"Your only model is speed. You must innovate faster than everyone else. It's like running a marathon at an extremely high speed."
In 2025, developing AI applications has become unprecedentedly easy, but the survival of startups is becoming increasingly difficult.
Not because the technical barriers are too high, but because giants like OpenAI and Google are crushing every emerging innovator with capital and traffic. When ChatGPT can generate code with a single click and Gemini can automatically complete business plans, what can startups rely on to establish themselves?
Recently, at a startup sharing session by Y Combinator, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas candidly opened up about how an AI startup can thrive in the cracks between Google and OpenAI.
This 40-minute high-density dialogue was not the usual success story, but a survival guide for AI startups:
- Speed is life: When giants start to replicate your ideas, your product iterations must be faster than their decision-making processes.
- Precise positioning: Establish a "cognitive moat" in niche areas where giants cannot fully invest.
- Embrace flaws: Turn every bug into an opportunity for co-creation with users.
This article will analyze how Perplexity broke through the giants' blockade in three years, distilling the three iron laws of entrepreneurship in the AI era: pinpoint breakthrough × extreme speed × user co-creation.
01 Find the battlefield where giants "cannot fully commit"
"Google has the best engineers in the world, but they just can't do AI search well," Aravind bluntly stated on stage.
As the audience gasped at this "provocation," he followed up with a sharp observation: the giants' greatest strength is precisely their biggest weakness.
The 2023 Google Bard demonstration failure, which led to a 6% drop in stock price, has become a classic case in the AI era.
Aravind's interpretation was refreshing: "It's like asking an Olympic gymnastics champion to also compete in weightlifting. Google's advertising machine generates $200 billion in revenue each year, but that also means:
They dare not directly integrate AI answers into core search (it would disrupt the advertising ecosystem).
They cannot afford any public mistakes (stock price sensitive).
They will not rebuild their business model for AI (the opportunity cost is too high)."
This dilemma of "dancing with shackles" provided Perplexity with a precise breakthrough point:
"We specialize in what Google cannot do—providing precise answers without ads and citing every information source."
A detail from the live demonstration was particularly convincing: when a user searched for "what scenic hotels are near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco," Google prioritized ads from bidding platforms, while Perplexity directly listed hotels that met the criteria, along with real ratings from Tripadvisor and booking links.
"This is what search should look like," remarked a serial entrepreneur in the audience, "Google knows the correct answer, but their business model does not allow them to show it."
02 When AI can write code, what is the real barrier?
"Now fixing a bug is faster than writing a new feature used to be."
The development process Aravind showcased left traditional developers astonished:
▪ Product managers take a photo of UI issues with their phones and directly import it into Cursor AI.
▪ AI automatically generates SwiftUI code modification suggestions.
▪ Engineers review and immediately push hot updates.
For example: In March of this year, a user reported "unable to save long conversation history." A traditional company might need:
1 day to reproduce the issue.
3 days to discuss solutions.
1 week for development and testing.
While the Perplexity team:
10:00 AM: User email arrives in the CEO's inbox.
10:15 AM: AI automatically generates three solutions.
11:30 AM: Solution selected and coding completed.
2:00 PM: Update pushed to 20% of users.
Before 5 PM: Full release based on feedback.
"This is not a technical miracle, but a cognitive reconstruction," Aravind explained, "We no longer pursue 'getting it right the first time,' but rather 'rapid trial and error.' Fixing 20 bugs a day is more important than releasing one perfect version a week."
The compounding effect of this speed is astonishing:
- User retention rate increased threefold (because demand response is measured in hours).
- Employee productivity increased fivefold (AI handles 70% of repetitive coding).
- Product iteration speed surpasses Google's similar feature update cycle.
"Google IO releases a new 'AI search model' once a year, while we have a major update every two weeks," Aravind's timeline comparison elicited knowing smiles from the audience.
03 Browser: The forced "D-Day"
"If we only do search, we will eventually be swallowed by ChatGPT."
When Aravind announced going all-in on the browser, even YC partners showed surprise.
This seemingly risky decision was backed by a brutal survival arithmetic:
The countdown to the death of traditional search.
"The browser is our D-Day," Aravind explained this do-or-die decision with a military metaphor: "When all coasts are blocked by the enemy, you must create your own landing point."
Cognitive operating system vs chat box
The killer scenarios of the Perplexity browser were eye-opening:
🔺Scenario 1: Automatic price comparison
"Find the cheapest San Francisco-London flight in the past six months, excluding red-eye flights" → Automatically scan 10+ websites to generate a price comparison report.
🔺Scenario 2: Research assistant
"Organize financing cases in the AI pharmaceutical field over the past three years" → Parallel scan Crunchbase/academic papers/earnings call transcripts.
🔺Scenario 3: Personal assistant
"Using my calendar and email data, find the three best time slots for working out next week" → Automatically book a gym.
"This is no longer a tool, but an extension of the cerebral cortex," in the demo Aravind showcased, the browser was running 12 asynchronous tasks simultaneously—including monitoring competitor product updates, automatically renewing cloud services, and tracking delivery logistics—interacting entirely in natural language like background processes on a computer.
04 The new role of the CEO: Chief Bug Exterminator
"This morning I personally fixed three bugs, which might be the worst case of time management for a CEO."
Aravind's self-deprecation resonated with the entrepreneurs.
In this era where AI is reconstructing everything, the role of leaders is undergoing subtle changes:
Traditional CEO
- Strategic planning
- Fundraising roadshows
- Team building
AI era CEO
- Product sensitivity radar: able to sniff out anomalies in the code.
- User feedback decoder: extracting demand signals from complaints.
- Flaw excavator: turning every bug into an opportunity for improvement.
"Kitchen theory" management method
Aravind's shared team culture was impressive:
"I treat the company like a restaurant kitchen, and all engineers must take turns in customer service. When you see users miss flights due to search errors, that shock is more effective than any KPI."
This "immersive management" brought astonishing results:
- Customer service response time reduced from 6 hours to 23 minutes.
- Engineers voluntarily organized "bug-fixing marathons" that fix over 100 edge cases weekly.
- User emails directly drove 60% of product improvements.
"Google may never be able to do this," a former Google engineer whispered in the audience, "Their CEO cannot see the real pain of users."
05 The shortcut for small companies
"AI has not changed the essence of business; it has only reduced the cost of innovation from millions of dollars to the price of a lunch."
——Aravind Srinivas closing remarks
The most shocking moment of the speech was when Aravind presented a comparison image:
Asymmetric resource warfare
"This is the true dividend for startups," Aravind's conclusion was resounding: "When giants must fight with aircraft carriers, you can land in their blind spots with a speedboat."
As the audience left, each received a special "gift"—a card printed with a list of all public bugs from Perplexity. "Welcome to challenge our weaknesses," this Zen-like gesture may be the most seductive entrepreneurial declaration of the AI era.
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