Software has fundamentally changed the way we record, store, and share information. Its next act is to fundamentally change the nature of our economy, capturing trillions of dollars of value in the process. In this talk from the 2025 a16z LP Summit, a16z General Partner Alex Rampell discusses the history of filing cabinets and databases, how SaaS pricing moved from seats to outcomes, and how AI agents will accelerate the trend of the last 70 years of software progress.
Software has fundamentally changed the way we record, store, and share information. Its next act is to fundamentally change the nature of our economy, capturing trillions of dollars of value in the process.
In this talk from the 2025 a16z LP Summit, a16z General Partner Alex Rampell discusses the history of filing cabinets and databases, how SaaS pricing moved from seats to outcomes, and how AI agents will accelerate the trend of the last 70 years of software progress.
Timecodes:
0:00 Introduction
0:58 The Scale of the Labor Market vs. SaaS
1:41 Capital, Labor, and Automation: A Historical Perspective
3:32 The Filing Cabinet Metaphor: Digitizing Work
3:50 Case Studies: From Airlines to Accounting
8:42 The Limits of Efficiency: Humans Still in the Loop
9:02 Rethinking SaaS Pricing Models
10:21 The Impact of AI on Labor and Software
11:41 Outcome-Based Software: Moving Beyond the Filing Cabinet
17:41 Real-World Examples: AI in Action
22:05 The Expanding Market: New Opportunities with AI
25:44 Conclusion and Takeaways
25:48 Podcast Outro and Disclaimers
Resources:
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