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Is the SaaS Bubble Finally Bursting? - Chamath Palihapitiya

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Is the SaaS Bubble Finally Bursting? - Chamath Palihapitiya

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213 segments

0:00

If I had to guess about what has changed

0:03

from 2021 to 2025

0:06

is that most companies have realized

0:09

that buying yet another

0:13

vertical software solution is not going

0:15

to help their business that it typically

0:18

adds bloat, it adds cost and it adds

0:22

people. And I think starting in 2023,

0:26

what people started to guess is at some

0:29

point in the near future, you're going

0:31

to have some AI way of rewriting all of

0:36

this vertical software. And I think

0:38

that's why it stopped growing. I don't

0:40

think this SAS market ever had the

0:44

return on equity that it was supposed

0:46

to. And I think so many companies have

0:49

woken up from this hangover saying

0:51

there's got to be a better way. It can't

0:53

always be yet another tool, yet another

0:56

program, yet another multi-year delay,

1:00

yet another price escalator. And I think

1:03

that that the jig is totally up for

1:06

software. You're referring to the

1:08

Salesforce and the SAS category,

1:11

Chimoth, and what you're doing at 8090

1:13

specifically. Yeah. Well, it's it's not

1:15

just us, but like if you look at anybody

1:16

that's rebuilding software,

1:19

it is so much easier to rebuild software

1:22

from scratch today. Like my team of 30

1:25

people can transact hundreds of millions

1:29

of dollars of work. Not because we are

1:31

so prolifically amazing, but frankly

1:34

because well, I think the team is good,

1:35

but honestly because the underlying tool

1:37

chain gives you a level of leverage. And

1:40

so if you rebuild the software

1:42

development life cycle using these

1:44

tools,

1:46

you can't help it but become much more

1:48

efficient and you can't help it but

1:50

deliver custom solutions that are

1:52

meaningfully cheaper. And I think Jason,

1:54

if you look at the entirety of the

1:56

software that runs the world, we're

1:59

going to rebuild it soup to nuts. all of

2:01

that and the tool you're referring to

2:03

just for the audience is the AI

2:05

co-pilots that are making that are

2:07

contributing 30 40% to code bases at

2:10

Microsoft and less less specifically

2:12

that because those are those are good

2:14

for individual people but the software

2:16

development life cycle is more the

2:17

horizontal end to end of making things

2:19

got it so what we do internally at 8090

2:22

is we have an entire process that starts

2:24

from the PRD all the way out to the

2:26

functioning code and we use different

2:28

techniques at each step but what you get

2:30

is a 50 60 70% increase at each step

2:35

which then compounds. And so you have

2:37

the ability of a team that would

2:39

otherwise be able to service tens of

2:41

millions of dollars be a team that can

2:44

service hundreds of millions and then a

2:45

team that would otherwise service

2:46

hundreds can service billions. Let me

2:48

ask you guys your response to this

2:50

theory. If there is going to be this

2:53

kind of accelerated

2:55

call it custom software rebuild of

2:58

business models and you take the S&P

3:00

493, do you think that we enter an era

3:04

where there is a similar dispersion as

3:06

we're talking about seeing in the MAG 7

3:09

with the S&P 493 where there are going

3:12

to be probably the biggest money-making

3:14

opportunities for investors that we've

3:16

seen in decades

3:19

between those that do adopt and do

3:21

rebuild using AI and those that don't

3:25

for 100 100%.

3:27

I had a call yesterday with one of the

3:29

largest private equity funds in the

3:31

world, hundreds of billions of dollars

3:33

under management and we're doing

3:34

something with them at 8090 with one of

3:37

their most important assets.

3:40

And when you're an owner of a business

3:43

and you can direct

3:46

specific change

3:48

and you can rip out

3:51

hundreds of millions of dollars of

3:54

software licenses and replace it with

3:57

tens of millions of dollars of highly

4:00

customized software.

4:03

It's an enormous lift to OPEX and

4:05

business model quality. So why doesn't

4:07

it happen more? The reason it doesn't

4:10

happen right now for this S&P 493 is

4:13

that the IT organizations inside all

4:15

companies

4:17

essentially speak a different language

4:19

than the CEO, the CFO, and the board. So

4:21

if the CEO, CFO, and the board of

4:24

directors of the S&P 493 speak English,

4:27

the IT organization speaks Mandarin

4:29

Chinese, and you get away with saying

4:31

all kinds of [ __ ] I'll give you an

4:33

example. I went to a CIO conference. one

4:37

person that I met an $18 billion a year

4:41

IT budget.

