Tom Tunguz

MARCH 2, 2024

GPT4 3/14/23 1760 0.864 But model performance will soon asymptote - at least on this metric. But pretty quickly, the infrastructure layer should commoditize, just as it did in the cloud where three vendors command 65% market share : Amazon Web Services, Azure, & Google Cloud Platform. 0.324 GPT3 6/11/20 175 0.539 GPT3.5

AI 236

AI Azure ChatGPT Benchmarks 236

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 4, 2021

The SaaS “Rule of 40” has gained popularity due to its simplicity, requiring only two common financial metrics to be added together. Ultimately, the “Rule of 40” is ONLY a metric. You can’t pay your Azure bill or office lease in “Rule of 40” points.

SaaS 317

SaaS Technical Review Benchmarks Azure 317

SaaStr

APRIL 3, 2021

There’s a metric the very top founders track quitely, but ruthlessly, that I find other founders either don’t track, or sort of hide from. DigitalOcean is growing more slowly than its mega competitors Azure, AWS, etc. That’s % of marketshare. And importantly, if it’s growing, or shrinking. Why does it matter?

Azure 244

Azure Headcount AWS Education 244

SaaStr

APRIL 26, 2024

Culture Structure You want a culture of checking results and having metrics to evaluate those results from the LLM or a more traditional model. You want a culture that focuses on your metrics and evaluating what’s important to you. Whatever the metric is, you have to translate that into a concrete metric.

AI Search 287

AI Search AI Artificial Intelligence Scale 287

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 27, 2023

Subscribe now Cloud Giants Report Q3 ‘23 Not a great signal for software this week from the Cloud Giants (AWS, Azure and Google Cloud)…After Q2 (3 months ago), the tone from the Cloud Giants around optimizations was largely: optimizations have started to ease, and net new workloads have picked up. Staggering scale already.

Cost optimization & reporting 157

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 157

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

” Microsoft on Azure : “And I think last quarter, we said one, we are going to continue to have these cycles where people will build new workloads. Azure (excluding Azure AI) continued to decelerate, and while AWS did come in ahead of expectations, it wasn’t a blow out.

Cost optimization & reporting 167

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Azure AWS 167

Clouded Judgement

MAY 3, 2024

We now have results from the three hypersclaers (AWS / Azure / GCP). Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

Cost optimization & reporting 190

Cost optimization & reporting Cloud Software Azure 190

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

Through these interactions, I’ve built up mental benchmarks for metrics on which I place extra emphasis. My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., This metric is more self-explanatory, so I won’t go into detail.

Cloud 184

Cloud Software Azure AWS 184

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 13, 2023

Turning to our customer metrics in the fourth quarter. Yesterday, Cloudflare announced earnings. I’m adding Cloudflare to the list of tracked companies for this series. From a geographic perspective, the U.S. represented 53% of revenue and increased 44% year-over-year. EMEA represented 27% of revenue and increased 42% year-over-year.

Cloud 235

Cloud Azure Headcount Software Review 235

SaaStr

MARCH 31, 2022

Azure’s marketplace has over 4 million monthly visitors. We aligned with finance, with sales operations, as well as the sales leaders to say, here are some impacts that a cloud marketplace could have on our business and what would your metrics or successful outcomes be? AWS’s marketplace has seen 1.5

Scale 259

Scale Marketplace as a Service Cloud SaaS Payments 259

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 20, 2023

Hyperscaler Preview Next week Amazon, Microsoft and Google report earnings and we’ll see Q3 data for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. Even a DCF is riddled with long term assumptions.

Cloud 167

Cloud Azure AWS Software Review 167

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 6, 2023

Cloud Downgrades This week UBS came out with a couple research reports citing concerns in AWS / Azure growth. This brings me back to AWS / Azure downgrades. This was the worst tone that we’ve heard in years from large AWS/Azure partners, a group that usually expresses different shades of optimism about AWS/Azure growth.”

