The Avalanche Skeptic
The bill is small — what could go wrong?
The Avalanche Skeptic hears an AI cost warning and treats it like someone brought a snow shovel to a sunny day. The current bill is small, the pilot is contained, and the API calls look harmless. Their signature line is 'this is a small project,' 'it's just API calls,' or 'why would we bother forecasting that?' The problem is not the first token. It is the slope.
Symptom
Cost warnings are dismissed as premature. The skeptic treats today's bill as the permanent rate, ignoring that AI costs scale with adoption, not intention.
Why It Matters
The Avalanche Skeptic's confidence is based on a snapshot. AI spend does not grow linearly — it compounds as tools become embedded in workflows, teams expand usage, and context windows widen. By the time the skeptic acknowledges the trend, the bill has already avalanched.
What the Chapter Gives You
Why 'it's just API calls' is the most expensive sentence in FinOps, how to forecast AI spend before the slope becomes a cliff, and the question that turns a skeptic into a planner.
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