SaaStr: When Growth Slows in AI Era, It's the Product's Fault — AI Shifts Blame from Sales to Engineering
SaaStr·medium signal
Jason Lemkin argues that the traditional 'sales vs product blame game' when growth decelerates has been fundamentally resolved by AI: if your product can be replicated by an AI agent in 60 minutes, the problem is the product, not sales execution. When AI makes features commoditized, the only defensible position is product innovation that AI can't replicate — and that shifts accountability from VP Sales to VP Product/Engineering. This reframes the entire SaaS growth playbook, from 'hire more reps' to 'build what agents can't.'