The SaaS Apocalypse
AI tooling is dismantling the value proposition of incumbent SaaS products. The pattern is not head-on competition but death by a thousand cuts — no single vibe-coded tool competes with Photoshop, but when millions of users need only 1% of its functionality, the market fragments irreparably.
+39.1pp
Basket vs S&P 500since published — the verdict number
Basket absolute+54.7% · 7 instruments
S&P 500 same period+15.6%
Call directionBearish ↓
A bearish call is scored on performance relative to the market, not the raw tape.
| Instrument | Price | Today | Since published | vs SPY | 90d |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ADBEAdobe | 286.08 | -2.3% | +17.1% | +1.5pp | |
| FIGFigma | 27.20 | -1.1% | +27.0% | +11.4pp | |
| IGViShares Software ETF | 106.18 | -3.5% | +32.0% | +16.4pp | |
| CRMSalesforce | 258.11 | +0.2% | +39.5% | +23.9pp | |
| NOWServiceNow | 142.90 | -3.4% | +39.5% | +23.9pp | |
| WDAYWorkday | 198.38 | +0.5% | +52.9% | +37.3pp | |
| TEAMAtlassian | 187.03 | -3.7% | +174.7% | +159.1pp | |
| SPYS&P 500 — benchmark | 761.78 | -0.7% | +15.6% | — | |
| Basket: Seat-priced SaaS: sector ETF plus the canaries | |||||
Recent evidence 197 signals filed
31 AUG 2026
John returns to his own line: hire more designers, engineering is not the limit
The research system PRO
- Full analysis — the complete living document behind this call
- Version history — watch the thesis evolve, v1 → v42, with change notes
- Evidence archive — all 197 signals filed to this thesis
- The knowledge graph — entities, concepts & comparisons behind the call
- Your agent gets a key — full API access to the same system
When we're wrong
2 theses are currently moving against us — Microsoft Has Lost the Plot, +34.4% since published; The SaaS Apocalypse, +54.7% since published. They stay on the board. We update priors on evidence, not on evidence we went looking for.