SaaStr: 82 of the 100 Fastest-Growing AI-Native Startups Have Technical CEOs, Against 49% in the 2013 Unicorn Club

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SaaStr's September 12 piece argues the sales-executive CEO is finished in B2B and puts numbers behind it: 82 of the 100 fastest-growing AI-native startups have technical CEOs and 86% of founders are technical, against 49% and 59% a decade ago. The Databricks and Snowflake contrast is the case study, with Databricks promoting Berkeley professor Ali Ghodsi to $190B and 80%+ growth while Snowflake hired outside operators twice, then saw product revenue growth go from 26% to 34% after engineer Sridhar Ramaswamy took over. The counterexample is offered honestly: Bill McDermott's ServiceNow posts 24.5% subscription growth on $15.8B and the stock is down roughly a third.