Chapter Thirteen

Build vs Buy vs
Orchestrate
+ Infrastructure

Infrastructure decisions are where 70% of AI product pain crystallizes: surprise token bills, latency that kills UX trust, compliance audits that halt launches, and agent loops that quietly burn $8K overnight.

📖 ~14 min readPages 89–95
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The $47K weekTool-calling without rate limits. One agent loop. One weekend.

The spreadsheet you built in Q1 comparing tokens is already obsolete. You're not choosing “build” or “buy.” You're choosing what you own, what you rent, and when you stand up the orchestra conductor.

CONTROL + COST AT SCALE → SPEED TO VALUE → HIGH SPEEDLOW SPEEDHIGH CONTROL ①APIHOSTED APIsFastest, least controlOpenAI · Anthropic · GroqChatbot MVP ②MGDMANAGED PLATFORMSBalanced speed & complianceBedrock · Azure · VertexAuditors happy ✓ ③OSSOPEN-SOURCE HOSTEDSweet spot for manyFireworks · Together · DeepInfra★ SWEET SPOTBreak-even:20–40M tokens/mo → self-host ④OWNSELF-HOSTEDMax control, max ops burdenvLLM + K8s on your GPUsRegulated agent$150K+ GPUs upfront typical migration paths → 90% of teams start at ①. The question isn't if you migrate —it's when and which direction.
Figure 13.1 — Decision Matrix. Plot your use case on both axes. Most teams start at ① and migrate right or down as volume, compliance, or cost pressure grows.
Chapter 13

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