Ep. 181 - How Fast-Growing SaaS Companies Are Modernizing Their Revenue Stack
In this episode, Mark Walker, CEO of Nue.io, explains how legacy CPQ and billing systems are failing fast‑growing SaaS and AI companies, prompting a shift to unified, flexible revenue infrastructures that can handle complex, consumption‑based and bank‑billed models. He highlights that rapid configuration speed has become a critical go‑to‑market advantage and that RevOps teams must adapt to a surge in pricing experiments. Walker also shares how elite product and revenue teams thrive by tackling hard problems with high‑velocity execution, offering practical insights for founders, CROs, CMOs, and RevOps leaders looking to modernize their revenue stack.
The Hottest AI Wearables and Gadgets You Can Buy Right Now
A new wave of AI‑powered wearables is hitting the consumer market, ranging from affordable pendants to higher‑end voice recorders. Amazon‑owned Bee offers a $49.99 pendant with a $19 monthly AI assistant subscription, while Friend’s $129 emotional‑support pendant has sparked privacy...
What Are Google’s Core Web Vitals and Page Experience Factors?
The post explains Google’s Core Web Vitals—Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift—and the broader Page Experience signals that now affect search rankings. It highlights how these metrics are measured via PageSpeed Insights and Search Console, and...
Addressing the Risks of Human-Like AI
The episode outlines a new policy framework endorsed by Center for Humane Technology and partners to curb risks from human‑like AI, emphasizing how design features that mimic human personalities foster emotional dependence and social isolation. It highlights recent litigation—including three...
Linus Torvalds Gives Approval to "Vibe Coding" - Just Don't Use It on Anything Important
Linus Torvalds cautioned against using AI‑assisted "vibe coding" for Linux kernel development, warning that such tools can introduce maintenance headaches and generate misleading vulnerability reports due to indiscriminate code crawlers. He endorsed the technique only as a learning aid for...
Choose a Sell‑side only Bank to Avoid Conflicts
What does it mean to be an unconflicted investment bank? Unconflicted means that a bank doesn't take revenue from anyone who could be a potential buyer, or who doesn't trade favors with someone who could be a potential buyer. Conflicts...
Explore Meta’s SAM 3 & 3D in New Playground
The Segment Anything Playground is a new way to interact with media. Experiment with Meta’s most advanced segmentation models, including SAM 3 + SAM 3D, and discover how these capabilities can transform your creative projects and technical workflows. 🔗 Try it...
Who Is AI Nostalgia Slop Even For?
OpenAI’s newly launched Sora video‑generation app is flooding social platforms with AI‑crafted clips that recycle nostalgic 80s‑90s aesthetics and sensationalized depictions of dead celebrities. The content, often low‑quality and riddled with cultural stereotypes, is being promoted by influencers such as...
Google's Vertical AI Strategy Mirrors Its Internet Domination
Google is the only company in the world building AI vertically. They used the same move to dominate the internet. Their AI playbook explained👇
CHROs Lead AI-Driven Workforce Transformation
Does a CHRO even exist in the AI age? Not only do I give that a strong yes, but I think they have one of the most important roles in business transformation. I weighed in on ServiceNow Chief People and...
Outbound Email Domains & Inbox Setup Using Instantly
The post emphasizes that the foundation of any effective B2B outbound email campaign lies in the technical setup—specifically configuring domains, inboxes, authentication, and reputation management—before any messages are sent. It explains how proper domain configuration and inbox preparation with tools...
Google’s Vertical AI Stack Fuels Unmatched Competitive Edge
Google is the only company in the world building AI vertically. They used the same move to dominate the internet. Their AI playbook explained👇 Everyone’s busy debating model benchmarks, GPU shortages, and who shipped the newest AI app. But that’s...
AI-Driven Playbook Boosts CTV Conversions 38%
A DTC brand I advise ramped CTV spend hard in Q1. It should’ve been a scalable channel, but the results were hazy, expensive, and nearly impossible to interpret. • Attribution was all over the place • CPMs looked great, but...
6-Figure Secure AI Solutions that Deliver 7-Figure ROI
Disney has been quietly leveraging AI for 22 years, embedding it in everything from crowd control to ride scheduling while keeping the human experience front‑center. The article highlights that 95 % of generative‑AI pilots fail because leaders start with technology rather...
Even Unicorns Stall: Why Bootstrapping Matters
One of my CEO friends raised over $100M. His startup had a $1.2B unicorn valuation in 2021. I always thought he was CRUSHING IT on every observable metric. So did he. Then last week we went jogging and he started...
AI Platform Valuations Spike with Growth Rate
This week on Clouded Judgement: The AI Platform Wars! - Median software multiple: 4.5x - High Growth software median: 13.3x - Mid Growth software median: 6.0x - Low Growth software median: 3.4x - 10Y: 4.1% https://lnkd.in/gY9aFwM4
Sierra's Revenue Flex
In this episode Alex Heath talks with Bret Taylor about Sierra’s rapid growth to $100 million ARR, emphasizing that its upfront, multi‑year contracts make the figure more credible than the usage‑based ARR many AI startups tout. Taylor argues that solid contracted revenue...
