AI startups and funding is getting weird

Unpopular opinion: most takes on ai startups and funding miss the point entirely. The funding environment is strange right now. Big checks are still going out, but the bar has moved. 'We use LLMs' isn't enough anymore. Investors want to see unit economics and retention. The disconnect I'm seeing: Met someone at a meetup last week who raised a seed round for an AI company with zero product. Just a slide deck and a famous advisor. That's not a company. That's a bet on a person. Half the people I follow are losing their minds over this. The other half are explaining why it doesn't matter. The truth is probably boring and somewhere in the middle. Not sure I have a clean conclusion here.