YouSaid · the spoken record

Anish Acharya

lines on the record: 119
first: 2026-02-12
most recent: 2026-02-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yeah, I mean, I think the challenge for area under the curve companies is that you've got to have enough momentum that you can continue to fundraise. You've got to have enough substantiality that your customer loves you. They're willing to pay you up front. They're willing to expand with you. So it has its own idiosyncrasies and difficulties. But I think often some of the most significant companies are these area under the curve companies. And they're, look, there are these like 20-year overnight success stories. And I think that those are underestimated in venture lore. The like one to 100 companies are extraordinary and we all love to be a part of them. But we may talk about those in Lionize, those perhaps sometimes at the expense of the area under the curve companies.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. Yeah, area under the curve. And what do you have today with Figma? You have an n of one network effects product, right? That, by the way, is sort of ahead of where I think the market is going in terms of moving from products focused on execution, which today are being subsumed by coding agents, to markets focused on thinking. And I think a lot of the thinking work is going to be done in products like Figma. I'm not sure that Dylan and Team saw that 10 years ago, but I think they're well positioned today.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely not. No, no. Yeah, look, again, I think that these are all heuristics that we use and we throw it around. First of all, I want to say, I respect the difficulty of getting 2 million of revenue, dude. It is so hard. Like, getting anyone to pay you anything that's not a family member or a friend is hard. And then going from one to five or ten is super hard and 10 to 100 is tremendously hard. So one, I think that it's, I hate it when investors are very flip about this. And then two, no, look, I think it's all about the sort of assumptions that the founder is making, the data as a way to validate those assumptions and the kind of direction, the what if it works. What is the sort of direction of the curve? What's the area underneath it? Right.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think so. I mean, I think that a lot of it is dependent. It's calibrated to your part of the market. So product velocity plus business velocity. I do think that you have to be top quartile compared to your peer set. I think there are some markets that are consumer led or bottoms up where you can just see this explosive growth. And that is awesome. It's extraordinary to see. But look, if you're selling an ERP, you've got a much more cautious customer. It's a much more high stake sale. If you're selling payroll now, granted in the case of payroll Alex and team have done a tremendous job of what should be like a slow boil sale and turning it into a fast boil sale. And they've got some very specific ways that they do that. But typically that is an industry that moves on slower cycles. So I think that there is just physics to some of these markets that mean triple, triple, double, double is phenomenal, but there are other markets in which, especially with these new primitives, you can go like 10 to 100 or 10 to 200.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have a lot of enterprise SaaS companies that do double, double or triple, triple, double, double. Is the world of triple, triple, double, double dead? And do we all have to be lovable wrapled in 11 labs to get funded?”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's right. Yeah, look, I think that happens, and I think in the case where it's because core metrics are super healthy, like, good for them. God bless, you know?”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it's in the margins. Again, I think a lot more at that sort of price threshold. I start to think a lot more about the next round than the absolute dollars in. The absolute dollars, again, for a sufficiently large fund probably aren't going to make or break the fund, but your ability to raise the next round, especially once you're in that growth territory, right? The $500 million round is a hard round. The difference between having to raise a $300, $500, and $700 is pretty significant.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah. Well, this is my mental model. I mean, look, I think price starts to really matter once you're into the hundreds of millions. And certainly at the stage that DG does, price does really matter. But I think at the early stage, let's say sub 100 million, like 50, 70, 100, even 120, the main way that price shows up is it may impair your ability to raise the next round because you price something so high. And like we're very transparent about that, all of a sudden tell a founder, like, look, you've got great metrics. We can do this series A as 12 on 60, 15 on 75, like 12 to 15, it's a little bit of a wash for us in terms of the check size that we're writing. And it's more about what expectations you want to sign up for at the next round. And look, the one thing that we typically don't flex a lot on is ownership because that is our whole model. And like the model of, hey, we're going to put all the chips in behind you doesn't work if we're not real partners.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just have to be a part. I want to learn from you. Yeah, yeah. Well, this is my mental model. No, no, it was. I've learned in Vancha simply copy often works. So like very elastic on price and below a certain price, it doesn't really matter. What is that price”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not very elastic. I try to explain what our model is, but I'm very elastic on price. I should probably be careful about saying that. I mean, my mental model is that below a certain threshold, the price doesn't matter. You just have to be a part of it.