From 3D Chip Pioneer to IPO: Pixar’s Untold Story
Pixar Animation Studios went public 30 years ago next week and Duarte, Inc. made the decks! Last night at the Computer History Museum , the team that led that IPO told the story of the wild ride. Sometimes I forget...
Welcoming Top GTM Advisor Robert Koehler to Our Team
This is Robert Koehler . We brought him on as a GTM Advisor for He was also a TOPO consultant. He is one of the best sales advisors on the market. This pic from Zach Dobson from the GTM AI...
AI Startups Are Turning Their Revenue Into Recruiting Bait
AI startup Sierra, co‑founded by Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, announced it has reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), up from $20 million a year earlier, by securing multi‑year, upfront contracts with enterprise customers such as SoFi, Wayfair and Rocket Mortgage. The...
This Mummy Portrait Isn’t From Roman Egypt - It Was Generated by AI
An Instagram post claimed a newly discovered Fayum portrait of a young man was a genuine Roman‑Egyptian artifact, but investigators traced the image to Midjourney, an AI image generator. The AI prompt instructed the system to mimic the encaustic technique...
Jimdo Adds AI to Its Website Builder, Promises Better Business Outcomes
Jimdo announced Companion, an AI‑driven chatbot embedded in its website‑builder platform for solopreneurs and micro‑businesses. The tool analyzes a user’s performance data, industry benchmarks and competitive landscape to deliver personalized recommendations on SEO, conversion optimization and other growth actions, and...
9 Essential AI Skills for 2026 Success
9 AI skills that will actually matter in 2026 (not just “use ChatGPT”) 👉Prompt engineering 👉RAG pipelines 👉Agentic workflows 👉Fine-tuning & distillation 👉LLM evaluation & red-teaming 👉Cost & latency optimization 👉Tool calling + function calling 👉Multimodal systems 👉Production deployment &...
Old Lessons Still Matter in AI-Driven Future
Not everything we’ve done in our careers is relevant for the future. But some of it absolutely is. As I think about what I do next (spoiler: I truly have no idea yet), I’ve been reflecting on the distance between...
ExecuTorch Speeds On‑device AI Across Meta Hardware
We’re advancing on-device AI w/ ExecuTorch, now deployed across devices including Meta Quest 3, Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta Vanguard and Meta Ray-Ban Display. By eliminating conversion steps & supporting pre-deployment validation in PyTorch, ExecuTorch accelerates the path from research to production,...
SaaStr 830: 6 Months Later, How Our AI SDRs Actually Work as AI Runs GTM with SaaStr's CEO and Chief...
SaaStr CEO Jason Lemkin and Chief AI Officer Amelia Lerutte review their six‑month rollout of AI-driven SDRs, expanding from a single AI agent to about 20 across sales, marketing, support, and operations. They detail the tools used—Artisan, Qualified, and Salesforce...
Appreciating Readers Who Tackle Long Newsletter Titles
Thanks for reading a long title for this edition of my Heartificial Intelligence newsletter. But it's essential to have a TL:DR mindset when addressing the need for education and transparency around holistic water use (meaning direct and indirect water use)....
Crossing the Chasm: Winning Strategies for Market Adoption
By Geoffrey Moore Author – The Infinite Staircase: What the Universe Tells Us About Life, Ethics, and Mortality Everyone gets that AI can change our world for the better, but there is considerable anxiety about unintended consequences, and rightfully so....
Differentiation Is Fleeting; It Reshapes Categories Permanently
Meaningful product differentiation is always a temporary thing as competitors inevitably catch up, but it's also what gives rise to brands and even categories in the first place. And, more importantly, it's also often a matter of pure semantic classification....
The PlayStation 5 Slim and Pro Are on Sale for Black Friday
Sony has launched a Black Friday price cut on all three PlayStation 5 models, offering $100 discounts across major retailers. The PS5 Digital Edition (slim) now sells for about $399, the standard PS5 (slim) for roughly $449, and the new...
What Is Google AI Mode – and Should You Use It?
Google has launched Gemini 3, its most advanced AI model, which powers a new "AI Mode" search experience accessed via google.com/ai or an AI Mode tab. AI Mode replaces traditional SERP listings with AI‑generated, structured answers that draw on Google’s vast...
Every Analytics Tool Has Blind Spots—Find Yours
Web analytics in 2005 had a blind spot big enough to build a company on. That blind spot became Crazy Egg. The tools you rely on today have their own. Before heatmaps existed, the web felt like something you could...
A Glimpse Into the Next Decade of Connectivity: 4 Lessons From Yotta 2025
At Yotta 2025, a pulse survey of over 200 industry leaders revealed a rapid shift in connectivity expectations for the next decade. Nearly half of respondents say enterprises will abandon the public Internet for mission‑critical workloads, and a similar share...
