Proof or Math
There is more money chasing enterprise AI deals right now than at any point in the technology’s short history, and a surprising amount of it is being spent badly.
Maybe not on the wrong products, but definitely on the wrong customers.
What usually happens is that a company with a genuinely good AI product decides its first job is to win a marquee logo, a name recognizable enough to anchor a sales deck, on the theory that prestige clears the path for everyone after it. The revenue from that first deal barely matters, and is often discounted to nothing, because the logo is the whole point.
For a certain kind of AI company, that is exactly the correct instinct. For a larger number of them, it is a slow and expensive way to lose the market to whoever skipped the ceremony and started selling.
What decides which one you are on is not product quality or team strength. It comes down to one person, the individual who has to sign the contract, and two questions about them worth getting right before a funding round answers for you.