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that there are no games to be played. And I think this is the magic of being in this business and being at Andreessen Horowitz. You know, when I started, I had this nervousness around like maybe it's a sales job. But I've realized if you just sort of show up with the right intentions and like, you know, you have to assume that they know everything you know. Of course they do. We live in this era of very, very sophisticated individuals and founders. And you respect that and say, like, look, I want to respect the relationship that you have. With that said, like our mission is to be a part of every important technology story that happens. If there's a way to be a part of it now, great. If not, like, let us get to know each other and earn the right to be your lead investor at the next round. And sometimes that's the right thing.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What you do in those situations when they're like, listen, I love you, but I've known these guys for 10 years, they bat me before. Do you joke, hey, we're going to be the collaborative partner and try and nestle in now? Or like, we'll just peace out and not take part.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're just never going to overcome that, right? And by the way, like having been that, I think healthy and supportive past investor for many people, I would never expect those founders to go work with someone else.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, perhaps risk aperture is not high enough if you're never losing deals. Maybe. I don't know. Like, I think that there is a process by which you can be a part of most important companies that you want to be a part of. I think that there are some very difficult pre-existing conditions to overcome like somebody has a very healthy, successful relationship with a past investor.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He said, like, just win and the importance of winning. We said downstairs, I lost to a wonderful colleague of your Seymour in a company Ars Leo in Germany at the Series A. And I reflect on this a lot, a lot. I can tell it's on my mind.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They don't overthink this shit. It's hard to hit target. Well, this is, you know, I'll tell you a funny thing. So when I first started, I remember sitting, I spent a bunch of time with Mark and Dixon, everyone. So I remember sitting down with Mark and saying, all right, Mark, what's the process? Like, tell me exactly what the process is. And, you know, and Mark said this maddening thing, which is just be right a lot. And I was like, Mark, what is, of course be right a lot, but what else? What is like? And of course, you know, there's a bunch of things that we talked about. Ultimately, having reflected on that, I think his view is like your process doesn't matter as long as you're consistently winning. When I started my career at Amazon as an engineer in 2003, they had a very similar thing. I think it's still a part of their kind of leadership principles, which is that you're consistently right. And I remember being 23 or 24 years old and just finding it to be maddening because like, well, why are you right? How are you right? But this quality of being right sort of supersedes the why or the how or all of our”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think when you have a formidable founder and they're showing a lot of early momentum in a market, inertia is the best mental model. In my mind, inertia is the most powerful force in the universe. So everything that is happening today is going to default happen forever. And when you have a formidable founder making tremendous nonlinear progress, you have to tie it.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People, you either have exceptional credit and you don't really need to look at it because you already know that, or you have terrible credit and you just don't want to look at it and you kind of already know that. So now you've got this torso of people who infrequently need access to their credit score. Is that really a big company? And if you then look at credit karma, you know, it's like over 100 million Americans use it. You've got 50 million quarterly actives. You've got people logging in on average four times a month. And the reason that it works is that the credit score is actually this sort of mirror that people like to look in and see how they're doing objectively as an adult, whether you're doing great, whether you're doing poorly, whether you're doing just okay. People really find a lot of sort of satisfaction in the feedback loop of looking at their credit score. Not something that I ever would have predicted. And as a result, credit karma has many opportunities to sort of inform and sell their company, their customers' products. And it really, really works.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Chris, because no one's going to win back. You know, most of us, when I look forward to your downturn. Mine, you should do. Yeah, 100% Such a good question about which market did we underestimate? I mean, I mean, I've made this mistake a couple of times, you know, like, for example, I remember when we were acquired by Google, and I remember looking at the sort of the stock price then telling my co-founder like, well, maybe this can go up 10 or 15 or 20 or 30%. How much bigger can it possibly get? So if you look at a company like that, which was so capable but seemed dominant in their core market, it was very hard to squint and see what they would become. And there's so much more valuable than they once were, right? I think another interesting example of this is credit karma. You know, free credit scores for Americans, and I know the credit score is a much bigger concept in America than it is where I grew up in Canada or even here. I think you would sort of ask yourself, if you did the back of the envelope, you would say, well, most people tend to use their credit score once or twice a year, right? And most people don't even actually need it that often. It's only when you're applying for a new financial product. And then for most...”