The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors SaaStr 818: Anthropic, Cursor, Fal & Bessemer: The Realities of Scaling AI
Sep 5, 2025
Talia Goldberg, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, Jacob Jackson from Cursor, and Gorkem Yurtseven, the CTO of FAL, dive into the dynamic AI landscape. They discuss how AI companies are redefining key metrics and the challenges of scaling, including evolving pricing strategies and the impact of operational costs. The trio shares insights on user-centric product development, the shift to flexible sales quotas, and collaborative practices that drive innovation in generative media. Their expertise offers an intriguing look into the future of AI in business.
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Transcript
Episode notes
AI Lowers SaaS-Like Gross Margins
- AI changes unit economics: marginal cost per additional customer is nontrivial due to compute and inference costs.
- That drives lower gross margins than traditional SaaS even as growth accelerates rapidly.
Model Progress Raises Cost To Serve
- Model advancement increases demand for bigger, costlier models meaning inference costs can rise even if older models get cheaper.
- Hardware improvements lag modeling progress, so cost-to-serve may stay high for the near term.
Manage COGS Like You Manage CAC
- Treat COGS like CAC: control inference and compute spend before overspending on acquisition.
- Prioritize profitable unit economics and align pricing to cover expensive model usage.