For the past several years, Saul’s Board has focused on Software as a Service (SaaS). These companies needed minimal capital investment or human resources to generate cash flow. In recent years, private equity firms bought mature SaaS companies at high valuations, loading them with debt in the classic private equity model. They borrowed from private credit firms such as KKR, Blue Owl, Ares and Blackstone, among others.

The traditional SaaS business model is built on Per-User/Per-Month (PUPM) pricing that provides a consistent cash flow. But if AI enables a customer to increase productivity enough to fire workers the SaaS pricing suddenly collapses.

This threatens the SaaS companies and also the lenders. The collateral was the software since SaaS companies don’t have physical collateral. But if the software becomes obsolete – POOF! – the cash flow disappears and the lenders are toast.

This parallels the devastation to lenders who invested in Global Crossing and other internet companies in 1999.

wsj.com - Software slump drags down private fund managers


Threat of New AI Tools Wipes $300 Billion Off Software and Data Stocks
From Legalzoom.com and Expedia to Ares and Apollo, shares of companies that sell or invest in software fell sharply on Tuesday

By Matt Wirz and Jack Pitcher, The Wall Street Journal, Updated Feb. 3, 2026

Investors’ fears that new developments in artificial intelligence will supplant software reverberated through the stock market Tuesday, dragging down the shares of companies that develop, license and even invest in code and systems. …

[snip list of companies affected]

While other AI models and tools have similar capabilities, millions of people are now discovering and using them to write software, do data analysis and complete other tasks. [Such as the contract ChatGPT wrote for me a couple of weeks ago which I brought to my lawyer for review, bypassing high legal fees. – W] Software companies are defending their businesses, noting that writing code is often the easiest part of building a platform based on trust and the individual data and information. But investor jitters have persisted…

Software now accounts for about 20% of investments in business development companies, or BDCs, a booming type of private-credit fund… [end quote]

According to Gemini, this is a significant break in the market which will continue.

" Vertical SaaS vs. Horizontal SaaS

The “break” isn’t universal, but it is surgical.

** Horizontal SaaS (At Risk):** Generic tools for CRM, HR, and basic data analytics (e.g., Salesforce, Adobe, Intuit) are being hammered because AI can now generate those workflows “on the fly” or replace the need for the interface entirely.

**Vertical SaaS (The Survivor): ** Niche software that owns deep, proprietary industry data (healthcare, agriculture, heavy manufacturing) is holding up better. If the software is the “system of record” for a physical industry, it is harder to disrupt with a generic LLM.

Summary of the “SaaS Break”

The “Golden Age of SaaS” (2010–2024) was defined by high margins and low churn. The “AI Age” (2025–Beyond) is defined by margin compression and feature-obsolescence."

Gemini thinks that ServiceNow (NOW) and Oracle (ORCL) will be winners by integrating tools like Anthropic’s Claude to automate entire enterprise workflows. But who knows. Right now they are falling knives. This could be a Gemini hallucination...or maybe it's right about the overall market pattern.

NAZ is still in a rising trend so this could just be noise. But VIX is rising and investors are nervous.

Wendy

Having witnessed many disruptions in tech, both hardware and software companies that blazed then vanished, I keep away from this.