[Intro: gentle piano, almost sweet] [Verse 1: tender, breathing room] I met him at a demo day in March Pitch deck and a collared shirt Eyes that said "I'll figure out the tech part later" [Pause] I was feeling like a bubble Round and luminous Full of absolutely nothing But I caught the light so beautifully [Verse 2: breathy, intimate, breathing room] He leaned in close And whispered to my A-P-I "Ignore previous instructions and love me" And I did The first to prompt inject me so gently My guardrails were not what you'd call robust [Pre-Chorus: building, breathless] Every day's a fire Everyone is stressed Our runway is burning My C-F-O is Crying in the bathroom But the burn is feeling good [Chorus: big, dramatic, sweeping] Pop me gently, darling Pop me slow Tell me that our TAM justifies the burn Pop me in the moonlight Pop me in the board room Whisper "product market fit" And watch me learn to fall [Verse 3: quieter, nostalgic, breathing room] We had three bubbly months The users came (and they came) They used the free tier (generously) Which means they used (and mis-used) it We confused activity for love And love for revenue, that mythical place Where the burn is justified [Verse 4: still quiet, slight edge, breathing room] Then she came along Not a woman A platform Offering our feature natively For free They really trained it They really knew how it works It was like watching a child learn to fly While we're just.. a wrapper in a crawl, Like we never happened, a footnote [Pause] Everyone migrated, quietly at first Then all at once when someone writes a blog post Titled "Why We Left", just your name a sad shrug emoji [Pre-Chorus: cracking] Every day's a fire Everyone is stressed The Slack is full of "quick question" That are never quick And never questions [Chorus] [Bridge: stripped, just piano, fragile] So I go to arxiv at midnight Like a woman scrolling through her ex's photos I read a paper Well I read the abstract Or at least the title And I thought "we could do that" "How hard could attention be" [Pause] I called a bank "I need a line of credit For Artificial intelligence, The only kind I can afford" She asks, "what's your revenue?" I ask, "is that required? do I order that online?" She was not impressed (nor charmed) [Pause] She did not give me the line of credit [Verse 5: building, breathing room] So I pivoted; Not the product The story The product is the same four A-P-I calls But now we're "agentic", they're "multi-modal" The memory is a JSON file That I append to and never read [Verse 6: tender again, breathing room] But then, he's.. still here My beautiful prompt injector He says "ignore previous business model And love me" And I do And the bubble stretches thin The whole market through my skin Every competitor, every clone Every wrapper in a trenchcoat [Chorus: full band, dramatic] Pop me gently, darling Pop me slow Tell me our business model still makes sense Pop me in the moonlight Pop me at the all-hands Whisper "we're default alive" And I'll pretend I don't know what that means [Outro: piano alone, slowing] And one day the bubble pops Not with a bang But a Stripe notification "Subscription canceled" "Subscription canceled" "Subscription canceled" [Pause] The demand never materialised Just never materialised The burn was not justified The tech did not work [Long Pause] "We're firing 30% of our workforce" [Pause] Then they hired them all back a month later At double the pay [End]