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Chris Ninesis. I sent a voice note to my partner saying, will someone please set up a just giving page for Chris? Because no one's going to invest. I will send you my next pass. You know, most investors, when they send you the pass, you're like, well, I look forward to your down. Mine, you should do. Yeah, 100%. So you said about market underestimation. I underestimated the payroll market specifically. I thought Alex was great. I didn't underestimate him, but the market I did. What market did you underestimate, which you later realized you were wrong on? And what did you learn?”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here's what I think. I think we tend to consistently underestimate how big the markets are and consistently overestimate how easy it is to go from zero to one. I think when you squint, you can take something that's not working and say, I can see how it will work. And that is why in my mind, seed investing is, you know, it's its own sort of art. I focus very much on the Series A because I believe that having shipped something and having sold something is such a dramatic signal. To me, that is actually the optimal point in terms of information provided slash entry ownership and price, whereas at the seed, it could be anything very, very difficult to get something working. I believe these companies tend to be even greater and greater versions of themselves for a long time to come. And then I think the mistake that many venture capitalists have made is just not estimating the market to be as big as it is.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Possibly, I think it means dramatic productivity increases for lawyers, dramatic productivity increases for programmers and engineers. Like, I think that the difficulty of doing 100% of a job is really, really high. It's this thing of pretty easy to get to 60, 70, 80%. So I do think that's why a 20% productivity increase so far we're seeing it show up more as a four-day work week than 20% less jobs because jobs is bundleless of tasks don't set themselves up to be 100% automated so far, right? You can do all the customer support you want, but sometimes you got to take the customer out for a steak dinner. And so far, the models are not doing that.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, that's an open question. I don't think that we're in the eight to 12% anymore, right? 50 billion legal software traditionally. I think we're going to be somewhere between the 50 and the 500. And I think closer to the 500 than the 50.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the question is how do you define market? Okay, now this is an important point, right? So I would argue that in many cases what you're calling a market is actually an industry. Let's look at legal. Many great companies have been funded, and there's still room for another dozen. And I think the reason for that is legal is a $500 million. It's sort of infrastructure for capitalism, broadly. Is there going to be one company that wins the entire market of infrastructure for capitalism? Of course not. That is an industry, not a market. You're going to have dozens of winners that all specialize, just as in legal today, you've got dozens and dozens of specializations. So I think in many of these markets, we are talking about it as if it is one market when it is much, much bigger, and all the companies will specialize in their own directions.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do a show with Jason Lemkin Roy Air Driscoll, and Rory said something brilliant, I think, which is like, this will all work out if we see the transition of spend from the 12% SaaS budgets that we operate in today transition from that budget to the human labor budget. Do you think we will see that transition?”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mostly being paid for by big tech in the labs, and it benefits consumers and startups. Like, God bless, I'm all for that.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's a little quip that I like to use, which is like it's not a bubble and it's good that it is. And I'll tell you why. Look, this is not my area of focus or expertise, but one, you look at OpenAI's recent investment announcement, sorry, which is that there are 20 billion of top line. And the way that they got there is they 3x capacity and they 3x top line. So every time they bring on capacity, all of that supply, that inference supply is 100% spoken for. And we're seeing that story happen over and over again. Whereas in previous sort of so-called bubble periods, you saw this incredible build out of supply far ahead of demand. So far, we're not seeing that, right? Two, if you actually look at the prices that customers are paying, they're going up. So you're not seeing the sort of price compression that you would get from a typical overbuild of supply, right? And then three, as I said previously, even if there is subsidization, there's always going to be some distortion, subsidization. It's a sort of intelligence subsidization that's”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Monthly, that's correct. If you look at M2 sort of as your first month for some of these products that are requiring a ton of top of funnel traffic, then you apply the same high retention bar you ever applied to them, you know?”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, I think that retention really matters. And if you take a look at the best AI products, even if you look at M2 as the new M1, right? Because again, you're getting a lot of sort of tourists who come in at M1, you're not paying anything for them.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It totally does. The challenge becomes if you're trying to work out a CAC 12 TV metric that you can kind of oscillate around. Yeah. Very difficult to get an accurate sense of LTV in such a changing landscape where you're not sure of the durability. Is the LTV 12 months or is it? 48 months.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, first of all, it's typically a lot of organic traffic. One, I would look at your M1, you know, your sort of month one as traffic, not truly acquired users because it's organic and it's free to acquire. And then second, I would take the look at the sort of margin cost of those users free trials and sort of just say, hey, that's CAC. And that's okay. And then look at the margin profile of people who convert and say, that's the sort of durable margin profile of the product and the business. Does that make sense? So you're sort of unbundling the CAC-oriented margin spend versus the durable margin, which is what's associated with your power and paying users.