The same intelligence now costs two different prices, depending on how fast you want it.

OpenAI, Anthropic and Google will all charge you half if you can wait until tomorrow. Same model. Same answer. The only difference is that nobody is sitting there watching the screen.

Sail Research raised eighty million dollars to take that further and turn the wait into a dial instead of a switch.

A Harvard strategy class years ago put this in my head permanently.

A few Walmart suppliers admitted that none of them made a profit on Walmart order.
All of them were happy to keep supplying anyway.
Walmart ordered a year in advance, so the work ran in the weeks their factories would otherwise sit empty.

A quiet factory earns nothing.
A cheap order at least pays the salaries and keeps the forge running.

Here is where founders are losing money without noticing.

Most companies pay the urgent price for work nobody is waiting on.
The report that runs overnight.
The documents processed at 2am.
The monthly reconciliation nobody opens until Friday.

All of it billed as an emergency.

Software used to keep most of every dollar it earned.
AI products are keeping about half.

Speed has become a cost, not a feature.

Which part of your business actually needs the answer this second?


Krishna Lakamsani | Entrepreneur · Venture Studio Founder · Investor. Writing at the intersection of AI, capital, and the future of work.#MyLifeLessons #Reflections #InspireFounders #BuildInPublic #AiImpact