Worth Your Time This Week

My friend AJ Gandhi published in Topline and every executive reading this newsletter should sit with it—especially if you're evaluating your next move or trying to understand why the hiring landscape feels so different right now.

The piece is called SaaS-Era GTM: A Playbook for The Walking Dead.

The short version…

The era of cheap capital masking lazy go-to-market execution is over. Sales cycles are 38% longer. Buying committees have 10+ stakeholders. And most companies are still running playbooks built for a market that no longer exists.

Why does this matter to you?

Because the companies offering you roles are living inside this pressure. The ones cutting headcount aren't always failing — some are getting precise. And the ones that aren't getting precise? They're the zombie companies you want to avoid.

AJ's framework for diagnosing which is which — waste removal, ICP discipline, pricing rigor, partner-sourced pipeline — is the same lens I'd want you applying when you're sitting across the table from a CEO who says "we're in a growth phase." Growth how? Growth where? Growth funded by what?

The executives who understand the commercial mechanics of the companies they're joining — not just the title and the comp band — are the ones building durable careers. This piece gives you that vocabulary.

Read it. Then come back and tell me what you think.