The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 340 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 18 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Lemkin: AI will kill single-function point solutions, not public SaaS leaders
“Is the SaaS apocalypse going to kill the leaders in B to B that are public? No, there's too much workflow. They're too rich. They're too complicated, but these point solutions like this B newsletter builder, we don't need it.”
Lemkin: Non-technical customers will soon demand APIs over custom features
“So now a non-technical customer or non-technical resource of the customer will ask for an API so that they can vibe the feature that they want.”
Lemkin: SaaS Companies Neglecting Their APIs Will Lose in AI Era
“So if you have not, if you, if you're not giving it the attention it deserves, you're going to lose in the authentic era because anyone can use your API and it's just going to accelerate.”
Ibarra: Marketing agencies may not exist in a year
“Maybe marketing agencies won't exist in a year because of this”
Lemkin: Mediocre Vertical SaaS Apps Risk Losing Customers Permanently to Vibe Coding
“I think there is a risk for folks building vertical apps, building niche apps. You should not build an agent if you can buy it or an app, but if you fall behind too far folks may build it out of frustration. And that's more what we did rather than try to cance…”
Lemkin: Software Companies Lacking Magical AI Will Be Quickly Disrupted
“Cuz there's really no excuse today and you're gonna be quickly disrupted and churned if you can't build something magical with your AI app today.”
Lemkin: Tech is entering an era of unprecedented IPO wealth creation
“We're entering an era of just Utter wealth creation from IPOs like we have never seen. Like it's just, we're underestimating, you know, I used to be a billion, you know, Billy, a unicorn used to be great.”
Lemkin: AI tools will fully automate B2B marketing orchestration by H2 2026
“I think by the second half of the year, this will all work. Like instead of us having to build our own AIVPM and it being siloed, it will all connect and there won't be any excuses for shooting from the hip and marketing anymore in B to B. Like it will do all …”
Lemkin: Elite 10x sales reps will earn two to three times more
“I do think that the elite folks, the truly elite folks, not the ones that think they're elite on LinkedIn, the ones that really are five times, 10 times more productive for real, they should be paid compensation that is two to three times higher than it used t…”
Lemkin: Anthropic and OpenAI Will Reach Trillion-Dollar Valuations
“Anthropic isn't topping out at a billion. OpenAI isn't topping at a billion. They're topping at a trillion.”
Lemkin: VC Dollars in 2026 Will Surpass 2021 Peak
“And again, I think 26 will be even bigger. So we'll surpass the dollars of 21.”
Lemkin: ElevenLabs will reach $300 million in revenue this year
“The tools are either so disruptive, like a cursor or replica or lovable or 11 labs will go from like almost nothing to three hundred million this year.”
Lemkin: AI is shrinking software competitive advantages from years to months
“It's not that we're going to rebuild workday in Salesforce and Oracle, but our competitive edges are going to be measured in months. And when they used to be years and that compounds that compounds. And if you can't run at that pace, I don't see how you're goi…”
Lemkin: AI will replace account executives who lack deep product knowledge
“I think we're going to see AI is not going to replace the AE the way it is already beginning to replace the SDR has already replaced. Support is already replacing customer success, but it is going to replace a lot of AEs that aren't product don't know the prod…”
Queener: AI is coming for the multi-billion dollar SI industry
“Don't say that to all my SI friends out there, but AI is coming for the multi-billion dollar SI industry.”
Foster: AI Will Eventually Act Autonomously as Sales Reps and CSMs
“I think it takes a lot of work to get that last mile good enough where you would say, Hey, we're actually going to feel confident actually having the AI act as the sales rep or act as the CSM in these equations where it's going to get there. It's going to get …”
Cabane: Brands must spend 25% of marketing budgets on LLM visibility
“Who is spending 25% of the budget and headcount on, like, LM appearance? No one raised their hand. And that doesn't make sense, because that's where we're heading 12 months from now, there is no question.”
Lemkin: 30% to 40% of inside sales will become AI
“I think, 30 to 40% of inside sales will become AI.”
Levie: Software vendors will increasingly look like professional services firms
“Like, I think we're all going to increasingly look almost like professional services companies, probably to some extent, because you're bringing now solutions to the customer as opposed to just a use our software. Hopefully you have the people to implement it.…”
Levie: The defining AI platforms will be permanently cemented within two years
“This is a window in the next couple of years where I think we'll have the defining platforms get built and effectively cemented, assuming that they stay current, right? If you, if you're asleep at the wheel in this space, it's over, right? You only have, you c…”
Sam Blond Predicts AI Will Fully Automate Transactional Sales
“Transactional sort of commodity like sales will be disrupted in ways that support has been disrupted, where more and more revenue will be generated from just pure models, converting website visitors to revenue without the sales touch. And I think that will con…”
Rangan: Point AI agents will lose the race to unified platforms
“We do think that's one of the reasons why platforms will continue to win. Point agents will not win in this whole race that we are in.”
Norton: AI Leverage Will Push Elite Enterprise Seller Comp from $350K to $500K
“If you have an elite mid-market and enterprise seller, they will have so much more leverage with all of these tools that the competitive dynamic will say, but it was only that seller was worth 350 K to me before, but now look at what they're going to produce. …”
Lemkin: Mediocre sales reps will lose their jobs within a year to AI
“I don't think they have a job next year. I think most, I think they're going to quickly lose all and they're not going, and I don't think they're going to step up and become AI experts.”
