AI is swallowing everything. Every time ChatGPT updates, dozens of startups vanish overnight. PDF summarizers, writing assistants, code review bots. Someone’s 24 months of work is rendered powerless by one line: “Now we can do that too.” As giant AI platforms devour every sector, has opportunity really disappeared for startups?
History shows us a different answer. When smartphones swallowed everything, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Uber were born inside them. Craigslist split into dozens of unicorns. As Jim Barksdale said in 1995, there are exactly two ways to make money: bundling and unbundling. And every bundling is inevitably followed by unbundling.
This time, there is a new variable called vibe coding. An era has opened in which domain experts can build products themselves. If the cost of producing software approaches zero, demand for software will diverge toward infinity. As in Jevons’ paradox, developers are not disappearing. The total amount of software humanity consumes is exploding. This is the accelerator pedal for unbundling.
The cracks have already begun to appear. Vertical AI, interface innovation, proprietary data moats, and the agent economy and Web3 infrastructure. Among the things general-purpose AI does “well enough,” the market is beginning to demand “excellence” and “responsibility” again. Where are the niches from which the next unicorn will emerge? Through the 30-year history of bundling and unbundling, I’ve organized the questions founders should be asking now.
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