In this exclusive podcast, 7investing CEO Simon Erickson speaks with hhhypergrowth founder muji about several of the new technologies and investment opportunities that are arising in cloud computing.
Muji begins by describing the newest developments at Amazon's most recent "re:Invent" cloud computing conference. The cloud king continues to roll out new products and features for AWS, though they are often confusing to customers and even its own sales team. While Amazon itself coined the term "serverless" to refer to on-demand service and usage-based pricing, there is contention on whether its newest products truly adhere to this term.
The two also discussed the potential implications of OpenAI's recent ChatGPT open-source conversational (and controversial!) chatbot. Muji believes the true opportunity for AI in is writing and sharing code, which could be useful for Microsoft's GitHub or its competitor GitLab. Usage-based software subscription licenses are quickly replacing per-user or per-device models within tech-heavy fields like cybersecurity or IT operations, though they're also expanding into ad-supported media for companies such as Netflix. This allows software platforms to better monetize their power users, who generally rack up more hours of viewership or induce higher costs every month.
Silicon Valley is going through a round of layoffs, meaning there are fewer technology and IT workers today than there were a few months ago. This could impact software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies who price their products on a per-seat basis, such as GitLab, Zoom, or CrowdStrike.
Speaking of CrowdStrike, Simon and muji compared and contrasted the company to its up-and-coming competitor SentinelOne. Muji believes CrowdStrike recently hiring two of SentinelOne's executives is a pretty big deal, though SentinelOne remains a very compelling option for small and medium businesses.
The two went on to discuss the go-to-market strategies of companies, and how it is often difficult to pivot in their sales approach. Companies like Okta often sold to larger enterprise accounts and are now trying to sell to smaller development teams, while companies like Twilio who typically sold to developers building apps are now looking to move upmarket and land larger deals. The transition in software sales is rarely easy.
In the final segment of the conversation, muji discusses three other publicly-traded companies he is a fan of: Datadog, Bill, and Zscaler.
To see the full conversation and a complete transcript, please visit 7investing.com/podcast.
