Zach emphasizes that early-stage startups should prioritize product-market fit over engineering perfection, learning from past efforts like rewriting Google Sheets. He critiques Google's slow AI progress despite its resources, favoring faster-moving competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic. While GPT and Claude lead in coding performance, high costs and questionable productivity gains challenge their real-world fit. Warp’s rapid growth—adding $1M ARR weekly—highlights the tension between scaling and margins in AI-driven tools. Defensibility lies not in models but in interface design, context handling, and workflow integration. On fundraising, Zach credits trusted investors like Sequoia for enabling long-term vision without pressure, stressing relationship-driven rounds over transactional pitches. He sees OpenAI excelling in consumer products but notes misaligned VC incentives. Ultimately, success will come to companies that balance smart growth, strategic investor partnerships, and superior user-centric execution in an increasingly competitive AI landscape.