# The SaaS / Software Podcast Recap - Week of May 31, 2026: The SaaSpocalypse Debate > SaaS and software podcast recap for May 24–31, 2026. Operators and founders with proprietary data pushed back hard on the 'AI kills SaaS' narrative while public-market traders stayed split on whether the multiple reset is permanent. ## The SaaS / Software Podcast Recap ### Week of May 24–31, 2026 --- ```request-access variant: ghost heading: Want this kind of synthesis on your own coverage? buttonText: Request access ``` ## Top of Mind The defining story this week was the "SaaSpocalypse" debate. Operators and founders with proprietary data (Ramp, Cisco, Hightouch, Toast, Every) overwhelmingly pushed back against the "AI kills SaaS" narrative, while public-market traders and value-focused podcasts remained split on whether the multiple reset is permanent. Pricing model evolution (seat to consumption/outcome), AI-native gross-margin compression, and the agent harness/orchestration layer as the new moat were the other dominant cross-podcast threads. Snowflake's earnings reaction flipped at least one prominent bear bullish on infrastructure software, and Toast was the highest-conviction long-form pitch of the week. --- ## 1. Dominant Themes ### Theme 1: "Is SaaS Dead?" / SaaSpocalypse, the defining debate of the week Operator and founder consensus runs strongly against the thesis; public-market commentators are more divided. - **Sean Barrett** (CIO, Counter Global) on *Business Breakdowns* (May 29): "There's been a pretty severe debate in public markets around the SaaSpocalypse, SaaS is dead narrative. While we think there is a lot of disruption out there in the software space, particularly around coding and DevOps in some cases, there are also a handful of category killers, vertical market winners, and infrastructure software companies that are thriving and in a better spot now because of AI than they were a few years ago." - **Dan Shipper** (CEO, Every) on *Lenny's Podcast* (May 24): "I think the SaaS-pocalypse is dumb. I would buy SaaS stocks right now... What agents do is increase the number of users of SaaS, not get rid of it." - **Ara Karazian** (Lead Economist, Ramp) on *The a16z Show* (May 25): "SaaSpocalypse as a pronouncement has come way too soon and is typically not informed by actual business behavior." Ramp data (50K businesses, $100B annual spend): token-based pricing uptake at vendors offering it (HubSpot, Adobe) is only about 0.5% of spend. - **Tejas Manohar** (co-CEO, Hightouch) on *Marketecture* (May 29): "I think the SaaS apocalypse is overblown. I think companies still want to buy or I'll say rent, pay per month or pay per year for software companies that can come in and solve business problems. But the stakes are higher." - **Jason Andrews** (VP Engineering Ops, Cisco) on *Tech Talks Daily* (May 25): "The SaaS apocalypse that everybody talked about last quarter, and I'm like, guys, you're just going to do this all via cloud workflows... you still need that context. You still need these systems in place." - **Brian Beach** (Stansberry Research) on *Stansberry Investor Hour* (May 26), the LeBron analogy: "If there was a magic pill that made you and me 50% better at basketball... that pill is also available to LeBron James and everyone else in the NBA. Microsoft is LeBron James." - Counter-view, **Ejaaz** on *Limitless* (May 29) defines the term: "basically as Claude and ChatGPT end up upgrading their own models, they become able to replace a bunch of subscription software tools and services because they could just vibe code it or rebuild it from scratch. And this has led to a massive decline. I'm talking tens to hundreds of billions of dollars lost in the stock market for all these different SaaS products." The hosts flipped bullish after Snowflake earnings. - Bear holdout on *The Canadian Investor* (around May 25): "I don't think we're ever going to see the 40, 50, 60x free cash flow multiples again. I think the moat around software is gone." - **Dan Nathan** on *RiskReversal* (around