Arun Agrahri
AI Model Selection for Startups

AI 20 min read

AI Model Selection for Startups

Claude vs GPT vs Gemini: What YC Partners Recommend

We analyzed 47 Y Combinator videos featuring Andrej Karpathy, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and other AI leaders to extract practical guidance on which models to use and when.

  • What Does the 2025 AI Model Landscape Look Like?
  • What Is Karpathy's Software 3.0 Framework?
  • What Are the Practical Differences Between Claude, GPT, and Gemini?

Guide Map

  1. 1 What Does the 2025 AI Model Landscape Look Like?
  2. 2 What Is Karpathy's Software 3.0 Framework?
  3. 3 What Are the Practical Differences Between Claude, GPT, and Gemini?
  4. 4 When Should You Use Reasoning Models Like o1 or DeepSeek R1?
  5. 5 What Should Founders Know About Scaling Laws?
  6. 6 How Do You Write State-of-the-Art Prompts for AI Agents?
  7. 7 Should You Use Open Source or Closed AI Models?
  8. 8 Which AI Model Should You Use for Your Startup?

47

YC videos analyzed

78%

Cost reduction possible

6

Frontier model providers

10x

Context window growth in 2 years