At some point, after the dot-com collapse but around the time of the Facebook IPO, SF (and SV) started to attract people who cared more about the money than the tech itself. Creating a software product was seen not as a goal in itself, but as a means to make money. The actual thing, SaaS, social network, shopping, trading, whatever, didn't matter. All that mattered was that it could make money, the more the better.

Of course for now the AI companies are bleeding money, as it costs more per user than they charge, but that will change as soon as they accomplish the necessary lock-in.