@FinanceYF5: Chamath said he asked the CTO about the company's AI token spending today and got a shocking answer: token costs double every 45 days, but downstream productivity improves by at most 5%. His exact words were that costs double, benefits stay roughly flat, and the team found that to iterate to the next generation of capabilities, the amount of tokens required grows exponentially, because...
Summary
Chamath revealed that his company found AI token costs double every 45 days while downstream productivity improves by at most 5%. He believes AI development is approaching a bottleneck and suggests companies reconsider their strategies or even consider exiting.
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Cached at: 07/14/26, 08:31 PM
Chamath said he asked the CTO today about the company’s AI token spending, and got a ridiculous answer: token costs double every 45 days, while downstream productivity gains are at most 5%.
His exact words were: costs double, but benefits remain essentially flat. The team found that to iterate to the next generation of capabilities, the amount of tokens required is growing exponentially, because they are approaching some kind of bottleneck.
He said the next step is to pause and rethink what to do. In the next three to four years, most companies will likely go through this round of reckoning.
He even suggested: exit now if you can—before this issue permeates the entire market, while valuations and fundraising can still be done at high levels.
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@0xCheshire: Chamath just revealed a deeply unsettling truth for the AI industry. He asked his own CTO to review the company's spending, and the result was staggering: "Our token costs are doubling every 45 days," yet the downstream productivity gains are at most about 5%. Costs are skyrocketing exponentially, while returns remain basically flat...
Chamath reveals the harsh reality of AI costs vs. returns: token costs double every 45 days, but downstream productivity gains are at most 5%. Large model capability improvement has hit an asymptote, and within the next 3-4 years, every company will face an ultimate reckoning between cost and benefit.
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