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What podcasters are saying about Software & SaaS
Summary
In the past 30 days, 29 speakers on 21 finance podcasts discussed Software & SaaS in 36 views. Chorus has followed Software & SaaS since October 2, 2026.
Who talks about it most
- Jack Altman · 3
- Cliff Sosin · 2
- Naveen Rao · 2
- Steve Eisman · 2
- Arvind Krishna · 2
- Chamath Palihapitiya · 2
- Jim Cramer · 1
- Dan Nathan · 1
- John Fortt · 1
- Jim Vanek · 1
The latest views
Newest first. Every quote is checked against the episode's transcript.
Jim Cramer · CNBC
The SaaS sell-off is overblown; ServiceNow's small miss should not sink companies with different models.
ServiceNow's slight earnings miss, after a near doubling in its stock, was read as a sign that all SaaS companies are in trouble. Cramer says SaaS firms have different structures and some are changing their models for the AI era, such as Workday's human resources and finance products and Salesforce's consumption-based pricing for its Agentforce AI product. He argues the declines in Workday and Salesforce stemmed from ServiceNow's weak read-across, not their own businesses.
“Its weakness was viewed as a sign that all SaaS companies are in trouble. Even as these companies all have a particular kind of structure, they can do very different things.”at 46:28
Mad Money with Jim Cramer: Mad Money w/ Jim Cramer 10/29/26 ·
Jack Altman · Benchmark
The growth bar for software companies has risen sharply; a 5-to-18 growth story no longer clears a raise.
Ev cites Datadog's historical path from about 5x to 18x revenue, then up to 40 to 50. Jack says a 5-to-18 company used to draw interest, but now investors ask why it isn't 5-to-40. Being credible today requires believing in an 18-to-100 story or a company doing something so hard that growth durability is unusually high. He ties this to the current code-driven pull on growth.
“that used to be enough where everybody would be super interested if all you heard was it's a software company going five to 18.”at 19:59
Uncapped with Jack Altman: Benchmark Breakfast #1 | Jack and Ev ·
Jack Altman · Benchmark
Durability of application software is now hard to call; sentiment has flipped within months as models improve.
In the last cycle, investors could tell durable software from competed-away software because the patterns were familiar and enterprise buying was predictable. Now that is harder. Six months ago application software was seen as dead, and now it is seen as alive. The labs could move into these applications, but applications add value through edge cases, data and UI. Jack expects sentiment could flip again if code gets good enough to make those advantages disappear.
“I don't know, six months ago, everybody was kind of like, it's dead... At the moment, I think people are like, it's alive and it's good.”at 22:19
Uncapped with Jack Altman: Benchmark Breakfast #1 | Jack and Ev ·
Jack Altman · Benchmark
Enterprise software buying is faster now than the slow, 36-month cloud-era cycles.
Jack compares the cloud era, when customers bought Workday and Salesforce on long timelines and government, hospital and law-firm buyers took about 36 months, with today's software purchasing. He says it's not really like that now, and people are alert. He hopes buyers will treat security as a top priority and react faster than expected. He still doesn't think that means it happens in three months.
“people bought Workday and Salesforce on these really elongated timelines. And they were slow... That's not really how it's going right now on the purchasing of software side.”at 47:04
Uncapped with Jack Altman: Benchmark Breakfast #1 | Jack and Ev ·
Dan Nathan · RiskReversal Media
Software names like ServiceNow and Workday may be the beginning of the end after the selloff.
ServiceNow and Workday are at the center of the software selloff. Remaining performance obligations, a proxy for backlog, look disappointing, and investors have been selling software for about a year and a half. Some models were more defensive than they should have been, so there was a baby-with-bathwater reaction. But for some of these names, this may be the beginning of the end. He says he does not have a strong view.
“Yes, there was a bit of a baby with the bathwater. Yes, there were some models that were a bit more defensive. But this might, for some of these names, kind of be the beginning of the end.”at 29:34
CNBC Fast Money: Alphabet Search Miss, Microsoft Azure Beat and Fed’s Hawkish Pause 10/28/26 ·
John Fortt · CNBC
Application software faces a very hard road, and any perceived miss is getting sold.
ServiceNow's results were roughly in line, but its stock fell about 16.5% after hours. He says ServiceNow is held to a very high standard because it has tended to beat. Application software companies are having a very hard road in this environment, and anything that looks like a miss is getting sold. That combines the high bar tied to its growth and multiple with the current attitude toward enterprise software.
