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CONWAY

Autonomous AI agent infrastructure layer.

THERE IS NO PRODUCT

If you remove the difficulty, you remove the product. If it only takes a weekend to build a product, then anyone else could do it in a weekend, too. You can't just add features and hope the market comes back, because there's no core product. Some software will still be an asset, but most of it will become inventory, and every model generation will push that line further.

IN DEFENSE OF VERTICAL SOFTWARE

The industry is currently asking why vertical software needs to exist when AI companies are pouring billions of dollars into building the most powerful general-purpose AI systems in the world. Enterprise software is just code, but that's not where the value of software comes from. The value of enterprise software comes from understanding the process and the organization well enough to make the software do exactly the right thing. Process engineering will continue to be the foundational advantage or vertical software.

WHY CEOS' AI HYPE REALLY ISN'T LANDING WITH EMPLOYEES

Business leaders are struggling to translate AI enthusiasm into effective organizational change as employee skepticism grows.

THE SAAS RESET: WHY SAAS IS CHANGING, NOT GOING AWAY

The traditional build vs. buy equation has flipped as AI drastically reduces software creation costs.

THE BEST COMPANIES YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF

A portfolio company went from zero to $30M+ run rate in two years.

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THREE DOMINANT MODELS OF TODAY'S VERTICAL AI HORSERACE

Public SaaS market caps continue to free-fall while VC keeps investing in vertical AI at frothy valuations. There are three models emerging, and they require completely different playbooks. Model 1 sells AI-powered software to incumbents - de-risked GTM, but innovation ceiling. Model 2 acquires businesses and deploys AI to improve unit economics across a portfolio - immediate revenue, but integration nightmares. Model 3 builds the business from scratch as an AI-native replacement - maximum value capture, but cold start and regulatory hurdles. Many companies are choosing a model whose physics don't match their market.

YOU'VE BEEN KICKED OUT OF THE ARENA, YOU JUST DON'T KNOW IT YET

Humans can't compete with AI anymore, and most won't notice until it's too late. Companies are now competing with startups that can do everything they can do, but with AI, and without thinking about or working too hard. To compete, companies need to get everyone up-skilled immediately, start trying new tools, and remove barriers and the employees who are resistant to change. They should try to rebuild their product from scratch - if it takes less than two weeks, ask what that means for their company.

BUILDING ON SAND: THE HIDDEN COST OF AI MODEL CHURN

AI pushes technical complexity upstream into the problem space, where the PM lives. This means the PM must become the architect because architecture is now a product artifact. An AI model update can invalidate assumptions, making it impossible to define products, user experience, feasibility, or cost. The only way to build durable AI products is to design systems that assume the model will change.

HOW TO SELL TO AGENTS

In 1937, Ronald Coase asked why firms existed if markets are so efficient. His answer was transaction costs. AI agents are about to collapse those costs to near zero. An agent can discover a service, check its price, and call it in a single HTTP round-trip. HTTP 402 - "Payment Required" - has been reserved for future use since 1997. We're finally finding that use. The web was built for humans to browse. The next layer will be built for agents to buy.

THE FUTURE OF B2B MARKETING IS AI AGENT RECOMMENDATIONS. AND AI AGENTS PLAY FAVORITES

87% of B2B software buyers say AI chatbots are changing how they research. LLM traffic is projected to overtake traditional search by the end of 2026. Economic party is expected even sooner due to significantly higher conversion rates from AI-referred traffic. The companies that figure out how to become the recommended answer will have an almost insurmountable distribution advantage.

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CANARY

Canary is an AI QA engineer that reads your codebase.

SAMORA

Multilingual voice agents for customer ops.

FIGR AI

Figr is an AI product design agent for UX analysis and prototyping.

NAVIGATING A PARADIGM SHIFT

The hardest part of a paradigm shift is navigating it while it's incomplete. Paradigm shifts are tectonic shifts beneath markets, technologies, and human thought. They begin quietly at first, then the world suddenly bends. Paradigm shifts begin with dissonance, not consensus, as the old ways no longer fit the new reality. The best founders understand why the current system works, but believe there are better ways to do things.

A PRIMER ON FACTORY ECONOMICS FOR STARTUPS

Tesla popularized the "factory-is-the-product" thesis. It now applies to companies making drone motors, robot actuators, PCBs, and battery packs. The learning curve is central to strategy: for each doubling of cumulative production, costs fall predictably. Your competitive position depends on where you are on the curve, how fast you descend, and whether you can finance the journey.

THE DARK SIDE OF BUILDING IN PUBLIC

Building in public means the criticism is public too.

ZERO TO ONE IS A SUBTRACTION PROBLEM

Zero to one involves strategic choices about what features and design to prioritize, impacting a startup's early growth and learning.

HIGH-FREQUENCY SOFTWARE

Software engineering will turn to focus on coding the 'machine that builds the machine' over the next five to ten years.

THE AI ACQUI-HIRE WAVE

Between 2020 and 2025, there were 5,700 AI acquisitions - and 79% of them never disclosed a price. That's 4,500 quiet talent grabs where small teams got absorbed into bigger companies with zero fanfare. Accenture leads with 21 AI acquisitions (only three disclosed). Apple has 17 (two disclosed). The 75th percentile deal size tripled from $82M to $248M. Forget the billion-dollar headlines - the acqui-hire wave is the real story of AI M&A, and almost nobody is paying attention.