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Underperforming Technical Team 130

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 28, 2023

AWS (Amazon), Azure (Microsoft), and Google Cloud (Google) all reported this week. Azure reported on Tuesday and gave us that glimmer of hope. Azure : Coming into the quarter, a growth rate that would have satisfied the market would have been ~29%. Azure came in at 31% (constant currency). Follow along to stay up to date!

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS AI Search 130

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 2, 2024

Cloud Giants Report Q2 We also got the Q2 quarters from AWS / Azure / GCP this week! Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

Cloud 157

Cloud Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AWS 157

Clouded Judgement

JANUARY 27, 2023

Azure (Microsoft) Quarter The week the first of the cloud giants reported - Azure. Early Look at 2023 Guides Given the Azure weakness reported on Tuesday, all software tumbled Wednesday morning with most names down 5-10%. Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies.

Cloud 144

Cloud Azure Pricing Subscription 144

Clouded Judgement

OCTOBER 28, 2022

Hyperscalers Report Quarterly Earnings This week we saw AWS (Amazon), GCP (Google) and Azure (Microsoft) report earnings. At the same time, Azure came in below expectations. Azure called out an incremental $800m of costs expected throughout the year (they just finished their Fiscal Q1).

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 4, 2023

You can see more detail about their net new ARR added each quarter below Azure Growth came in at 27%, and guided to 25-26% growth for Q3. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Cost optimization & reporting 130

SaaStr

MARCH 17, 2023

They can provide big-picture ROI, but they don’t have hard ROI metrics, benchmarks, and success stories. We’re seeing a growing trend of buyers making SaaS purchases through global marketplaces such as the AWS Marketplace and Azure Marketplace. If you have an in-depth ROI figure, talk to customers very early about this value.

Marketplace as a Service 246

Marketplace as a Service Software Review Technical Review Azure 246

Clouded Judgement

SEPTEMBER 27, 2024

Microsoft launched Azure in 2010, and Google launched GCP to the public in 2011 (they launched a preview of Google App Engine in 2008, but made it publicly available in 2011). Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Cloud 176

Cloud GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AWS Azure 176

Clouded Judgement

MAY 10, 2024

All 3 (AWS, Azure, GCP) saw positive reacceleration Quarterly Reports Summary Top 10 EV / NTM Revenue Multiples Top 10 Weekly Share Price Movement Update on Multiples SaaS businesses are generally valued on a multiple of their revenue - in most cases the projected revenue for the next 12 months.

Cloud 167

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) Azure 167

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 9, 2023

Usage on Snowflake is driven by queries run on Snowflake Azure: Neutral Tone With Strength in AI Overall I’d characterize Azure’s quarter as a net positive. They guided to 26-27% growth in Azure in Q2 (with 1% coming from AI). Their consumption is driven by usage of applications built on top of Mongo.

Trends 130

Trends Cloud Azure AWS 130

Clouded Judgement

MAY 31, 2024

.” As growth starts to slow, it gets harder and harder to justify using revenue multiples as a primary valuation metric. And when this happens, growth companies transition to more of a value based valuation metric (FCF or PE). I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

Cloud 184

Cloud Software GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 184

Clouded Judgement

JULY 28, 2023

AI = Data + Compute I’ll continue beating this drum, but we got two great quotes from Azure and AWS this week. This week we had two of the hypserscalers report (Microsoft / Azure and Google / GCP), and everyone was eager to see their results. Lots to unpack, I’ll hit on a couple of my favorite topics from this week below.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 21, 2023

Next week we get all 3 hyperscalers reporting (AWS from Amazon, Azure from Microsoft, and GCP from Google). Let’s double click on Azure. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

SaaStr

AUGUST 12, 2022

If you didn’t catch it the other day … and you can read about it on SaaStr …Microsoft and Google Cloud both had extremely strong quarters, Microsoft Azure grew 40% last quarter , and a record number of nine-figure and billion-dollar deals. Microsoft Azure’s at incredible scale and it still grew 40% last quarter.