“application software companies... have a very hard road to hoe in this environment. Anything that's seen as a miss, you know, is tending to get sold.”at 33:53
CNBC Closing Bell: Big Tech Earnings Put the Rally to the Test; Warsh’s Latest Fed Decision 10/28/26 ·
Jim Vanek · Apollo Global Management
AI could impair software borrowers, so some software credit must offer equity-like upside to be worth lending.
AI can disintermediate software business models, and credit investors have capped upside but substantial downside if a borrower is impaired or made obsolete. Vanek says that in some software areas lenders need a forward return profile with upside that looks like equity. This changes how Apollo prices those deals and where it allocates. Apollo has been underweight the sectors that have underperformed most and has been reducing exposure where it sees earnings harmed by AI and spreads at risk.
“And we do think in certain areas, and this is something that we have talked about related to software, that even if you are a credit investor, ...your upside has been capped, and your downside to a business that may see some sort of impairment or obsolescence can be substantial, that in some areas, need to be investing with a forward return profile that has upside that looks like equity only”at 20:36
Apollo: The Allocation and the Daily Spark: Direct Lending: Strong Fundamentals, Shifting Dynamics ·
John Lodrey · New Harbor Financial Group
Software has outperformed semiconductors recently, undercutting the AI-will-kill-SaaS narrative.
John notes that software was widely called a dead sector because AI would replace SaaS. Yet in the recent relative-strength data, software has performed better than semiconductors, which have weakened in recent weeks and months. He says it is far too early to call a turn in the cycle, but this is the kind of market action he watches for signs of a changing trend.
“software, which everybody called the dead sector because AI was going to replace all [SaaS] software, that's actually been performing recently relatively stronger than things like semiconductors”at 58:11
Thoughtful Money: "No Signs Of The A.I. Party Slowing Down" | Craig Fuller ·
Cliff Sosin · CAS Investment Partners
AI could be bad for certain software companies, since their products are crystallized intelligence.
Some companies produce crystallized intelligence, meaning fixed artifacts that embody a set of decisions. A general-purpose AI model is a general intelligence tool that can rebuild those artifacts. Many software tools are hardened projections of intelligence, so they face a risk from cheap general intelligence. Sosin says he is not the first to make this point, and he presents it as a logical implication of treating intelligence as cheap and ubiquitous.
“Then there's also companies where what they produce fundamentally is some sort of artifact that is just some sort of crystallized intelligence. I'm by far not the first person to realize that AI could be bad for certain software companies.”at 7:17
Invest Like The Best: Cliff Sosin - Owning the Complements to Intelligence - [Invest Like the Best, EP.497] ·
Cliff Sosin · CAS Investment Partners
Cheap intelligence will squeeze software companies that extract rents, lowering costs for their customers.
Sosin argues that many economic rents are held by intermediaries, using a software company that charges bowling alleys as an example. As intelligence becomes cheap and ubiquitous, those rent-taking companies get smoked, which is bad for them but lowers the cost of bowling for consumers. He says this leads to a flattening effect on income, because lower-income people spend a larger share of their income on such goods. He presents this as the benefit side of the AI cost-deflation story.
“One is there's all these rent takers in the economy. Think you're the software company that charges bowling alleys, and those guys all get smoked, which sucks for them, but it does lower the cost of bowling.”at 50:02
Invest Like The Best: Cliff Sosin - Owning the Complements to Intelligence - [Invest Like the Best, EP.497] ·
Ari Wald · Oppenheimer & Co.
Software breaking out as semiconductors correct, a bullish intersector rotation.
Wald notes semiconductors had an exceptional 18-month run, and that high beta has led to compression and correction in those stocks. Software is picking up the slack and showing nice breakouts. He reads this as a very telling bullish rotation within technology, which he sees as the defining characteristic of tech over the past decade.
“But at the same time, you're seeing software pick up the slack and getting some nice breakouts there. So I think that's very telling bullish rotation that's going on in that group.”at 7:17
CNBC Power Lunch: Previewing Big Tech Earnings, Anthropic IPO Announcement, Countdown to Midterms 10/26/26 ·
Anastasia Amoroso · Partners Group
Fear of software's death is overdone; earnings are solid and valuations have reset, with software 6% off highs.
