Buy Now, Maybe Pay Later: Dealing with Prompt-Tax While Staying at the Frontier - Andrew Thomspson
Jun 3, 2025 · 25:09
Andrew Thompson, CTO of Orbital, introduces the concept of Prompt-Tax: the hidden cost of migrating prompts when upgrading AI models. He shares how his agentic product automates real estate due diligence, growing from <1B to 20B monthly tokens and zero to multiple seven-figure ARR over 18 months. Key tactics include optimizing for prompting over fine-tuning, using domain experts (ex-lawyers) to write prompts, and relying on vibes over formal evals. Thompson advocates 'betting on the model'—shipping new frontier models immediately and fixing regressions on the fly using progressive rollouts and rapid feedback loops. A clip from Demis Hassabis underscores the unique challenge of evolving tech stacks. The episode concludes with questions on whether evals or progressive delivery scale to manage Prompt-Tax.