May 22-23): "investors have just not bought into these SaaS companies, the transition that they're going to make and integrating the technology, the AI into their processes and their services and be able to monetize it." ### Theme 2: Seat-based vs. consumption vs. outcome-based pricing - Ramp data (*a16z Show*, May 25): seat-based contracts still 65–75% of spend; flat platform fees 20–30%; token-based pricing at vendors offering it about 0.5%. Karazian: the shift "requires a competitive forcing function, someone must go after others' lunch to make it stick. No incumbent is doing this aggressively yet." - **Kunal Agarwal** (CFO, Gorgias) on *AI to ROI*: outcome-based pricing is "the only intellectually honest answer" for AI agents. Seat-based "misaligns incentives"; per-ticket "creates the wrong incentive to grow ticket volume rather than resolve issues." Gorgias charges only per resolution. - **Ajit Ghuman** (Monetizely; ex-Twilio Segment) on *Impact Pricing* (May 25): "The anchor of per user pricing itself is going away... large employers have already started firing all of the users." He introduced an "Agentic Pricing Spectrum" framework (autonomy / operational breadth / output-to-cost curve) and predicts Salesforce moves off per-user pricing faster than expected. - GitHub flat-rate to consumption shift (*RiskReversal*, May 24): "GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft, is dropping flat rate plans for usage-based billing across its products," cited as token-cost-driven repricing. - Barrett on Toast (*Business Breakdowns*, May 29): "The whole business is consumption-based, so it aligns well with the customers. It aligns well with where the world's moving with AI." - *The Canadian Investor* (May 25) cited a prediction that "upwards of 50% of SaaS companies will shift to hybrid usage or outcome-based pricing by 2030" and early data that "hybrid-based pricing is actually more lucrative than seat-based pricing." ### Theme 3: AI agent monetization and the "harness layer" as moat - **Josh / Ejaaz** on *Limitless* (May 29): the LLM wars are largely settled at the base-model layer, with value migrating to orchestration, "all of the peripherals required to turn the brain of an LLM into a full body, into something fully capable of doing agentic tasks that are long running." Ejaaz: "The current war that New Frontier is being fought on the rapper level with the harnesses." Cited as the source of Cursor and Cognition valuations. - **Tejas Manohar** (*Marketecture*, May 29): "I actually believe that we have... close enough to general intelligence at this point... The problem in enterprises is it doesn't have the right context to succeed." MCP/API access alone is insufficient: "I don't believe MCPs and APIs just being given to agents is enough." Hightouch's wedge is structured ETL plus embeddings on top of warehouse data. - **Dan Shipper** (*Lenny's*, May 24): flipped from personal agents to a company-wide "super agent." "The model for now is going to be a super agent, like one agent for the entire company." Cites Shopify ("River") and Ramp. - Owner.com's CRO on *SaaStr* (May 26): a centralized "applied AI team" beats decentralized at 5-10x output. "Buy your infrastructure, build your intelligence." No one is at "Level 4" (recursively self-improving GTM AI) yet. --- ```request-access variant: inline heading: Want this kind of synthesis on your own coverage? buttonText: Request access ``` ### Theme 4: AI-native gross margin compression vs. traditional SaaS - **Agarwal** (Gorgias) (*AI to ROI*): "AI agent gross margins are lower than traditional SaaS and that denying that fact is living in an alternate reality." LLM inference is about 55-60% of fully loaded cost per interaction. He built CFO-led governance with rolling 28-day LLM cost tracking per feature. - Ramp data (*a16z Show*, May 25): token costs for high-intensity AI users have increased 13x year over year. "You project out that 13x and you get to an extremely unsustainable spend path." About 3% of AI spend on Ramp now flows