That is a big "if", which doesn't cut it with startups looking for VCs, given 95% of these ML startups depend on OpenAI's APIs. What I am looking for is 'even if'.

So even if they make money AND hire 'data scientists', there is a higher chance that they will run out of money quicker since they are competing against Google, Microsoft and OpenAI which they all can afford to run everything at a loss for free and raise their prices which eats these startup's revenue.

Either way, they are locked into these APIs and they aren't focused on profitability to even begin building their own models at this stage. If they are not profitable by the time the price increases come in, they are going to be struggling for survival.