AI is killing most startups, and most don't realise it yet

AI is the best thing to happen to founders in years. You can build in days, not months. You don't even need to know how to code. It has never been easier to make something.

And that's the problem.

AI doesn't just help you build fast. It helps you build the wrong thing fast. Building used to be slow and cost money, so you were forced to stop and think first. Now nothing stops you. You can spend weeks on a product, feel busy the whole time, and only find out later that you were going the wrong way from day one.

There's a second problem too, and it's a quieter one.

AI writes a lot of code, very fast. And most of the time, nobody on the team really understands it. That causes two problems.

The first is called technical debt. Think of it like a credit card for code. You take shortcuts to go fast now, but you pay for them later, with interest. The quick fixes pile up until the code becomes a pain to change.

The second is something I studied for my master's degree. It's called bus factor. The idea is simple: how many people would have to suddenly vanish before your project falls apart? (The dark joke behind the name is "get hit by a bus.") If only one person understands the code, your bus factor is one. That's risky. And if AI wrote it and nobody understands it, your bus factor is basically zero. Nobody can safely change it. Not even you.

So before you let AI build anything for you, be honest about a few questions:

• Who is it for? One real person, not "everyone."
• What problem does it fix? In their words.
• Why now? What changed.
• What's the smallest version that proves it?

And one more, now that AI is involved: will anyone actually understand this after it's built?

AI is like a fast car. It will get you somewhere quickly, but it won't tell you where to drive, and it won't teach you how the engine works. Use it to move fast. Just make sure a real person still understands what you're building.

I explained the first few questions more here: Three questions before you build any product.