through OpenRouter for multi-model cost optimization. - **Dan Nathan** citing a "Hedgy Markets" tweet (*RiskReversal*, May 24): "Microsoft canceled its internal cloud code licenses this week after token-based billing made the cost untenable, even for a company with effectively infinite cloud resources." A Uber CTO memo allegedly said the company "burned through its entire 2026 AI budget in just four months." (Unverified.) ### Theme 5: Software multiples compression, opportunity vs. permanent reset - **Barrett** (*Business Breakdowns*, May 29), the 2015-16 analogy: "Public company software multiples collapsed to 3 or 4 times revenue, basically where they are today... It took about 18 months, and when you fast forward to early 2016, the category killers kept putting up numbers... and the stocks went parabolic." - **Beach** (*Stansberry*, May 26): CRM down about 51% from its Dec 4, 2024 high. "For value guys, Dan, look carefully... a lot of these pretty good companies are down 30%, 40% heading into the year... It's a very interesting fishing pond for value investors." - *The Canadian Investor* (May 25), opposing: Adobe down about 65% from 2024 highs. "It's not really operations right now. It's just the market has said we don't want to pay 40x for these companies, we want to pay 20x." Companies that "used to trade at anywhere from a 70% to 100% premium to the S&P 500 are actually now reverted to trading at discounted valuations." - IGV debate (*RiskReversal*, May 24): Adami: "IGV, the software ETF has gotten off the mat... I still think there might be some gas in that software tank." Nathan: "I feel like you let go of the IGV here was a good trade off the low." ### Theme 6: NRR resilience - *The Canadian Investor* (May 25): NRR "hasn't really dipped at all. If it has dipped at some companies, it's usually, you know, maybe a percent or two. They went from like 110% to, let's say, 108%." Flags a renewal cliff: multi-year contracts mask churn that may surface at renegotiation. - Toast (*Business Breakdowns*, May 29): Barrett rebuts the long-standing churn bear case, noting customers have structurally higher margins (15% vs. 10% industry), creating survivorship bias. ### Theme 7: Vibe coding / AI coding tools, a productivity reality check - Shipper's "Senior Engineer Benchmark" (*Lenny's*, May 24): most models score around 30/100 vs. human senior engineers at 85-90/100. GPT-5.5 scored about 62/100. Models patch rather than rearchitect. - Andrews (Cisco) (*Tech Talks Daily*, May 25): the Cisco dev team did 28% fewer resources / 65% productivity gain, about 2x net. But on 400-500M lines of legacy code: "AI has not figured out how I can go that large of a code space yet." - Ghuman (*Impact Pricing*, May 25) on Cursor: "The only strategy for these firms like Cursor to win is to change the habits of people and become a brand instead of actually adding more value. Or it's still a race to the bottom in terms of inference costs." ### Theme 8: Vertical SaaS / category killers - Toast (*Business Breakdowns*, May 29) and Owner.com (*SaaStr*, May 26), both restaurant vertical SaaS, both held up as proof points of vertical winners. Owner.com: about $100M ARR from $2M four years ago. ### Theme 9: Shadow AI / agent governance - **Dave Sobel** on *Business of Tech* (May 29): the Verizon 2026 DBIR found shadow AI use up 4x year over year. 67% of professional AI users go via personal or non-approved accounts. 28% of DLP violations involved proprietary code submitted to AI platforms. Gartner projects 40% of orgs will demote or decommission AI agents due to governance failures. An SNCC audit of 4,000 AI agent skills found that more than one third contained at least one security flaw. --- ## 2. Key Debates ### Debate 1: Is the SaaSpocalypse real or overblown? **Overblown side (operator/data consensus):** - Shipper (*Lenny's*): "I would buy SaaS stocks. I think the SaaS apocalypse is dumb and SaaS stocks will be up majorly in the next couple of years." Every's own SaaS spend is up year over year despite being "extremely