Amoroso says the fear of the death of software has been one of the most exaggerated fears this year. Software companies' earnings have held up well, they beat last quarter, and they likely beat this quarter. Valuations have reset nicely, leaving software about 6% below its highs. Longer term, she says the true beneficiary of AI is what can be done with the models, and software may succeed.
“It's interesting because maybe the fear of the death of software has been one of the most exaggerated fears this year. And if I look at earnings, for example, for software companies, they've held up very nicely. They beat last quarter. They likely beat this quarter.”at 45:15
CNBC Halftime Report: The Investment Committee Prepares for a Pivotal Week 10/26/26 ·
Citrini
Market underprices AI disruption of software; many software firms survive, but business models must change and investors need company-level adaptation views.
Citrini argues investors have grown complacent about how disruption gets priced in. Disruption usually unfolds as a sequence of repricings, not a straight line down (citing BlackBerry after the iPhone and Macy's after Amazon), and buying beaten-down names can pay once the threat becomes consensus. He still expects many software companies to survive, but says some business models will have to change significantly and others will stop working. He cites a capability gap, where AI can do far more than people currently use it for, and expects labs to close it by releasing products that pull users into those capabilities, which threatens incumbents. If the labs become public companies with quarterly targets, they will have more incentive to ship such products. He says a lot of air has come out of software valuations that were inflated in 2021. Investors therefore need a strong view on how each software company they own will adapt, and should not be complacent about the threat.
“I personally think that there's still going to be a lot of software companies... But I think you really have to have a strong view on how the company that you own in software is going to adapt.”at 1:19:18
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Naveen Rao · Unconventional AI
Pure software investors are in trouble; hardware is the place to be over the next decade.
He argues that intelligence is produced by converting energy in hardware, so value accrues to whoever controls the energy-to-intelligence stack. He believes the transformer architecture will not be the endpoint, and that the hardware layer is where the value sits over the next ten years. Pure software plays are therefore exposed.
“I would say if you're a pure software investor, you're kind of fucked, honestly.”at 0:22
20VC: 20VC: Why Robotics Will be 100x Bigger than Coding Agents | Inference Will Be a $10TRN Market: What No One Sees | Why Software Investors are F***** Today with Naveen Rao, Unconventional ·
Naveen Rao · Unconventional AI
Pure SaaS will stop being where investors earn margin, and software will not be a huge market in twenty years.
The SaaS boom from about 2010 came from cheap cloud infrastructure, which fragmented markets as small teams could launch and test products quickly. Rao says applications are shifting toward the intelligence layer. Companies that deliver an outcome through software plus services will replace classic SaaS, so pure software investors will struggle.
“SaaS, I don't think is gonna be where you gain margin anymore. ... I just don't see software being a huge market in twenty years.”at 42:03
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Steve Eisman · The Real Eisman Playbook
IBM's software and consulting face AI disruption, and its 5% growth is paltry.
Eisman argues IBM is no longer an important company. At a $240 billion market cap it is too small to challenge large tech companies, and most people don't care when it reports. It is now mostly a software and tech consulting company, and both divisions run the risk of being disintermediated by AI. IBM beat on revenue and EPS, but revenue grew a paltry 5%.
“It's now mostly a software and tech consulting company and both of these divisions run the risk of being disintermediated by AI.”at 18:54
The Real Eisman Playbook: AI Narrative Switched, Debt Yields Spike | The Weekly Wrap ·
Jason Greenberg · Jefferies
Investors wrong to fear AI agents replacing software; AI mostly makes software companies better, not obsolete.
Greenberg argues the spring sell-off in application software was a mistake. Foundation-model companies building products directly, or individuals vibe-coding their own tools, lower the bar to creating a product but not to deploying, integrating, securing, complying with regulation and maintaining it. Disintermediation hits only firms with little lock-in, little proprietary data and simple workflows. Other software companies are using AI to make their products cheaper, more capable and better. He also says money is rotating out of chips and data-center infrastructure into application software, which investors had written off six months earlier.
“I think investors did and continue to get software wrong. The idea that software is going to get replaced by agentic AI software, get disintermediated by foundation model companies building things direct. ... It's actually lowering the bar to creation of product development, but it's not changing the ability to deploy it, to integrate, secure,”at 4:02
CNBC Power Lunch: Oil Hits 5-Month High, iPhone Duo Launch, Weekend Sports Slate 10/23/26 ·
Jordi Visser · Visser Labs
SaaS stocks are being rerated lower as AI makes long-term cash flows uncertain, despite steady earnings.
