Paper Unicorns Are Cheap. Building A $1B Revenue AI Company Takes A Multimarket Cap Table
AI startups should be judged by durable revenue, full-price renewals and healthy margins after delivery costs, with embedded customer workflows providing stronger defensibility as model access gets cheaper, rather than their paper valuation, writes guest author Ilman Shazhaev, founder and CEO of Dizzaract, who suggests that founders should build global investor bases that support customer acquisition and market entry while weighing venture growth expectations against sovereign-backed investors’ localization, governance and other obligations.