Joshua Adragna’s Post

Bunch of private equity software returns are about to get exposed, and ai will become the excuse we'll hear. the real issue is simpler. massive amounts of capital went into enterprise software at multiples that assumed the old world would keep going forever --sticky seats, expensive workflows, slow buyers, heavy services teams, bloated sales orgs and predictable retention. then ai showed up and started attacking the exact assumptions those models were built on. for years, a lot of PE acted like value creation was mostly capital structure, board pressure, dashboards, pricing exercises and “professionalization.” operators were treated like replaceable execution layers. but when the market changes this fast, the spreadsheet is not the asset. operating truth is the asset. can the product still defend budget? can the workflow survive automation? can the company grow without adding bodies? can sales tell a story buyers still believe? Some firms will blame ai for the write-downs, ai didn’t create the overpayment. it did remove the hiding places. I believe real operators are going to matter more in this cycle, not less.