Perplexity launches “Billion Dollar Build,” an 8-week competition challenging teams to create startups with $1B potential using its AI tools, offering up to $2M in funding and credits

Computer only shipped on Feb. 27 and had GPT-5.3-Codex plus Model Council bolted on by Mar. 6, so this comp reads like a live mainnet stress test for Perplexity’s agent stack. Closer to ETHGlobal or Colosseum than YC: throw credits at builders, watch where the loops choke on connectors, latency, or cost, then ship product around those failure points. If AI infra goes the way cheap blockspace did, distribution and proprietary workflow data end up being the moat, not one more model endpoint.

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