AI forward." - Karazian (Ramp) (*a16z*): token-based pricing uptake under 1% even at vendors offering it. - Manohar (Hightouch) (*Marketecture*). - Beach (Stansberry) (*Stansberry Investor Hour*), primary research: a Salesforce customer told him "hey, what would you do if they raised the price 10% next year? They're like, I'm not even going to look at their invoice before I approve it." - Barrett (*Business Breakdowns*), the 2015-16 historical analogy: vertical winners plus infra software "in a better spot now because of AI." **Structural issues side:** - Canadian Investor (May 25): "The moat around software is gone... I don't think we're ever going to see the 40, 50, 60x free cash flow multiples again." - Nathan (*RiskReversal*): Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, Adobe, "these stocks have not been able to get out of their own way." - Ejaaz (*Limitless*), partial: the SaaSpocalypse caused "tens to hundreds of billions of dollars lost," but Snowflake earnings flipped him bullish. ### Debate 2: Durability of seat-based pricing **Seat-based is dying:** - Ghuman (*Impact Pricing*): "The anchor of per user pricing itself is going away... large employers have already started firing all of the users." - Agarwal (Gorgias) (*AI to ROI*): seat-based "misaligns incentives." - Canadian Investor: "If an agent can do the job of a dozen employees, you need one seat, not 12." **Seat-based is still dominant:** - Karazian (Ramp) (*a16z*): 65-75% of spend; token-based under 1% even where offered. - Ghuman acknowledges Harvey AI ($11B valuation) is "selling by seat. Most of the world doesn't understand tokens," proving seat works for now even in AI-natives. ### Debate 3: Can Salesforce / Agentforce monetize AI at scale? **Bear:** - Nathan (*RiskReversal*) citing a Bloomberg "SAASpocalypse" article: a Salesforce promo video shows patients using Agentforce "but a little of that AI functionality is actually live." On Benioff: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." **Bull:** - Beach (*Stansberry*): a customer described Einstein as "fine... a neat trick" but switching costs are ironclad. "Salesforce down 50% has generally been a pretty good bet." - Owner's CRO (*SaaStr*): "This is why I am like a pretty big bull on Salesforce. I think if you take that framework and you apply it to Salesforce, this is why I don't think that they are at a disruption risk." - Canadian Investor (claim): "Salesforce is working on like $800 million+ in annual recurring revenue" from Agentforce. **Mixed:** Ghuman predicted CRM moves off per-user pricing by 2028; "that happened in just one year from my providing that case study example." ### Debate 4: AI capex, sustainable or at risk? - Adami (*RiskReversal*): "these CapEx numbers are not written in stone... But we don't seem to be anywhere near that right now." - Nathan (same episode): Microsoft canceling cloud code licenses, Uber blowing through its AI budget in 4 months. "It's been easy to make that call and not be right about that. I've been doing that for a while. At some point, it's going to happen." ### Debate 5: AI-native margins vs. traditional SaaS - Bear: Agarwal (Gorgias) (*AI to ROI*): "AI agent gross margins are lower than traditional SaaS and that denying that fact is living in an alternate reality." (around 55-60% inference cost) - Bull: Shipper (*Lenny's*): when agents access SaaS via browser, "I'm using my tokens. I'm not using the vendors tokens. I'm not using the apps tokens." This could save SaaS margins. ### Debate 6: Personal agents vs. company-wide super-agents - Shipper (*Lenny's*): "completely flipped" from personal to super-agent. "The model for now is going to be a super agent, like one agent for the entire company." - Owner's CRO (*SaaStr*): a centralized "applied AI team" produces output "5, 10X better" than decentralized. --- ```request-access variant: inline heading: Want this kind of synthesis on your own coverage? buttonText: Request access ``` ## 3. Specific Names: Bull / Bear Stances by Ticker ### Public **CRM, Salesforce** - BULL, Beach (*Stansberry Investor Hour*, May 26): down about 51% from its Dec 2024 high. "Salesforce is usually embedded into workflows, reporting, salesman compensation, forecasting, customer history, integrations, automations, compliance, making it impossible to live without." One customer workflow revamp "took over a year" to switch. - BULL, Owner's CRO (*SaaStr*, May 26): "I am like a pretty big bull on Salesforce... they are [not] at a disruption risk." - BEAR, Nathan (*RiskReversal*, May 24): Agentforce live functionality overstated; stock "can't get out of its own way." - MIXED, Canadian Investor (May 25): Agentforce at $800M+ ARR (claim), but renewal cliff risk. - MIXED, Ghuman (*Impact Pricing*): moving off per-user pricing faster than expected. **NOW, ServiceNow** - MIXED, Canadian Investor (May 25): "Companies like ServiceNow trading at pretty attractive valuations." But renewal cliff risk. - BEAR, Nathan (*RiskReversal*) (May 24), grouped with CRM/WDAY/ADBE. **ADBE, Adobe** - BEAR, Canadian Investor (May 25): "Down... 65% from 2024 highs." Stock content business cannibalized: "You used to have to go and pay Adobe for stock footage... that has to be dead." Adobe disclosed stock footage revenue "declined faster than they thought." - NEUTRAL, Karazian (Ramp) (*a16z*): token-based offering uptake only about 0.5%. - NEUTRAL, Beach (*Stansberry*) (May 26): "Adobe was very early on kind of switching to SaaS." - BEAR, Nathan (*RiskReversal*) (May 24): grouped. **ORCL, Oracle** - MIXED-BULL, Beach (*Stansberry*) (May 26): "Oracle was another one that people kind of assumed was going to fall away... It was just so ingrained." - NEUTRAL, Adami (*RiskReversal*) (May 24): up 44% off lows. **MSFT, Microsoft** - BULL/NEUTRAL, Beach (*Stansberry*) (May 26): "Microsoft is LeBron James." It used the SaaS transition to build cloud infra and is repeating with AI. - BEAR (near-term), Nathan (*RiskReversal*) (May 24): "Microsoft is in the crapper largely because they're software business, not because their AI exposure at the moment or their inability to use AI and Copilot's a big problem." Cited a tweet: "Microsoft canceled its internal cloud code licenses this week after token-based billing made the cost untenable." **WDAY, Workday** - BEAR, Nathan (*RiskReversal*) (May 24): "Workday is down over the last two years, 60 some percent from its all time highs. And it just seems like you get short covering when you get good news, but it's right back into the crapper." - NEUTRAL, Sobel (*Business of Tech*) (May 29): a destination system for MCP-mediated context flow. **INTU, Intuit** - MIXED-BULL, Beach (*Stansberry*) (May 26): down significantly but the incumbent moat is intact. **SNOW, Snowflake** - BULL, Ejaaz / Josh on *Limitless* (May 29): the stock "jumps 30%" (about 35%) post-earnings. SNOW "defined a moat that sat on top of Claude and ChatGPT... they already have that data." A proof point that "not only are SaaS companies here to stay, but they also might be having or creating a defensible moat." - NEUTRAL/BULL, Manohar (Hightouch) (*Marketecture*): the core warehouse underneath composable CDPs. **HUBS, HubSpot** - NEUTRAL, Karazian (Ramp) (*a16z*): token-based uptake about 0.5%. **TOST, Toast** - STRONG BULL, Sean Barrett (Counter Global, 15% position) on *Business Breakdowns* (May 29): about $12B EV, about $2B recurring gross profit, 35% EBITDA margins, 160K+ locations, about 20% US share, 18x 2027 GAAP PE at $22-23. DCF fair value about $50+. "AI is the best thing to happen to Toast since their founding, probably." Toast Grow: $500/mo to 8% revenue uplift to a claimed 20x ROI. **SHOP, Shopify** - Referenced (Toast analogy: "Shopify for restaurants"); Shipper's super-agent "River"; the Gorgias platform. No direct stance. **DASH, DoorDash** - MIXED, Barrett (*Business Breakdowns*, May 29): the POS pilot is a competitive concern; channel checks found zero customers would switch from Toast even if free. **TEAM, Atlassian** - BULL (implicit), Andrews (Cisco VP) (*Tech Talks