Lessons from a Startup Life

Lessons from a Startup Life

Your Token Count Is Not a Scoreboard

Doug Levin's avatar
Doug Levin
Jun 27, 2026
∙ Paid

A pattern is showing up in board, e-staff decks and all-hands meeting slides: teams pointing to rising token consumption as evidence that their AI investment is working. “We processed 4 billion tokens last quarter, up 60% !! How ‘bout dat!”

The number is presented like a sales metric: great for signaling growth, less useful for judging real value.

To be c…

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