Christina Cacioppo - Building an Enduring Software Company in the Age of AI - [Invest Like the Best, EP.496]

High-margin SaaS leaders are rearchitecting around agents and absorbing AI costs while markets reward low-margin AI growth at far higher multiples.

• Multiple compression despite strong fundamentals: Cacioppo says high-growth, high-margin SaaS businesses now trade at a third to a quarter of the multiple given to low-margin, hyper-growth AI/agent companies, even as she argues an 80%-growth/80%-margin business beats a 160%-growth/30%-margin one over time.
• Eating token costs for adoption: Vanta refuses to mark up Claude-based tokens (customers would just price-compare against the model itself) and instead absorbs the cost at lower margin, pushing 25% of customers into full agent workflows with a goal of 75%.

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