Daily*, May 25): Cisco consolidated a 22K-person engineering org onto Atlassian; 54% tooling spend reduction; 40x faster reporting. "The folks here at Atlassian, we are about our products. Like, you have a multi-year roadmap. You understand the industry and the vision." **ZM, Zoom** - NEUTRAL, Sobel (*Business of Tech*, May 29): MCP expansion enables meeting artifacts to flow to Salesforce/ServiceNow/Workday. - BEAR (implied), Ghuman (*Impact Pricing*): a threat to standalone meeting AI (Fathom), since Zoom can bundle for free. **DUOL, Duolingo** - BEAR, Beach (*Stansberry*) (May 26): down about 79% year over year. Low switching costs equal AI vulnerability. "80% for Duolingo, that might be just about right." **PLTR, Palantir** - BEAR (near-term), Nathan (*RiskReversal*) (May 24): "Palantir can't get out of its own way." **NVDA, NVIDIA** - NEUTRAL, Nathan (*RiskReversal*) (May 24): Q1 FY26 revenue $81.6B (+85% YoY), GMs 75%, EPS +95% YoY. Stock priced in. **META** - MIXED/BEAR on AI products, Ejaaz (*Limitless*, May 29): about $30B AI spend, "Meta's like backed into a corner right now." The $20 subscription tier is not competitive with Claude/ChatGPT. - BEAR, Nathan (*RiskReversal*) (May 24): stock down about 25% from highs; 8K layoffs. **GOOGL, Google/Gemini** - UNDERRATED, Karazian (Ramp) (May 25): free Workspace Gemini integration causes undercounting in adoption metrics. - Mixed signal, *Limitless* (May 29): Gemini 3.5 Flash at 28% on DeepSWE, "a pretty poor" result. **CSCO, Cisco**, subject of *Tech Talks Daily* (May 25). No investment stance. **CSU.TO, Constellation Software / TOI.V, Topicus** - LONG (5% combined), Canadian Investor (May 25): "I would be elated if Constellation went back up to $5,000 in the next few years, but I just, I don't see it." **TWLO, Twilio** - NEUTRAL/utility, Owner's CRO (*SaaStr*): "Why would we try to go rebuild Twilio? They have spent immense amount of dollars on this critical piece of infrastructure." **RAMP, LiveRamp** - BEAR, Manohar (Hightouch) (*Marketecture*, May 29): being acquired by Publicis. Hightouch is "a plug-and-play replacement for the core LiveRamp technology." Its historic moat (the cookie graph) has eroded. **FI, Fiserv (Clover)** - BEAR, Barrett (*Business Breakdowns*, May 29): "Fiserv's been overleveraged... the stock has been a mess... they're not innovating, and customers have noticed, and so they've been losing share." **SQ, Block** - NEUTRAL / mild BEAR, Barrett (May 29): winning from legacy, not from Toast. Brief mentions: AMZN/AWS (BULL on infra during a platform shift, per Beach); IBM (mild BULL on quantum, Adami); DNB (NEUTRAL, Sobel); PYPL (NEUTRAL connector, Sobel); BRZE (NEUTRAL integration, Manohar). Coverage gaps this week: no substantive discussion of MDB, DDOG, NET, CRWD, PANW, ZS, OKTA, MNDY, DOCU, SMCI, or AMD. Security software M&A was not a meaningful theme. ### Private **OpenAI** - BULL on Codex/GPT-5.5, Shipper (*Lenny's*): "OpenAI has gotten back the mandate of heaven a little bit." GPT-5.5: 62/100 on the senior-engineer benchmark. - MIXED, Karazian (Ramp) (*a16z*): lost the #1 business adoption spot to Anthropic. About 80% of revenue is token-based, so there is no incentive for cost routing. - *Limitless* (May 29): GPT 5.5/5.4 ranked #1 and #2 on the DeepSWE benchmark. ChatGPT Go ($5/mo India) added tens of millions of users. - Canadian Investor (May 25): confidentially filing for an IPO. **Anthropic** - BULL near-term, Karazian (Ramp) (May 25): surpassed OpenAI as the most-used business model. - BULL/MIXED, Shipper (*Lenny's*): "Anthropic was really doing it first" on agentic work surfaces (Claude Code to Cowork). OpenAI surpassed it near-term. - Risk flag, Sobel (*Business of Tech*): accidentally exposed about 500K lines of TypeScript including permission enforcement logic to public NPM. - *Limitless* (May 29): the Pope's "Magnifica Humanitas" specifically called out Anthropic. Partnering with SpaceX. **Cursor / Anysphere** - BULL, Karazian (Ramp) (*a16z*): displaced GitHub Copilot as the top dev tool. "That's