“This sounds sarcastic — petty even! — but it’s the truth, and nobody’s margins appear to be improving.”
Our reading, the sentence that was checked:
No AI startup's margins appear to be improving.
Assessment: Unresolved Evidence as of
Where and when Ed Zitron wrote it
Where's Your Ed At, Why Are We Still Doing This?, paragraph 89.
- Said
- Source observed
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence as of
- the cutoff for this assessment
- Assessment recorded
- assessment wyea-why-are-we-still-doing-this-16c575-a1
We recorded 33 claims from this post. See every claim from this post.
The wording above is the version this site observed on 2026-10-28. The source may have been edited after 2026-03-17. This page does not claim the wording was captured then.
What the claim commits to
- Kind
- Observation
- Deadline, as the speaker wrote it
- None stated. This site does not add one.
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Deadline state on 2026-10-29
- No horizon (the release’s reference date)
From the speaker
- nobody’s margins appear to be improving
- None of them are improving their margins
Our interpretation
- Read this as a factual claim about observable margin trends at AI startups. The repeated unqualified wording in the context makes it stronger than a statement of personal uncertainty.
- Gross margin is the ordinary reading in this discussion of model-serving costs. It is distinct from operating margin, net margin and profitability.
- Use the latest completed calendar year, 2025, compared with the preceding year, plus pre-post reporting about that period. This is an evaluator-selected period for the ongoing observation.
- The context relies on private-company financial reporting, so the intended basis is estimated margins rather than an explicitly stated GAAP or IFRS measure.
Counts as supported if: Comparable reported gross-margin trends establish no improvement across the relevant AI-startup population.
Counts as contradicted if: At least one identifiable AI startup has a credible, comparable gross-margin increase in the target period. Becoming profitable is not required.
Retrospective: these criteria were written after the outcome was public.
Current assessment
Was it true for the period described?
Outcome: Unresolved
The record was checked, and the evidence available by the cutoff does not settle it.
Scored on a plain reading. The speaker named no measure for this claim, so it was judged on the reading an informed reader would take, stated below under our interpretation. Both reviews had to find that reading fair.
- Evidence as of
- Deadline state when assessed
- No horizon
- Assessment recorded
- Policy version
- 2026-10-28.7
Rationale
There is material counterevidence: a survey public before the post reported improving AI-product margins in 2025. But it covers software companies building AI products and does not isolate named startups or their whole-company margins. The relevant named-company reports were inaccessible or explicitly partial. I would not support the universal assertion, but these admissible records do not meet the stricter company-and-metric test for a definitive contradiction.
Limitations
- The two cited items describe the same survey.
- Survey responses are self-reported estimates.
- The 2026 margin projection is not treated as an achieved result.
- Failure to verify an accessible counterexample does not establish that no counterexample exists.
Evidence (2 items)
Context only: ICONIQ,
AI gross margins are improving
Why it matters here: The underlying chart reports average AI-product margins rising from 41% in 2024 to 45% in 2025; 52% is a separate projection. The anonymous software-company survey does not isolate an identifiable startup's whole-company margin trend.
- Publisher
- ICONIQ
- Kind of source
- Independent measurement
- Measures
- Software companies building AI products surveyed by ICONIQ, Average gross margin on AI products percent, estimate, 2024-01-01 to 2025-12-31
- Describes events of
- Public from
Context only: Upstarts Media,
Gross margins
Why it matters here: This pre-post report corroborates the survey's historical increase and also describes rising application-layer margins. It reports the same survey as e1, so it is not independent confirmation of individual company accounts.
- Publisher
- Upstarts Media
- Kind of source
- News report
- Measures
- Software companies building AI products surveyed by ICONIQ, Average gross margin on AI products percent, estimate, 2024-01-01 to 2025-12-31
- Describes events of
- Public from
What would settle it
A usable full-text source documenting a comparable gross-margin increase at an identifiable AI startup during the target period, or representative matched-company evidence supporting the claimed absence of improvement.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the sources this register covers.
: Where's Your Ed At, Why Are We Still Doing This?
This sounds sarcastic — petty even! — but it’s the truth, and nobody’s margins appear to be improving.
- Where
- paragraph 89
- Published
- 2026-03-17
- Source observed
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Assessment versions
- Assessment wyea-why-are-we-still-doing-this-16c575-a1: Current. Outcome: Unresolved. Evidence as of 2026-10-28. Public date not recorded.
Recorded events
Assessment publishedBy this site
First assessment published after both reviews and the final-text check passed.
About assessment wyea-why-are-we-still-doing-this-16c575-a1.