Everyone's pivoting to AI—but most are doing it wrong. After conducting in-depth interviews with leaders at 17 developer tools startups that attempted to "add AI" to their roadmap, I've uncovered the patterns that led to either spectacular success or painful failure. This isn't abstract theory—it's battle-tested wisdom from companies that bet their future on AI and lived to tell the tale.

You'll learn: - The three most common AI pivot traps that led otherwise promising startups to burn through runway with nothing to show for it - Why adding an AI feature doesn't constitute a real AI transformation (and what actually does) - The counterintuitive "backward pivot" strategy that worked for 5 of the most successful transitions - A practical framework for evaluating if your existing developer tooling can meaningfully evolve in the AI era or needs to be reimagined from scratch