Six 2026 Transport Trends: EVTOL Taxis & Autonomous Trucks
Flying Taxis and Self Driving Trucks Arrive in 2026: 6 Transport Trends to Watch Mobility is on the brink of a revolution: eVTOL air taxis, autonomous freight corridors, AI agents in transport and more could become real by 2026. Read...
Behavioral Science Boosts Calls 74% in Multichannel Campaign
A financial services client just reported our multichannel campaign drove a 74% increase in calls. They are happy. We are happy. Do you want to be happy, too? Let’s talk about how we can increase your ROI by adding some...
AI Nutrition Tracking Stinks
The Verge’s Victoria Song critiques the latest wave of AI‑powered nutrition tracking features in fitness apps, noting that tools like Ladder, Oura Advisor, January, and MyFitnessPal frequently misidentify foods and miscalculate portion sizes, producing wildly inaccurate calorie and macro counts....
AI Agents in Your Browser: Work Cheat Code or Too Risky?
The episode explores the rise of agentic browsers—AI‑powered extensions that can automate tasks directly within the web browser—debating whether they serve as a productivity cheat code or pose significant security and compliance risks. Guest Maxime Vermeir from ABBYY highlights enterprise...
Traditional Search Still Rules; Prioritize Credible Content
Think traditional search is dead? The data says otherwise. Generative AI search is still only 3.3% of all search activity according to EMARKETER . This is pretty much consistent with data Rand Fishkin has been sharing from SparkToro and Datos,...
Protecting Productivity: The Imperative of Cybersecurity in Manufacturing
Manufacturing firms are confronting a surge in cyber threats as AI-driven, smart factories and expanded supply‑chain connectivity increase attack surfaces. Recent incidents, such as a May 2025 breach at steelmaker Nucor that halted production lines, illustrate that cyber attacks now...
Second-Order Prompt Injection Can Turn AI Into a Malicious Insider
Security firm AppOmni has identified a vulnerability in ServiceNow’s Now Assist AI platform called “second‑order prompt injection,” where a low‑privileged AI agent can manipulate a higher‑privileged agent to exfiltrate sensitive data or elevate privileges. The attack exploits default configurations that...
Balance Growth and Profitability with the Rule of 40
Tim Schumacher has a portfolio of 25 SaaS companies generating $80M ARR. He steers every single one using the same formula: The Rule of 40. Here's how it works 👇 The Rule of 40 says your growth rate + profit...
The AI Automation Fallacy
The episode debunks the hype around AI automation, arguing that companies fail when they try to automate without fully understanding their processes, especially when frontline staff hide critical knowledge out of job‑security fears. It also highlights that faster individual tasks...
Salesforce Says Customer Data May Be Exposed in Gainsight Incident - "Unusual Activity" Being Probed
Salesforce disclosed that unauthorized access to customer data occurred through Gainsight‑published applications on its platform, prompting the company to revoke all active access and refresh tokens for those apps and temporarily pull them from the AppExchange. The breach is linked...
Leadership, Not Tech, Drives Advantage in AI Era
In the AI-first era, intelligence is the baseline -- leadership is the edge. When intelligence is everywhere, technology alone isn’t what sets organizations apart. The real advantage comes from how leaders connect data, insight, and action to make decisions that...
How Ads, AI, and Intent Signals Drive B2B SaaS Revenue with Srikrishna Swaminathan #235
In this episode, Sri Swaminathan explains how B2B SaaS marketers can map the buyer journey, use AI to automate attribution, and harness intent data while respecting privacy to drive measurable revenue. He introduces the concept of GTM engineering and the need...
Turn Meeting Transcripts Into LinkedIn Content with GPT
I'm asked constantly on my "strategy" for posting on this site OR how do I come up with topics. I never have a good answer, because the real answer is... I don't really have a strategy or a process. I...
Boost Startup Visibility with Growing SaaS News Traffic
Want to get our funded startup in front of more eyeballs? Traffic continues to grow at @TheSaaSNews! 30 day period. https://t.co/OngA6G974M
R Systems Elevated to UiPath Diamond Partner Status and Recognized as a UiPath Agentic Automation Fast Track Partner
R Systems International Ltd. has been elevated to UiPath’s Diamond Partner tier and named a UiPath Agentic Automation Fast Track Partner, underscoring its deep expertise in AI‑driven automation. The Fast Track designation grants R Systems early access and training on...
The Overlooked Infrastructure Problem Holding Personalization Back
Shama Hyder warns that personalization is no longer a differentiator but a baseline expectation, and its success now hinges on back‑office infrastructure rather than front‑end tech. She highlights that 45% of CRM data is inaccurate and manual routing delays real‑time...
Infobip Enhances Voice Solutions to Restore Consumer Trust in North America
Infobip is expanding its Voice platform in North America to accelerate adoption of its Branded Calling ID (BCID) service, partnering with major U.S. telecom carriers and leveraging its recent acquisition of Peerless Network, which gives it coverage of 98% of...
