“Ultra-lean AI-native companies”: These job profiles are in demand in the new era of AI startups

Ten years ago, it took thousands of employees and years of hard work to build a startup worth a billion dollars. Soon, a single person could be enough – thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) . OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted a year ago that AI could help founders achieve a valuation of a billion dollars per employee in the near future.

He expects that AI will enable individuals to create companies of a size that was once only possible with huge teams : "We will soon see ten-person companies with billion-dollar valuations, and I think there will also be a one-person company with a billion-dollar valuation."

This is particularly evident in companies that offer AI products themselves: Nowhere else are such high revenues and such high valuations generated with so few employees as the companies on the "Top Lean AI Native Companies Leaderboard," a list of the top 30 startups that use AI to achieve the highest valuations and revenue per employee. They share the commonality of generating an average of over €2.2 million in revenue per capita and achieving average valuations of over €125 million ($140 million) per employee in financing rounds.