Derek Du
160 posts












Remember this pensive 12th century Chinese general's poem the next time someone shits on small talk





A very insightful interview with an $MSFT employee who works on Copilot on the SaaS disruption debate: 1. According to him, AI doesn't eliminate software value; it redistributes it. He thinks the recent declines in software share prices due to AI risk are partially justified, as it can compress margins, lower switching costs, and shift value from the application layer to the platform or maybe even the model layer. He thinks companies with strong proprietary data, deep workflow integration, and AI execution capability are more likely to expand value rather than lose it. 2. He gives a good example of value for a SaaS provider. The advantage isn't that we host your data, it's that we see patterns like no single customer can see, explaining the value of pattern intelligence across millions of records. He also thinks that in an AI world, owning where revenue decisions happen may be more valuable than owning where attention happens. 3. If SaaS gross margins move from 85% down to 50-60%, the math forces a redesign of the SaaS model. He thinks that if 20-30% of gross margin disappears, the most logical offset is sales and marketing efficiency. The industry will no longer look like the classic SaaS industry, but will more closely resemble an infrastructure economy. Not all players can sustain that 30% operating margin. 4. According to him, $MSFT's Satya always says we're going to have 1.3 billion agents by 2028. He thinks we are rapidly moving from AI that answers to a more agentic mode where AI does. The next 6-12 months are all about orchestration and enterprise control. He thinks the year won't be about AI getting smarter, but more about AI becoming more reliable and integrated into real business processes. 5. He thinks OpenAI and Anthropic realized they can't win enterprise adoption with a raw model alone. They're building distribution, partnerships, and verticalization layers to solve real workflows, not just offer a smart chatbot. The battle is shifting from model intelligence to deployment simplicity and ROI clarity. The winning formula is reducing friction between capabilities and a business outcome. Enterprise adoption accelerates when AI feels like a feature of the existing system and not a science experiment that's just bolted on the side. found on @AlphaSenseInc



It’s Lunar New Year, NOT Chinese New Year! Regardless of the Chinese government trying to force the world to call this lunisolar new year festival “Chinese New Year” when referring to it in English, a majority of countries and the UN are aligned with the proper “Lunar New Year” in English usage. Let’s keep it neutral and don’t let it become a weapon of Chinese cultural hegemony #ChineseNewYear #ChineseNewYear2026 #LunarNewYear #China #Taiwan #Korea #Japan #Vietnam #Chinese