Lemkin: Buyers Will Prefer Great AI Over Human Sales Reps
“This is one of my top learnings from RAI from these conversations is that people there'll, and for a lot of reasons will prefer to talk to a great AI.”
Norton: 50% of sales deals will close in one to two calls
“Depends on the time horizon. It will be 50%. Is that in six months, 12 months, 24 months? It is an eventuality.”
Lemkin: Digital AI sales engineers will soon join live sales calls
“I think A digital SE like this is Brian Halligan's digital one on Delphi is going to come to the zooms. The human it's a person is going to be there. And I brought this up and Dara said, give me another release and this will be full duplex. Like my AI and Bria…”
Lemkin: AI Will Shrink Software Dominance Cycles from 20 to 5 Years
“And we really used to have a 20 year run. Now we're gonna have five year runs and we're gonna, the rate of change is so high.”
Lemkin: Top Tech Companies Will Accelerate Layoffs Without Lowering Net Headcount
“We're gonna see this trend accelerate. We're gonna see more and more layoffs of companies that are doing well, and the net headcount is not gonna go down. They're just gotta reskill people.”
Lemkin: MCP Will Enable Direct Data Access Without Application UIs
“There's even things like MCP that are gonna radically change. If folks are using MCP to go out to your data and they're not, and your users aren't even gonna interact with your application.”
Benioff: Salesforce Will Demonstrate AI Agents Integrating Into Physical Robots
“And that fourth layer is going to be the robotic layer, but it needs the other three layers to operate because the agents are going to get manifested into these robots. So that will be a keep next step. And we'll see that by dream force. I'm sure.”
Lemkin: In 18 months, SaaS companies may not charge extra for AI
“I think in, 18 months. We may not be able to charge at all. Yeah, because there has to be a core set of software that I get with my seat. You can't charge me for login. You can't charge me for, there's certain things that have to come.”
Clayton: Annual SaaS IPO capacity is capped at 20 companies
“And only 20 SaaS companies per year can actually make it public. We don't think this number is going to go higher than this anytime soon.”
Tunguz predicts AI startup margins and multiples will match classic SaaS
“Before they used to have Challenging gross margins. And now they'll probably look the same as SaaS companies, which means you have pretty significant multiple and valuation expansion.”
Tunguz: Enterprise app counts will flatline while total software spend rises
“And so I think maybe what we see is application count stays flat or maybe even decreases, but the total amount of software spending increases because it's capturing some fraction of that labor spend.”
Figma Designer: AI Will Collapse Design and Engineering Roles Within 5 Years
“Yeah, five years from now, nobody of course knows, but I do think some level of role collapse is going to happen, which is super exciting. So designers will be able to create, software engineers will be able to create designs and all of these roles are going t…”
Boehmig: AI Is at Peak Hype and Heading Into a Trough
“I do think we are at the peak of inflated lofty expectations in AI, and there's a, for good reason, there's a lot of excitement, but I think the trough is coming, and what we gotta do to get out of the trough is find the repeatable value in AI, and it, I think…”
Schuck: Companies will not lay off sales reps for AI copilots
“I don't think that regardless of how much more efficiency and pipeline you say you're going to bring with your AI sales solution, that people are going to let go of their salespeople to bring in your AI driven co-pilot thing.”
Lemkin: AI Will Not Be a Differentiator in Core B2B SaaS
“I do not believe in core B to B that AI going into this point now, and certainly next year is a differentiator.
Your implementation, maybe you might be the best, but how everyone is going to have pricing page, check the box function app feature parody on every…”
Lemkin predicts the AI bubble will pop due to unsustainable spending
“And I do think the AI bubble is going to pop. I think everyone thinks this just because the amount of spend going into AI can't increase forever. We'll just run out of GDP. There just isn't enough money in our entire economy to allow AI spend to increase at th…”
Lemkin: 95% of new AI support and contact center startups will fail
“Now there's like, 200 folks in the last YC batch that are doing bots and others to automate contact center, to automate support. It's exploded. And they're all promising 10 times better functionality than exists today versus AI. Mathematically, there's no room…”
Riparbelli: Full Hollywood films will be laptop-creatable by 2027
“We said that in 10 years, it's gonna be possible to create a Hollywood film from your laptop, not needing anything else. That's 2017, and at current rate of progress, that wouldn't really surprise me. So I think we got the timeline sort of like ballpark right”
Riparbelli: Data Will Be More Important than the Model Layer Over Time
“Data is definitely going to be very, very important, and it's probably going to be more important than the model layer, in my opinion, over time.”
Cabane: 30% of tech companies will reduce hiring due to AI
“I'll ask the same question one year from now. My bet is that we're going to see at least 30% of the people when you have a reduced headcount or less hires.”
Cabane: Certified human sales reps will become a premium luxury offering
“We're gonna see, like, the certified real human, which can be the new, like Parmigiano-Reggiano of, like, sales. Well, like, hey, like, this is a stamp. This is, like, actually a meat bag that's talking to you, and some people are gonna like that. Some people …”
Cabane: AI outbound email effectiveness will plummet within 12 months
“Overall, email is at risk, because we saw the charts with, like, the cost going down, right? That only means one thing. Everyone here in this room and elsewhere is going after, like, outbound AI-based email. Volumes are gonna go up. People will be desensitized…”