AI founder declares the 'era of token-maxxing is coming to an end'

Tech Insider : Business
A software engineer is pictured.
Pylon CEO Marty Kausas (not pictured) wrote that most people "aren't conscious of what they're spending" on AI.

Maskot/Getty Images

Tokenmaxxing is entering its efficiency-maxxing era

Tech Insider : Business, Technology
A laptop with Claude Code AI stickers.
Anthropic's Claude Code has become one of the most popular AI coding tools.

Bloomberg/Getty Images

Amazon says it shut down a token leaderboard: 'Don't use AI just to use AI'

Tech Insider : Business, Technology
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Your AI bill is out of control. Google has been waiting for this moment.

Tech Insider : Business
Google CEO Sundar Pichai

Bloomberg/Getty Images

What smart people are saying about AI costs: 'Where's the revenue?'

Tech Insider : Business
A composite photo of Sam Altman, Andrew Macdonald, and Sundar Pichai
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google CEO Sundar Pichai have said they are hearing a lot from companies about rising AI costs. Uber COO Andrew Macdonald recently gave voice to those concerns.

Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg; Sam Barnes/Sportsfile for Collision; and Benjamin Fanjoy via Getty Images

Sam Altman has a proposition for startup founders: AI tokens for equity

Tech Insider : Business
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is pictured.
Sam Altman said that OpenAI will offer Y Combinator's current batch an equity-for-tokens deal.

Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

OpenClaw's creator used $1.3 million worth of AI tokens in a month and people are freaking out

Tech Insider : Business, Technology
OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger, who now works at OpenAI.
Peter Steinberger posted a $1.3 million monthly token bill, mostly for the development of OpenClaw. While his employer, OpenAI, foots the bill, it spawned a discussion about token spend.

YouTube/@OpenAI

I taught Claude to talk like a caveman to save my AI tokens. It became unusable — and I learned a lesson about virality.

Tech Insider : Business, Technology
Alexander Huso is pictured.
Alexander Huso taught Claude to talk like a caveman to save on output tokens.

Alexander Huso

Y Combinator's guide to being an AI-native company: tokenmaxx, don't headcountmaxx

Tech Insider : Business
The Y Combinator logo is pictured.
Y Combinator partner Diana Hu said that maximizing token usage will be "the critical shift."

Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Some startups are tokenmaxxing. Others tell us it's a 'stupid' trend that will die out.

Tech Insider : Business
Hassan Ismail, Brennan Lupyrypa, and Kavitta Ghai are pictured.
Startups take different strategies with token spending, from hard budgets to minimum quotas.

Hassan Ismail; Brennan Lupyrypa; Kavitta Ghai

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