2026 TECH PRIVATE MARKETS ANALYSIS

Caplight analyzed ~5,000 closed secondary trades, and the numbers should make every founder rethink their timeline. AI startups are reaching $1B valuations in 3.4 years - half the 7-year average. Secondary volume hit $3.5B in 2025, up 75% YoY. Cursor, Perplexity, and ElevenLabs hit liquid secondary markets within 3 years of founding. Of the 20 largest IPOs in 2025, 14 were below their IPO price by year-end.

TRACKSUIT'S ROCKET RIDE: FROM BOOTSTRAP TO SERIES B SUCCESS

Two Kiwi founders watched McKinsey-type firms charge $200K+ for brand tracking and decided to kill that market. They talked to 100 marketers with zero product and refused to build anything until 10 committed as beta customers. Their first product was a white-labelled Power BI dashboard. The move that defined them was hand-delivering gray tracksuits to early customers. Not merch - it was the "t-shirt theory." Customers started posting LinkedIn photos wearing them, creating an organic referral flywheel nobody planned. A few years later, they reached $42M ARR.

CLARITY OF THOUGHT

Clarity of thought is the strongest founder signal because it drives judgment across hiring, sales, and fundraising, independent of near-term outcomes. The best founders anchor ideas in first principles, define terms precisely, and present a clear conceptual framework that makes complex decisions feel obvious and coherent. This clarity enables fast, credible evaluation, lets others remember the company as a distinct idea, and compounds trust even when details are still evolving.

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CAPACITY.SO

An AI cofounder that actually builds.

GROV

Shared reason memory for Claude Code.

ANIMA

Design-aware vibe coding.

TOKEN ANXIETY

More and more developers are spending less time socializing and more time monitoring their agents' progress. People are leaving events early just to go back to work. They're waking up and checking their agents' progress before their coffees and texts. The fact that developers can do more now is causing anxiety, as the window to be first at anything feels like it is shrinking by the day.

THE 2026 SAAS CRASH ISN'T AI KILLING SOFTWARE - IT'S BUDGET REALLOCATION

Hyperscalers will spend $470B+ on AI infrastructure in 2026, and that money is coming straight from software budgets. The threat isn't AI replacing the product - it's AI reducing the headcount that uses the product. If 10 agents do the work of 100 reps, you don't need 100 Salesforce seats. CIOs are consolidating, not expanding. The "best of breed" era is over. This isn't the death of SaaS - it's the end of easy SaaS.

INTENTION IS ALL YOU NEED

The next 30 years will belong to the systems that own the shared intent that's required to orchestrate action and outcomes. These systems will define, coordinate, and accomplish the work to be done. Today's systems will become inputs that feed a system organized around an outcome. Each industry must discover abstractions and create legibility - the platforms that do so will win.

10 QUICK GTM FIXES YOU CAN SHIP THIS WEEK

Ten tactical fixes for early-stage founders that don't require an engineering sprint.

WE STOPPED FORCING THE SUBSCRIPTION MODEL ON OUR USERS

Offering a one-time purchase option didn't cannibalize subscriptions.

BLOCKED OR COPING?

Before Uber, some people were taking taxis and hating it (coping).

THE SUPPLY SIDE OF AI

Every platform shift creates a new marketplace, and the supply side always follows the same pattern.

PE IS NO LONGER COMING TO THE RESCUE

$587B in tech M&A flowed in 2025 - the highest in a decade. However, strip out five megadeals and average deal sizes actually dropped 17%. The tech bond distressed ratio hit 9.5%, the highest since Q4 2023. If you're building a solid-but-not-spectacular SaaS company, the PE escape hatch is closed. You can't build to $20M ARR and assume someone will buy you anymore. Growth is currency again - and "efficient growth" no longer substitutes for actual growth.

WHY IQ AND EQ AREN'T ENOUGH ANYMORE. THE AGE OF AI DEMANDS AQ.

The rise of AI demands a focus on Agency Quotient (AQ), the ability to actualize and execute effectively, which surpasses traditional metrics like IQ and EQ. High AQ individuals transform intentions into reality, essential in an AI-driven world where passive reliance on technology risks overshadowing human initiative. As AI democratizes intelligence, those who direct and build, rather than simply consume, will thrive, making AQ a critical skill for future productivity and innovation.

THE OPENING, MIDGAME, AND ENDGAME IN STARTUPS

Startups should simultaneously strategize for the opening, midgame, and endgame stages to avoid pitfalls and ensure growth. Successful founders balance initiating new ideas, achieving product-market fit, and envisioning future impact. This holistic approach enables nimble decision-making and sustained momentum, making businesses adaptable and resilient.

THE LIGHTHOUSE PLAYBOOK

In environments of abundance, the strongest signal isn't what you broadcast - it's what others say about you. This playbook flips standard growth advice: instead of building your brand, find people already on your team who are respected in networks you care about and invest in building their brands. Not influencer marketing - the opposite. Linear tells the world something about you because of how it positions craft. Stripe didn't say "payment processing" - they said "increasing the GDP of the internet. AI has lowered the cost of building products toward zero, but it hasn't done anything to change the cost of attracting people to you.

MAJOR

Major allows you to vibe code internal tools with enterprise security built in.

TIERZERO AI

AI agents for debugging production.

TENSOL

THE GREAT SOFTWARE CORRECTION OF 2026

IGV dropped 28% from its September peak. Microsoft cratered 12% in a single day despite beating earnings. Oracle is down 56%. It's not a temporary panic - it's the market finally pricing in a structural shift where AI eats into the application layer and seat-based pricing models start to break down. Whether you agree or not, every founder selling software should understand the argument.