the bull case for something like Cursor. Which can compete on the developer experience." - BULL, *Limitless* (May 29) (unverified claim): "Going to result in a $60 billion acquisition 30 days after the IPO." - MIXED, Shipper (*Lenny's*): a better Claude implementation than OpenAI/Anthropic, but "They've more distinctly chosen to be for programmers and that may limit how far they get." (Claim) "Cursor was just essentially acquired by SpaceX." - BEAR on pricing power, Ghuman (*Impact Pricing*): "The only strategy for these firms like Cursor to win is to change the habits of people and become a brand." Recently moved to a Chinese open-source model. **Cognition / Devin** - BULL, Ejaaz (*Limitless*, May 29): "Cognition is probably second in the ranking of having or owning this particular type of [agent harness] mode... I'm pretty bullish, pretty excited on Cognition." Raised more than $1B at a $26B valuation. Uses 90% own code. **Hightouch** - BULL (self), Manohar (co-CEO) (*Marketecture*, May 29): raised $150M at $2.75B led by Goldman Sachs and Bain Capital Ventures (prior round $80M). 300+ integrations. Positioned as a LiveRamp replacement. **Gorgias** - BULL on direction, Agarwal (CFO) (*AI to ROI*): about 50% of the customer base is using the AI agent; resolution rate 60-80% for enterprise. MIXED on economics, structurally lower GMs. **Owner.com** - BULL, Owner's CRO (*SaaStr*, May 26): about $100M ARR from $2M four years ago. Outbound BDRs close more than $100K ARR/month each. **Harvey AI** - BULL, Ghuman (*Impact Pricing*): at an $11B valuation, "selling by seat. Most of the world doesn't understand tokens," proof that seat-based still works even in AI-native land. --- ## Bottom Line The week's tape was lopsided in one direction and contested in another. On whether AI kills SaaS, operators and founders with first-party data (Ramp, Cisco, Hightouch, Toast, Every) overwhelmingly said the SaaSpocalypse is overblown, and Snowflake's post-earnings jump gave the bulls a fresh public-market proof point. On whether the multiple reset is permanent, the value-and-trader camp (Canadian Investor, RiskReversal) stayed unconvinced, pointing to stuck large-cap names and gone-forever 40-60x cash-flow multiples. The cross-cutting tension that will define the next several quarters is pricing and margin: seat-based billing still dominates spend today, but outcome and consumption models, rising token costs, and structurally lower AI-native gross margins are the fault line every operator is now managing around. --- ## Sources - [Business Breakdowns, May 29, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOjXY14Oo-2FJarDHi9jQrsIeSScL2karCgdnlrQzsrCXjZg-2BmJ40FBuSe7kPbxwet6zgfEMBullsUBtD6eLLVQNwF9e94tqNOlIaaUY6aI7yLCQ-3D-3D0hom_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1UtE7c-2BHgW736I4UoUQsyvvt2nARh86KfuVNCUOrNzYIbzyMhoHuiDLmAhjp6Ao-2FTqGM5ZZAJNRz5K2NJNUgOd12Ri9k4-2FLf6X2KhDPVXTXtQ7lisbJ52e0a6-2F4yHHmYcLg-3D-3D) - [Lenny's Podcast, May 24, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOgoYSfwqbc3ICViDqieXs8KDhQoGEvy3GfzNGU1ZpGTDv8yEQEfjhKzwIK6rtXo1l4Wu1DBDkDs2-2BpsijsFi0Q0IHn7XJAii-2FjEgN3Pk1xIgg-3D-3Db3MT_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1Ukb5v3i2Vq65OSApN6LsHHDtfFVMnO-2BmD-2B6rkkHTV0IIRoF0TbsRYQI19kApocSErO0-2Bcgozqi-2FZj1NZ5DeI8a-2BSucNSrcjjgaZvP-2FbFTovCTW7JTI15LRGeJgiewf6Nqg-3D-3D) - [The a16z Show, May 25, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOi0iEXxpyGucmxuGRMKSwZaFu47kPaEd7jnRAKSMhXJ7O9T-2BnhPLo9-2FJDadEx1m7d2v5EVym5ZrmHCjQyugm067BpQP5t3nQVvSh3p5Qk5UHw-3D-3DkWyc_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1UjTTaXtG-2F9BY28TjvaDdwZq8oBOVW-2BpRFqXqQU1bglinvTaDVLwRA8-2BM2naDS9I5bKtdnZlW4PgKX751xVuJY7FqC1uNQqOT4szR9xGo6D8VjO4x07KZnKhtRHWuA2LCtw-3D-3D) - [Marketecture, May 29, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOgNjzQnUracmQDHPXl9tGgQ4Di-2FAFVJwH4F4oFwYzi14NVSJaVoYmNuRKrj7EUhYhS2fe6-2BamFa3XOUT6vvZO2NBhTc8d7zam4lfVGur5oBnQ-3D-3DFvmJ_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1UnoAgd78ZdnHU5TJP7R8JwEy21P6-2BN3S0t0MweJDOgTm6BDtMn9rifnQl4F0xkm-2Fokd2hod4pL54Yaoh8zbp2o4unR-2FX0cgJMuAWk3NpWdQmI0HGwj-2BCMAmGXmVa1FTaeA-3D-3D) - [Tech