t replace their process. Improve it.

That’s where the next wave of startups is all about: making the best humans even better.

In the end, remember this:

AI is a tool, and it’s a great tool in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing.

Got a founder friend still buying the AI replacement narrative? Forward this to them ASAP.

P.S.S. Come July 11th, we’re creating a private group for the top performers who applied to ReaktorX. Keep an eye on your notifications.

Until next time - keep building,

Luca S.