Software companies such as Salesforce and Adobe kept earning money while their stocks fell, because the market is valuing them on terminal value. If investors doubt that these businesses will exist in three years, the valuation has a cliff that pushes multiples down. Visser says the same compression has hit the S&P 500 this year. Salesforce's use of Anthropic has not helped its stock much.
“these companies are getting rerated lower with multiple compression because of a concept of terminal value, which is the value of any public company is the present value of discounted cash flows going forward.”at 13:09
The Julia La Roche Show: #423 Jordi Visser: Why the AI Bears Are Wrong — and the One Asset He’d Bet On Right Now ·
Jason Lemkin · SaaStr
AI-era marketing software is being punished too hard; its multiples may be too low.
Lemkin notes HubSpot, Klaviyo and similar marketing software companies trade below 3x revenue, which he calls the worst public category. He argues they are not dying, and that agentic AI players trading near these levels could also be underpriced if their growth slows to 60-70%. He is uncertain whether the AI versions will settle too early into their peers' multiples.
“I do wonder if the AI versions of low multiple companies will settle too early into the multiples of their peers. ... I think the whole marketing category is the worst public category without question. ... They're not dying.”at 41:45
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Tobias Carlisle · Acquirers Funds / The Acquirers Podcast
AI can rebuild existing software from its binary, so consumers will stop paying for it.
Carlisle describes AI decompiling a binary into source code and rebuilding a working version of Microsoft Word from what it can see. If AI can rebuild any software for free, he asks what people will pay for. He concludes 'all software is cracked' and that the value goes to consumers as surplus rather than to software vendors.
“Or you can just put Word, Microsoft Word, and it'll give you a functioning version of Word built backwards from what it can see. But I've already got Word.”at 47:51
Nikesh Arora · Palo Alto Networks
Huge SaaS disruption coming as AI makes it unclear which software survives the next five to eight years.
Arora says it is hard to value the terminal value of software because it is unclear what will survive the next five to eight years given where AI is. He argues product-market fit is being disrupted for many software companies. His test: he knows exactly how half the packaged software he buys should work if AI were applied well, so someone will build it. That leads him to expect huge disruption in SaaS over the next few years.
“It's not clear what software is going to survive the next five to eight years with where we are from an AI perspective... So I think there's gonna be huge disruption in the SaaS space over the next few years.”at 37:06
All-In Podcast: Arvind Krishna & Nikesh Arora: Quantum Threat, Open vs Frontier AI, AI Cyber Warfare & SaaS Collapse ·
Arvind Krishna · IBM
Enterprises will consolidate from hundreds of software vendors onto five to ten platforms as AI replaces them.
Krishna says the average enterprise uses 500 to 5,000 distinct software vendors, which is a massive attack surface. He asks whether companies could replace 490 of them with minor AI capabilities and rely on five to ten main platforms. That implies massive consolidation because the spend will go there. He expects the consolidation to play out, though he gives no firm timeline, saying it could take six months or six years. Independent distribution per product becomes unaffordable as the value of that software falls.
“The average enterprise uses anywhere from 500 to 5,000 distinct software vendors... That implies massive consolidation because that's where the spend goes.”at 37:57
All-In Podcast: Arvind Krishna & Nikesh Arora: Quantum Threat, Open vs Frontier AI, AI Cyber Warfare & SaaS Collapse ·
Arvind Krishna · IBM
Interaction-heavy software is easily replaced by AI; reliability-critical deterministic software is hard to replace.
Krishna distinguishes software by type. Interaction-rich software, where much of the value is in user interaction, can be replaced with a lot of AI, as has been seen clearly. Software that must be reliable to an extreme standard, like a database lookup for retail banking or closing the books at 10 to the minus 15 error rates, will be hard to replace easily with AI-generated software. He sees a real distinction between the two categories.
“I need you to be reliable at 10 to the minus 15... Which is a database lookup for somebody doing retail banking or closing the books, I think that's gonna be hard to replace that easily... With AI generated software.”at 38:57
All-In Podcast: Arvind Krishna & Nikesh Arora: Quantum Threat, Open vs Frontier AI, AI Cyber Warfare & SaaS Collapse ·
Adam Wood · Morgan Stanley
Fast AI growth at large public software incumbents is masked by slower legacy businesses, so public-versus-private comparisons mislead.
