SaaS is dead?

The Startup Ideas Podcast

aired Oct 29, 2026

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Signal

91.5/ 100

Essential

confidence 0.89

Orig67.8

Actn94.5

Dens99.1

Dpth98.5

Clty82.1

Summary

In this solo episode, I explain why I say SaaS is dead and what I see taking its place. For 15 years, SaaS meant paying engineers to build a tool and charging per seat, and now models like Opus 5.5, GPT-6, and Argon make the tool easy to build.

Why listen

It goes beyond the title with direct discussion of saas, tool, build, including: For 15 years, SaaS meant paying engineers to build a tool and charging per seat, and now models like Opus 5.5, GPT-6, and Argon make the tool easy to build.

Key takeaways

01For 15 years, SaaS meant paying engineers to build a tool and charging per seat, and now models like Opus 5.5, GPT-6, and Argon make the tool easy to build
02I walk through what I call smart SaaS: give the tool away for free, collect data and network effects, and make money by upselling AI agents and human services
03If you build software, this episode gives you a map for building something people want in a market where the tool is free

Best for

AI engineers building production copilots