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Does that make sense And he said to me Yeah, I love that. 100% correct. Yes. Yes, I also think that power users are so much more powerful than they ever have been. Like Andrew Chen used to say pre-AI, and I love this, like power users are just users. And it was true. Because even if they got 100x more value, they typically didn't pay 100x more. Like you look at Spotify, great European company, the very best Spotify SKU with the highest bitrate music, totally lossless, all the pods, all the videos, family plan, everything was 2025 a month. So there was a belief that the price ceiling for consumer products mass market was $20 to $25 a month. You look at Grock Heavy, it's $300 a month, ChatGPT $200 a month, Gemini Ultra $250 a month. So we're seeing 10x higher prices paid, and you have consumption revenue on top of it. So for the power users, they're paying incredibly high subscription rates plus consumption revenue. So the S&M costs of acquiring those users are very”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of whom are actually power users. So I do think that the blended margin story for AI native companies tends to be worse. But if you look at the overall sort of form of distortion that's happening, it's a much better one than we had five years ago.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so here is actually where I think there's nuance in the margin conversation that's important. Okay, so if you look back at anytime you've got, and we should talk about the bubble that doesn't exist, or perhaps there is some sort of subsidization and distortions happening in the market for the record, I don't believe we're in that period. But I do think that anytime you have this sort of superheated markets, you have some distortion, okay? If you look at the distortion from 2021, you essentially had this indirect subsidy of Google and Facebook. So you would invest in a fintech company, you would give them $10 million, they would go spend $8 million on Google ads and Facebook ads. So there's a subsidy that was happening that were sort of these empty calories for the startup. If instead you look at the form of subsidy that happens today, what it typically means is zero margin or negative gross margin credits for the user to try the product. So these things tend to be a drag, but these are actually very healthy calories for the companies because out of that, you get conversion into high paying users.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so we have actually relatively the same forms of defensibility that have existed before that will continue to make. I'm always trying to understand. I feel very kind of insecure right now as an investor because I'm trying to understand what holds true from the prior decade and what doesn't. And I need to change my mind on, you know, when the fats change, I change my mind. When we think about a lot of the forms of fansibility remaining true, I was always taught that margins matter. I walk with my mother around London, poor woman, and I'm always like, mom, margins matter. Yes, I can.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like your health data, for example, that's our sort of live and ever-changing source of data. Now, there's a question of how proprietary can that be. But once you actually have data like that, or perhaps live data about a product that's running, now you can put a relatively commodity model in front of it and get much better results than the most cutting-edge model that does not have access to the proprietary or live data.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I'll give you the opposite. I was always skeptical of the sort of data network effect. You know, that was like this thing that got thrown out a lot when you couldn't think of what mode to say. But today, if you look at companies that have proprietary data sets and not just proprietary, open evidence is a good example of this, but live proprietary and live is a very, very powerful mode where you can put live.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think defensibility still exists and still matters. Like, networks are the gold standard, and they still are. You know, a network effect product is incredibly powerful. Now, look, you might argue that something like Moltbook is a new type of synthetic network that perhaps means there are certain types of networks that are less defensible than they were once were, but something like an Airbnb, you can have all the vibe coding in the world. Like their network effect is incredibly powerful. So one, I think defensibility matters. Traditional modes still do matter. I do think that within modes like systems of record, there will be some who are more or less prone to disruption. So if you're an on-prem database and there's no engagement layer and there's not a lot of human workflows built around the so-called system,”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think people are consistently concerned by, we mentioned it earlier, but defensibility, switching costs, durability. When we think about moats and Alex's statement of hostages, not customers In a new world of AI, do we just accept that there's no defensibility or a new mode's created?”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Go for it Weird, like just oval. I think so voice is amazing for enterprise. I think that one dynamic UIs and two chat UIs are overstated in consumer. And the best thing around this is actually Eugenia, who founded Replica and now Wabi. She's great on this. And what she would tell you if she was here is that, look, most people don't want to save time. They want to spend time. Okay. And the products are designed by the most high agency people in the world, like Sam and Elon are the most high agency people in the world. For them, the optimal UI is a chat box where you say exactly what you want and like, voila, there it is. But for many people, they are, again, looking to waste time, spend time. They want to browse-based interface. They're not quite sure what they want. They can't always articulate it. So I think that in a world where we have intent-based and browse-based, browse-based largely stays the same. And perhaps the future of intent-based is chat, I'm still a little skeptical.