Scale 245

Scale SaaS Payments Scaling SaaS 245

Chart Mogul

JANUARY 20, 2022

Configure Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, or Azure Blob Storage as a destination in ChartMogul and export your activities for further analysis. You can export your MRR movements as a CSV , and for a programmatic approach, using the Metrics API. Configuring a destination in ChartMogul takes only a few minutes.

Azure 52

Azure Cloud Forecasting Churn 52

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 10, 2023

Hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP as companies look for cloud GPUs who aren’t building out their own data centers) Infra (Data layer, orchestration, monitoring, ops, etc) Durable Applications We’ve clearly well underway of the first 3 layers monetizing. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

Cloud 190

Cloud Artificial Intelligence GCP(Google Cloud Platform) AI 190

Clouded Judgement

MARCH 22, 2024

Subscribe now ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) vs ERR (Experimental Runrate Revenue) ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is one of the most popular SaaS (Non-GAAP) metrics. However, it’s also one of the most loosely used metrics, and is frequently misused. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric.

AI 190

AI Cloud Revenue Technical Advisors 190

Neil Patel

JANUARY 25, 2021

These tools should help you understand your business in more detail, including important metrics, inventory, and sales numbers. It can identify market trends, uncover insights, determine outliers, and monitor crucial business metrics. You should be able to identify problem areas, along with ways to improve them. System Integration.

Data Analysis 128

Data Analysis Software Data Scale 128

Clouded Judgement

AUGUST 11, 2023

If next quarter we get similar commentary that Azure gave us this quarter (“still a couple quarters away” without any specific guidance), then we may see market loose a little patience. The hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP) are seeing some uptick, but this is largely from selling compute (ie cloud GPUs).

Cloud 130

Cloud Trends Azure GCP(Google Cloud Platform) 130

Clouded Judgement

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

Maybe with the exception of hyperscalers (particularly Azure). So if you’re not valued like a growth stock you get valued more like a value stock - and the valuation metrics there look more like FCF or PE multiples. I created this subset to show companies where FCF is a relevant valuation metric. And the median guide is 0.4%

Software Review 167

Software Review Cloud Software Azure 167

Clouded Judgement

MAY 26, 2023

Azure / Confluent / Datadog reported a few weeks back (they all had March quarter ends), and their commentary suggested the worst was behind us. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Cloud 144

Cloud Azure Trends Forecasting 144

User Pilot

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

How Userpilots data sync simplifies the process Userpilot offers a simple way to unify product and business data and use these insights to predict churn, revenue, customer health scores, and other key metrics.

Data 52

Data Azure Cloud Customer Success 52

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 14, 2023

What’s evolved over the years and is driven by hyper-scalers like Google Azure, AWS, Twilio, and Stripe is the consumption-based model. Rather than compensating based on ARR, it’s based on a volume and quality-based metric. There are still some complexities around SaaS-based approaches. This is MongoDB’s approach.

Compensation 176

Compensation Sales Azure AWS 176

Clouded Judgement

FEBRUARY 3, 2023

In the short term, enjoy the ride as the chase continues 😊 Kind of related to all of this - we now have seen the Q4’s from AWS, Azure and Google Cloud. Given most software companies are not profitable, or not generating meaningful FCF, it’s the only metric to compare the entire industry against.

Cloud 130

Cloud Azure AWS Generative AI 130

Clouded Judgement

JUNE 20, 2023

Through these interactions, I’ve built up mental benchmarks for metrics on which I place extra emphasis. My hope is that this analysis can provide startup entrepreneurs with a framework for how to manage their businesses around SaaS metrics (e.g., This metric is more self-explanatory, so I won’t go into detail.

Cloud 167

Cloud Software Benchmarks Scale 167

Andreessen Horowitz

MARCH 21, 2024

While they are relying on NPS and customer satisfaction as good proxy metrics, they’re also looking for more tangible ways to measure returns, such as revenue generation, savings, efficiency, and accuracy gains, depending on their use case. 2B run-rate revenue, including spend on OpenAI models via Azure.

Generative AI 145

Generative AI Enterprise AI Artificial Intelligence 145