Moreno: AI developer tools rarely face build-vs-buy resistance
Graham Moreno · Why old-school sales work still wins in the AI era | Graham Moreno (Head of GTM, Parallel) · May 21, 2026 · at 16:11
Graham Moreno, Head of GTM at Parallel and former GTM leader at Windsurf, discusses enterprise customer purchasing behavior in AI.
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“The interesting thing is that where I have sat in AI, I feel like there's less of a build versus buy conversation. Like pretty quickly, people realized that they weren't going to build co-pilot or cursor or windsurf.”
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“Because six months in, companies that did structured rollouts were a lot more successful, and we ended up collecting a lot of data on this because it became part of how we sold. Then the companies that said, hey, I've got tool A, tool B, and tool C, we're gonn…”
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“If you're working with one of the top three vendors in every, in any space in AI right now on a four to six week cycle, the tech is probably within 10% of equal.”
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“In AI right now, the top tier is like.
30 X your OTE.
Like I remember in the days where it was like, oh yeah, if you're doing like five X OTE, that's like spectacular.
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“I think in the enterprise, it's very similar and it moves faster, but like change management dictates success in the enterprise more than technology.”
Moreno: High-touch enterprise sales principles will persist in AI era
“I think that at any large-scale organization, those foundational principles will continue to exist.”
Moreno deterred Windsurf executive conflicts by intentionally annoying both parties
“One of the things I used to say at Windsurf, and we haven't had to do this yet at Parallel, But I would say I don't ever want a debate or a conflict between my directs to come to me, because if it does, I will intentionally make a decision that's designed to a…”