OnlyCFO

Weekly newsletter on software/AI stuff from a finance perspective 👉

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

If a company I invested into didn’t exceed 2026 budgets I’d be asking, “So…are we doing this AI thing?”

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

Every AI-pilled company I know blew past their 2026 budgets very early.

With what we knew in 2025 during annual planning versus what AI capabilities we got early this year, I don’t know how you wouldn’t blow past your original 2026 budget…

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@cjgustafson Also true. Got to weigh the cost of maintaining and if the value from customization is worth it. Individual features and more simpler products are where I am seeing the best ROI

Many are already getting tired of maintaining

But...maintaining is also getting easier today.

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@vallver Also true and many are getting tired…

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

We are in the vibecoding fatigue era…

Everyone (especially non-engineer folks) were really excited to build stuff. For many that happened with the release of Cowork at the beginning of this year.

Seeing a lot of these vibecoders get tired.

Might be a good time to “circle back” and sell to those people :)

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

I have had many build vs buy convos

“Why build internally when buying only cost $[X]? Your time is better spent elsewhere”

If saving money was the only reason to build internally, then the above is right. But it’s often not…

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@mfishbein good summary of the reason.

And customization is often what you can't really buy. The more important customization is (and level of difficulty building it) the bigger the draw toward building

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@strifenjustice For some thing, not all things

Buying still makes sense the majority of the time

Especially for features or simpler, not critical things

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

Buying still makes sense for the vast majority of things tho…

And I am seeing many vibecoded tools being replaced by vendor tools.

But…building internally (especially for certain features) can still make a lot of sense

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@jasonlk @FinlaysonConnor And the key is better for YOU. Not necessarily a better enterprise app for the masses. If customization and other things are important for you then it can often be worth it

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@rfradin @termsheet @Pelion_VP @arampell @a16z @darian314 @GradientVC @jeffatNvidia Congrats Russell!

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@HenryLSchuck @ZoomInfo It’s crazy how fast our expectations are rising today.

Just because you blew away buyers in your demo 3 months ago doesn’t mean they are still impressed with your software

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@marketplunger1 Guilty

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

While all of you are crying about the market crashing,

Today is a great day for me and my investing strategy

Glass half full

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@jaminball Excellent breakdown

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@BradJCo Yeah, that’s a good point

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

We are in the vibecoding fatigue era…

Everyone (especially non-engineer folks) were really excited to build stuff. For many that happened with the release of Cowork at the beginning of this year.

Seeing a lot of these vibecoders get tired.

Might be a good time to “circle back” and sell to those people :)

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@briansowards I’d say it exists but there is a reset happening where some experience gets wiped from everyone. Not all but some

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

Do you have ten years of experience, or one year of experience repeated ten times?

Important career question to regularly ask yourself

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

CISO just became the sexist title in tech

Know several companies that had no plans on hiring one just a few weeks ago that now have them as a top priority.

Cybersecurity insurance is going up…

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

@enggirlfriend I’m here for it :)

[OnlyCFO @OnlyCFO]

“Since you're not doing this AI stuff”

☠️

[Ali Ghodsi @alighodsi]

I don't think we should fight. The two companies are complementary. Since you're not doing this AI stuff, I really think Snowflake should consider getting its AI tokens through Databricks. You can get both cheap OSS models as well as frontier (OAI/Ant/Gemini/Grok) models from our platform. It all goes through Unity Gateway which has Smart Routing, Budgets, and Access Control. You can even use Omnigent with any harness, including CoCo. Most of our customers used this to reduce token spend ~30% last few months while token count went up. Genie lets you then track, control, manage that spend, all your financials, marketing, etc. Quick POC?