Token demand 10x-ing, supply only 3x-ing
Gavin Baker argued on Invest Like the Best that AI token demand is growing 10x next year while supply is only growing 3x, implying prices must rise.
Snapshot · God Mode Podcast
SpaceX Down 35% From IPO | Cancelling Claude Max for Cursor and Codex | $800 in AI Subs, $50K of Code | DeepSeek Hikes Prices | 25 AI Predictions Graded | EP25
Explore episode
Aug 8, 2026
Where this was said
DeepSeek, too cheap to see on the chart
At 17:40 · chapter starts 15:02
Rik pulls up the token-cost chart that had been circulating on his timeline: Anthropic, OpenAI, Moonshot, Alibaba Qwen all show visible bars. DeepSeek V4 Flash is barely a sliver. The gap between proprietary subscriptions and DeepSeek's open-source API is so small that the subscriptions actually win on pure token value. But then the news drops mid-recording: DeepSeek has announced major API price increases. Ben unpacks the nuance — DeepSeek is open-source, so users can theoretically pull the model and run it elsewhere, meaning the official API hike is really about DeepSeek trying to make money rather than a fundamental model cost increase. Still, the direction of travel is clear: even the cheapest corner of the AI market is now moving toward monetisation, and the era of austerity pricing may be giving way to something more expensive across the board.
DeepSeek price hike mid-episode
DeepSeek, previously so cheap its pricing barely registered on token-cost charts, announced significant API price increases mid-episode.
Gavin Baker's Warning: Tokens Are About to Get More Expensive
Investor Gavin Baker laid out a stark supply-demand mismatch for AI tokens: demand is growing 10x next year while supply grows only 3x. Frontier labs won't cut pre-training to free up capacity, so consumer prices are heading up.
Similar snapshots
MVP built in one week
Sam's initial MVP was coded in approximately one week using ChatGPT voice mode and copy-pasting code, with no prior technical experience.
Discord vs email for young users
Sam argues Discord is 10x better than email for building relationships with younger users who rarely check their inbox.
Monthly infra costs ~$780–$980
Sam's monthly operating costs include Cursor ($200), AI image generation ($100), AI video generation ($200), hosting ($100), email marketing ($80), and AI compute ($300–$500).
ChatGPT-powered pain point research
Sam recommends copying days of Discord chat history into ChatGPT and prompting it to list recurring pain points as a fast, free market research technique.
50 free tools built total
Bhanu and his team built approximately 50 free tools to attract search traffic, each linked back to SiteGPT.
New tool built in under 5 minutes
With AI coding tools like Cursor, Bhanu can now create a new free marketing tool in less than 5 minutes by referencing existing tools.
KD filter < 10 for rankable keywords
Bhanu filters Ahrefs keyword results to show only those with a keyword difficulty below 10, making them realistic ranking targets for any decent website.
Minimum 1,000 monthly search volume
Bhanu sets a minimum search volume of 1,000 monthly searches when selecting keywords to target with free tools.
20 downloads/day at launch
PropGPT averaged 20 downloads per day right after launching on the App Store through influencer marketing.