Talks Daily, May 25, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOj8p03TbR2Pwm5G-2BejdV-2Fmqy2ZWlzQr-2BLtEmKyjxOfsI0BkgIOSKOuY-2B52mlvRAYmhFDUyEZr7ym3UK4fwtjVpYQ7mr0Ocd6IG-2FU1g9rLx69w-3D-3DUCVA_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1UiRAVfhz-2Bs7Gsf5Iiy5-2FeC3rRDh7x2nJiK2P5SEKGSDJYcO07JzLQ-2F-2BgM42wd2kZw2dbxs5Mot345JbgkgLGpnp36OO24vGCxGrypZBgTDzwu89LY75jYk-2FwoHTr9VYmpg-3D-3D) - [Stansberry Investor Hour, May 26, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOgTRE2AaY1Wr84NDCdPiGjjz6k9Ll8etSNVpFl68lpyJXW7Q5yvFaKodc1CEjJtkySErdEPfPIkOY02G2Es-2BhCnf-2Fe2-2Fjewsxk6Kx4ObaiUEQ-3D-3DTW8S_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1Ut-2FSjki3qlW-2B2qA-2FfT3shuG5ZO0JDuRnlbTuevpxtygVgFSIXRXw7TA-2BIYBDqr3VY5z23vI0oKhFlXALreBNXAZdw-2Bvc3q58GuMiTuLxj-2BE-2Bj2LVFxQcvXpFH5-2B1VHxfXQ-3D-3D) - [Limitless, May 29, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOi2lFMxQYUvDswrF1mITzLcEm0YSRglFHUGe0kunlUzKng-2BBF-2FVs8b3q5LXBzyoQqn1mNCKYLhiBh3dv160LFsQarztuoKNSNI-2BZGeY5aJM1A-3D-3DrZcF_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1UgPJyaWQo0ko-2FalsDOyyV40zVwU5cgEE1Qz19s8uW-2F9aEb3jGYnIqyc6ciDaiinuf2J5gCCwSUK82mBAFbnVWidDj-2FnrHfi3ov1yXY4KvFCilhRzn71lHPI4yyYp2SwCow-3D-3D) - [The Canadian Investor, May 25, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOg7k1TeOKfSYiaNObhPh4eBF-2BDjGZ92StKWmaN1MmlGOCQRvmGGbXp6-2BWMkb1wUv6yZSKTFVFzaN6NXIOCumOS7Wv-2FK8ZPDCJVGmRCru0-2BnSA-3D-3DZWMq_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1UhIi1ePEuvGC-2FvEvkPmj-2B5dYl-2FlllveC3lawYTdxrevZRbXvC-2Bt8N4MOToOThUfVGB4XcMmYBhGU4pmOpd0CIF9gh780-2FGOtCDGL1-2B9QKm-2FXQRb-2BmOpqLL-2Bd0rfDorQrFA-3D-3D) - [RiskReversal, May 24, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOhUsfZbggu-2FjY2yARFBbSOFWpXGmucoqYzGXFVO-2FgV8vftupoPkIeYVGh1ZSR-2BkZFwMAiAej43IDeY9kCJJzw3vHrbtHqE5yxxeCdfrwM9P5g-3D-3DSp5V_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1Us0BDxEBgulqy-2BaW4uoGyRdr9K0b-2FXWcGWN5S-2Bftbr13pFON-2Fclbx6KNlkg-2FUEOayR6tRzmLtotjWtYRJKqvJStgRKbss5prhEbvG0F5SF8KLB6MJzKKmwscQ0qX-2FeZ1Kw-3D-3D) - [AI to ROI, May 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOgmO8FigWrsqRcv7Y0cJMvi82VcXKG1aUBTgy0GsgvvIfZgfg3edDZAzlRmLQ-2F4Ttd21ZPfXFeRAkXx-2BC9PDA-2Fcp65cqZtlqBDQINOxBFHMKA-3D-3Ddxlc_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1Umcz7uKLai-2FnZARJVzd5LhZuW4IRduGlkzlJWpIe7XmYh2hvcVmwJEnCermpFrwGzSefLMjF7NgIqm0FZpDcl7-2FJQSRv7yb0dX2Z-2BlrIqpGl54QO1FB4EbCilSDyT-2F6OAw-3D-3D) - [Impact Pricing, May 25, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOi8nH2gt7-2FtGRzKVHgEKGCtnUR9E8KFV9G1tBHqPHLRG0TjJ4XQzG09vyRv9zkBUvLdXIlJn0ubjMkWtOCBq-2F6PcvVgYC4OolQuWgdz7NtA0w-3D-3D8qdQ_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1UnLo-2FG34m5u2kU-2BZabhr6hPodmyfJn6kLMbzK4AedC5Nq3GkwwT9VXV-2B-2BZDwZ3xiIZzsd-2FGEYG7hk3QtisYJuzx0InyWbYCk1YBDNzrOWbZOBEquH0cv-2FiMlSle-2BNJamIQ-3D-3D) - [SaaStr 856, May 26, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOgJ0ZRcCDC932OyfRFvCJniQ6sTx-2FO9vWgpH-2FbcfhocNDW7VZDQwJ2sYk829qPlnwrA-2FbLNPNrj3ArXL-2BePzxD4ObxcFEAPPU3AdJsD4HlmSA-3D-3DHD0i_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1UvN0rjFxylqvvbMfFNMsM2hQpcvDDmOtn761xiXAJNxhTGHhNcsiJ8XACZ0RF0o1YpJ-2FwQd9v-2Bq5iHeAZbDCAcIDA3FP-2Beu9EzX4kRZLak0q9AECTd40uNjgeVDILpRx6A-3D-3D) - [Business of Tech, May 29, 2026](http://url7324.matterfact.com/ls/click?upn=u001.idHmPrr2Geh7KYLAsTy7NkrIVb-2FgA4pmf2rMXQwGcOjvEQiaiKtuInZU6bsI3HbMMIl-2BVUa9NmlbzkGkIReFV2k34hAjiN-2FhxhhbEFQuveTsbZy9W-2FIoVwG83kSncVi3UuCpYy09H5KfN3BJXrYd1A-3D-3DKRNW_7mLGwmUci-2BLaXswv9WX1yTgqn3Wad-2FotHhzHgSNAZbXYmJgDiZmYBKZ78kSTfplmaJAQxPPSU0F9wU89-2BIM1UjouwU6aMKejQ5jfi5nCVIUjvFRoQj5CIcbRE6gFvQ3fadWu45jDBbnLwfHJ7D0KVsob1s0trOxuie0JFBYWR7zjlJ4n0JY92FKz7YZCXSbCT-2BOtU-2ByJwj-2BlqzX-2BxGQQRw-3D-3D) ```request-access variant: banner heading: Run your own corpus. description: matterfact is deployed with select institutional partners. 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