Fireworks AI’s Lin Qiao wants to make AI agents cheaper to run

AI-powered apps can’t always afford to serve their customers. “Product market fit does not equal a viable business,” says Lin Qiao, CEO of Fireworks AI. “If startups aren’t careful, they can scale into bankruptcy.” Her company gives developers access to high-performance chips and the infrastructure to run artificial intelligence models in production, helping more than 10,000 companies, including Cursor, Uber, and DoorDash, build agents and workflows. Lin sees 2026 as the ye...