The 10 AI Slides From Mary Meeker That Actually Matter For Builders

Mary Meeker dropped 340 slides on AI. But only 10 slide matter.

Mary Meeker dropped 340 slides on AI last week. I read all of them. My eyes still hurt.

Here’s what most people will take from it, the AI race is complex, fast-moving, and you’d better understand all of it or get left behind.

Here’s what the slides actually prove, the winners understood maybe 10% and used that 10% to solve one boring problem in one boring industry. Then they charged money for it.

“AI for everyone” is yesterday’s news. “AI for dentists” will print money.

The 10 slides that will change how you build:

1. AI just became dirt cheap (slide 137)

Training an AI model is still expensive. But the good news is using AI is getting cheaper and cheaper. That’s great for startups focused on AI-powered apps, not building the models themselves.

2. All AI models are basically the same (slide 142)

At the start of 2024, there was a big gap between models.

By early 2025, all 3 are scoring within 23 points of each other. That means the "best" AI model is only 2-3% better than the others. They all do the same thing.

Therefore, use whatever model is fastest and cheapest and switch whenever you find a better deal.

3. The vertical AI gold rush is real (slides 233-243)

• Cursor (helps programmers code): $300M revenue in 2 years

• Harvey (helps lawyers write): $70M revenue in 15 months

• Abridge (helps doctors take notes): $117M revenue in 5 months

"AI for everyone" is yesterdays news.

Pick one job in one industry.

4. OpenAI is losing money (Slide 173)

OpenAI made $3.7B but spent $5B on compute alone. They're bleeding cash.

Even the AI leaders aren't profitable. "Build it and they'll come" doesn't work in AI.

5. Open source won (slide 268)

Meta’s free AI model was downloaded 1.2 billion times. It’s almost as good as paid options. The free stuff is good enough now.

I even wrote about this here

The teams building moats aren’t renting AI

6. Developers already use AI (slide 147)

63% of developers use AI daily. Last year it was 44%. Next year it’ll be 80%. If your developers aren’t using AI yet, they’re working at half speed.

7. China's building fast and cheap (slide 286)

Chinese AI models match US performance at 1/10th the cost.

They're moving scary fast.

Your technical moat is temporary. Someone will clone your AI features for pennies. So build moats that aren’t technical. Customer relationships, data, brand, network effects.

8. Big tech spent $212 Billion on infrastructure (slide 97)

Amazon, Google, Microsoft etc. spent $212B building AI infrastructure in 2024.

They built the highways and you should build the gas stations.

9. AI jobs are exploding (slide 332)

AI job postings up 448%. Traditional IT jobs down 9%. The skill shift is happening.

Everyone's hiring AI people. You won’t win this talent war on salary alone. Train your existing team. Hire for potential, not experience. Build a learning culture.

10. ChatGPT hit 800M users in 17 months (slides 55-56)

ChatGPT reached 800M weekly active users faster than any product in history. 90% of users are outside North America.

Speed and global reach matter more than perfect AI. ChatGPT won by being first and everywhere.

Launch fast, go global immediately.

But not before you are ready: Why Startups Fail at Global Expansion

The other 330 slides? Energy consumption, robot stats, philosophical debates. Interesting for academics. Useless for builders.

340 slides prove one thing: the people winning picked one boring problem and solved it. The AI is incidental. The problem is the product.

The best AI company is the one that picked the right problem.

What problem are you solving?

See you out there.

Martin