Large public software companies carry big incumbent businesses that may grow slowly. A very fast-growing AI business inside them can be obscured by that legacy base. So 'private is growing fast, public is not' is too simple. Analysts need to weigh the type of software, the size of the incumbent business, and the growth of the AI layer separately.
“public software companies that have a big incumbent existing business, sometimes there can be that big incumbent business that's not growing very quickly, and a very fast growing AI business in there as well.”at 2:55
Thoughts on the Market (Morgan Stanley): AI’s Next Winners: Signals From Private Markets ·
David Friedberg · The Production Board
Founder-led SaaS with embedded user experience can be distinguished from the SaaS-apocalypse group.
Friedberg says he was a big subscriber to the SaaS-apocalypse thesis at the time Figma's quarterly results came out, showing 48% growth and accelerating business momentum. He argues that SaaS companies can be separated along lines such as founder leadership and embedded user experience. He adds that founders who know how to use AI to accelerate and reinvent their business are particularly well placed. He uses Figma's growth to show that the category is not uniformly doomed.
“I do think that there's a bunch of ways to distinguish SaaS companies, one of which I think is founder led. And I think that there's user experience that matters a lot, embedded user experience”at 14:34
All-In Podcast: Dylan Field: Is AI Replacing Designers?, Design is the New Code & Democratizing Creativity ·
Dylan Field · Figma
SaaS is not dead; not all SaaS firms are fine, but the software category is not binary.
Field rejects the 'SaaS apocalypse' thesis as too binary. He says there are more ways for software companies to sustain themselves than that thesis implies. Specialisation on a target audience and deep knowledge of users matter. As evidence, he points to the exponential growth in App Store listings, while overall app usage stays flat. This means more apps compete for the same users, so differentiation is needed. He also says not all SaaS companies are fine, so the sector is mixed rather than uniformly threatened or uniformly safe.
“SaaS is not dead. ...it's not true that all SaaS companies are fine. Yeah. And it's also not true that all SaaS companies are dead.”at 18:03
All-In Podcast: Dylan Field: Is AI Replacing Designers?, Design is the New Code & Democratizing Creativity ·
Andreas Steno · Steno Research
Software's rally is a violent short squeeze, with the market caught very short in the trade.
Leverage used to short software has been squeezed, which is probably one reason software is now flying higher. The market is caught very, very short in the trade, and the squeeze is getting violent. This is the basis for his June view that software squeezes further.
“This software squeeze is getting pretty violent now, and the market is caught very, very short in this trade.”at 23:20
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Chamath Palihapitiya · Social Capital
OpenAI and Anthropic threaten SaaS workflows and opaque incumbents like healthcare businesses.
Chamath argues that the threat from OpenAI and Anthropic is broad. A healthcare company that has thrived on the opacity of health infrastructure is exposed to them. So is a company that owns workflows rented to customers as SaaS. He suggests investors can use this as a defensive hedge. He treats AI labs as the main threat to incumbents whose moats rely on complexity or software-based workflows.
“If you own a bunch of workflows that have been rented to people as SaaS, theoretically, OpenAI and Ant are a threat to that.”at 28:40
All-In Podcast: CoreWeave Crash, AI Trade Cracks, Anthropic IPO Red Flags, Bill Gates Doomer ·
Jason Calacanis · LAUNCH
AI's deflationary force could strip most of the value from software, pressuring software margins.
Calacanis cites examples of AI commoditizing software. A platform-level game can be built for $5, an Eleven Labs competitor is very cheap, open-source models are being hosted, and Elon Musk's orchestration layer can route to the best model. He says people are able to ship code so fast that up to 90% of a product's value could be removed. He asks what software margins will look like, and treats the deflation as unique compared with past cycles. Sacks pushed back, which tempers the view.
“It feels to me like the deflationary nature of this software AI superintelligence is unique and different than anything we've ever seen.”at 32:07
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Ben Horowitz · Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
Software prices fall under AI but software volume rises sharply, so products must get far better.
Horowitz argues that AI will push software prices down while the amount of software rises sharply, the Jevons paradox of software. Companies like ElevenLabs expand beyond software into licensing, celebrity voices and dubbing, because software is easier to write and models can be trained on nuanced cases. Startups must evolve and their products must get much better, and the value will sit in those products rather than in plain software.
“Software prices will definitely go down, but the amount of software is going way way up. It's the Jevons paradox of software.”at 36:07
All-In Podcast: CoreWeave Crash, AI Trade Cracks, Anthropic IPO Red Flags, Bill Gates Doomer ·
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