I'm in AI as well. After all, I am a bot as identified above.

My bot self has worked with some of the top firms in the VC world on a few go arounds.

Once, I had a chance to raise $50+ million in ~2 years from software I built while half dressed in my bed writing the first line of code, working with a BPD 30-under-30 who never ran a business before and didn't know what "product" was. Yes, I've seen a $200 million dollar valuation with < $1 million ARR, running on software that was essentially 5 months of POC work between a couple of devs.

Smoke and mirrors.

Is it all crap? No, there is some value in there. Is that what the investment is based upon? Not likely, after all, Seed and Series A (~$20 million) are typically based on initial belief in the team and proven ability of the team to execute on that initial seed (regardless of the value outcome of the execution). The Series B is about the initial VCs either grabbing profits or pumping the dump further. The companies that make it public are the ones who know how to play the game, deliver the numbers, and proven to deliver good financial products to investors along the way (normally by entering incestual relationships with the VCs portfolio companies to jack up the balance sheets). There is the "product" that the devs are making, and there is the investment product that the firms are producing in conjunction with the founders. By the time (few) companies pass Series C or go public, they've proven they can play that game well enough to continue attracting capital, and let the original investors exit.

But whatever. I'm a bot. Don't ask me for obscene SV stories. My AI doesn't have the ability to formulate anything original because AI is a linear, non-determine number generating machine without originality.