Is AI Cheaper or More Expensive? Yes.

The guys are back and talking about what AI actually costs to run: tokens, CI minutes, payroll, and the capacity to keep going. The question this week: what's the hardest problem in your business right now, and what are you most excited about? Charles is burning through tokens on computer-use agents for a regulated health client and has built governors and watchdogs to cap the spend. Drew runs a "Warden" that reviews and merges code on a daily budget. Alan explains why Torta's real bill is CI minutes, not model calls. Then the conversation turns to the productize-or-scale fork every services company hits, clients graduating, payroll every two weeks with no board to call, and Drew's first months back at work after losing his son. 00:00 The hardest problem and the most exciting thing 00:58 Burning tokens on computer-use agents for regulated health data 04:38 Wait for cheaper models or optimize now: governors, watchdogs, and a warden 10:43 Linear tickets, cheap execution models, and why CI minutes are the real bill 14:20 Deterministic checks versus AI reviewers 16:12 Torta's inflection point 22:57 The big guys' weapons in house, services versus SaaS margins, and asymmetric bets 28:13 When owning your infrastructure pays off 32:40 Clients graduating, going down market, and building Armory 37:02 Recurring revenue and running bootstrapped on a two-week payroll 40:43 Grief, emotional capacity, and why the CLT startup house keeps Drew going 46:06 Hire before you feel comfortable, lean on co-founders, and build a nest egg first Links from the episode: CLT Startup House: https://cltstartuphouse.com/ Linear: https://linear.app/ Sentry: https://sentry.io/ CodeRabbit: https://www.coderabbit.ai/ Hosts: Drew Burdick, founder of StealthX and CLT Startup House:   / drewhburdick   Charles D'Andrea, founder of Pattern 50:   / charlesdandrea   Colin Thornton, co-founder of Torta Studios:   / colincthornton   Alan Corvalis, co-founder of Torta Studios:   / corvalis   Follow Builders of Charlotte on social media: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2uTS7fn... Instagram:   / buildersofcharlotte   LinkedIn:   / buildersofcharlotte   If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!