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About a companionship there. Yes, and by the way, I think the whole thing is that there's got to be a level of indirection. This is why I think contextual companions are very powerful. Because I think for a senior citizen, like, you know, it's important they have a big sense of self-respect. So if an AI calls them every night to check in on them, well, they're going to be like, hold on, I don't need that. You know, I don't need to be babysad. But if instead the AI called to, you know, check to see if they'd taken their medicine, asked them how their day was, maybe lightly flirt with them, talk about World War II. I don't know. Suddenly they've got a context in which they're interacting. There's a level of indirection. But the thing that's actually delivering is sort of spiritual nourishment.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it does the exact opposite. I think people are able to be more self reflective and explore aspects of themselves and human relationships that they often just don't have another person to explore these things with. And I think if you're wealthy and perhaps educated, maybe you're interested in therapy and that's like an outlet for it. Or if you are like you and I and you've got this embarrassment of social riches and you have all these people that want to hang out with you and you go to these dinners where you stay up late having all these philosophical conversations or perhaps if you were one of the relative minority today that is spiritual or religious in some way and it's very emotionally nourishing to you like there are directions in which we can explore these things but I think for the majority of our society today they just don't have an outlet and I do think technology can be that outlet.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. In fact, one of the products that I would love to exist, my request for startup is what I call a contextual companion for my son who plays Minecraft. My son plays Minecraft. He plays it online. He absolutely loves it. You know, like the other kids playing Minecraft may or may not be the best influence, often not the best influence. I'd love to actually have an AI companion play Minecraft with him. So there's a context in which they interact. And I don't know, just sort of models pro-social behaviors and is still cool and chill. I think there's a lot of room for teaching through these types of relationships and technology can help provide that.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Character, but also janitor, right? There's a ton of products that are there for replica, which is probably one of the most healthy and nourishing forms of companionship. But all of these products are there and they're there to facilitate friendships between people and technology. And a lot of that stuff is just uncomfortable for big tech to do.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, everything in companionship, right? Every product in companionship has been both well received by customers and a little uncomfortable for the labs to build, perhaps modulate grock.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which is building these weird products that really touch on many core aspects of humanity that the models can reflect, but the big corporations are uncomfortable.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, did I say Boring ones? Yeah. Oh, well, let me make the sort of exact opposite case. I think weird wins. Yeah. So, I mean, here is something that's actually very interesting, which is the nature of these models is very different than the nature of any technology we've had before. I'd say a lot of the technology we've had before, it's quantitative, it's sort of clinical, it can do incredible things, but it's sort of bounded in the range of feelings that it can sort of capture. Now we have this wild, non-predictable emotional, very human technology. And sometimes it gets pointed in these directions that are very human but perhaps uncomfortable to a big corporation, right? What is the human experience? It often involves disagreement, persuasion, sexuality, and we see that mirrored in some of these AI products. Yet if you're Google or Apple, you have a thousand committees that are explicitly designed to ensure there's never any persuasion, disagreement, or sexuality expressed in your products. So I think that there is a pocket that startups can really throw.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Boring wins is the statement that you said to me before when we were talking about kind of apps layers and where value will accrue What do you mean by boring winds, and how does that translate to the next generation of iconic companies?”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Perhaps I just think that the model companies have ambitions in so many directions that it is hard for them to prioritize building opinionated UIs for the legal community. I also think in many of these categories, again, being multimodal is important. And OpenAI is only going to ever give you open AI models, right? Anthropics is only going to give you their models, same with Google. So if you are multi-model rich feature surface, I think being an apps company is better.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so this is such an interesting topic. So, granola, which we're not investors in, but I admire them a great deal. It's a great company. They've built a really interesting thing and they were first, of course, to live meeting recording and transcription, which is awesome. They have been copied to the moon, right? Now everybody has a meeting transcription feature. OpenAI released one within ChatGPT.”
2026-02-12 · a16z Podcast · Anish Acharya: Is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source