4:43

What the [ __ ] does that actually even

4:45

mean to spend $18 billion a year on it?

4:50

I'm not saying that this is a mag seven

4:52

company, guys. And when you take that

4:54

example and you multiply it by 50 and

4:56

100 and 493 examples of people spending

5:00

money, there's an entire cartel of

5:03

influence that's been built in software

5:05

that's going to get undone because

5:07

you're not going to be able to justify

5:08

it. Free. Absolutely correct. And the

5:10

response from the SAS industry is

5:13

changing from the per seat model as the

5:16

number of employees at these companies

5:17

continues to get lowered. Obviously

5:19

Microsoft a lot of layoffs. Andy Jasse

5:22

talking about layoffs. They're moving

5:24

from the per seat model. They're not

5:25

taking this uh laying down. Uh they know

5:28

that people are going to make custom

5:29

software. So what they're doing is

5:30

they're moving to a consumption model.

5:32

So you're seeing people charge per call,

5:34

per customer support call, etc.

5:38

And well, it's I'll tell you why it

5:39

doesn't work. It's working in

5:40

combination. Hold on, hold on, let me

5:41

finish. The other thing they're doing is

5:43

they're dramatically lowering the number

5:45

of people and the developers they have

5:46

on their team. And then a lot of what's

5:48

happening in the background is the third

5:49

piece they're doing is they're starting

5:51

to uh do rollups and people are starting

5:54

to talk about how can we take you know

5:56

20 of these SAS companies lower them

5:58

just like you're doing to compete your

6:01

thought

6:02

playbook. Well, I just wanted to comment

6:04

on this like consumption based pricing.

6:06

It doesn't work. And what I mean is you

6:09

can have some adoption in the short

6:10

term. The best example is Snowflake, but

6:13

in the long term it destroys your

6:14

business. And the reason is because you

6:17

don't know which data is valuable and

6:18

you're not going to put up with a

6:20

variable business model that increases

6:22

more and more cost because you need to

6:24

trap everything. And so what happens is

6:26

all of these other companies develop

6:29

around you. People go back to Postpress,

6:31

people go to Superbase, they find all of

6:33

these ways of saying snowflake makes no

6:35

sense. And the reason is because in this

6:38

world, nobody's going to pay consumption

6:40

because you're like, how do you expect

6:41

me to, you know, hold and store and pay

6:44

for terabytes and terabytes potentially

6:47

a day of data? It's not sustainable.

6:50

We'll see if intercom, Salesforce,

6:52

HubSpot, and we see if all of those

6:54

people start Slack start losing their

6:56

customer base or if they lower their

6:57

pricing to make it just too easy to keep

6:59

those systems in. Thomas, your thoughts?

7:01

Yeah, so two quick thoughts. Uh, number

7:03

one, Chimath, to put a kind of a

7:05

mathematical frame on this, right? We

7:07

know that Anthropic is kind of the level

7:10

zero of code generation. They're they're

7:12

doing incredibly well powering companies

7:14

like Cursor, right? I think and this is

7:17

order of magnitude correct that

7:18

Enthropic in Q1 added 70% of the net new

7:22

ARR in the SAS industry right defined by

7:25

public SAS companies right so let's just

7:28

think that the company in AI that is

7:30

most powering the disruption of SAS

7:32

added 3/4 of the net new of the entire

7:35

industry right so that's kind of point

7:36

number one I think Freedberg point

7:39

number two I think what we're seeing in

7:41

the Max 7 right where we're starting to

7:42

have debates about who's well positioned

7:44

and who isn't who's going to win and who

7:46

isn't right is actually as it was in the

7:48

past 5 years going to be a broader lens

7:51

into the S&P 493 I think inside of

7:55

boardrooms inside of every investment

7:57

committee you're going to see the exact

7:59

same conversations that we've been

8:00

having about the MAX 7 right who who's

8:03

well positioned who can win what are the

8:05

management teams maybe like Zuck that

8:07

are being aggressive and bold and

8:08

capturing the opportunity and which are

8:10

the ones that are not so for me as a

8:12

stock picker right I think over the next

8:15

five years.

Interactive Summary

The video discusses the decline of the traditional SaaS model, suggesting that companies are increasingly realizing the inefficiencies and high costs of bloated, vertical software solutions. Speakers argue that AI tools now allow for the custom, efficient rebuilding of business software from the ground up, creating a massive opportunity for investors to differentiate between companies that adopt these new efficiencies and those that do not. The conversation also touches on the failures of consumption-based pricing models and the shifting power dynamics within corporate IT departments.

Suggested questions

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