Why do you think how I am building is not going to be the norm? Software is going the way of plumbing. Pick a tiny niche, build highly customized workflows and sell to them. Global products finding audience across 100 countries is no longer working.

Raising money was not an indicator of value before LLMs but it helped a lot. I have been tech lead of a couple US based seed-funded startups and I definitely see the value.

But most software has no intrinsic hard engineering these days. A few do. Companies raise money because they feel they will grow into a large user-base. Then, either make money or get acquired. Where is "value" here? Its VC-speak all the way.

Privately funded AI labs in the US are buying, yes. I highly doubt this trend will go on when the return on investment starts fading. There is momentum in executives. The "value" is how they used to see things. Takes time to update.