If you're a Director/VP level in Saas, it's time to rethink career paths.

AI-native SaaS companies are running at 7-10X the efficiency of pre-AI SaaS companies. Pre-AI, the standard team size to hit $100M ARR was 1000 employees over 5 to 10 years. Cursor hit $100M ARR with a team of 20 people in 12 months. Lovable took 45 people about 8 months.

This incredible step-change in efficiency is achieved through AI agents. Humans are no longer executing tasks one at a time for 40 hours a week. Instead, they are directing, orchestrating, and reviewing multiple AI agents running in parallel around the clock.

The result? More smaller IC-led teams and a few very senior people leaders. The “middle-management” layers will be drastically reduced. Senior ICs will manage teams with the scope of the current Directors. Directors and VPs will either be pushed out or switch to senior IC roles. The executives who adopt AI-first mentalities and skillsets will run ever-larger empires. And those who don’t will get replaced.

Don't wait for the change to force your hand. Take the time now to consider whether you love building or managing, and position yourself as an AI-first individual contributor, or try to make the hop to VP+.

-- 👋 Hi! I'm Yue, executive coach and former CPO & CTO. I teach a course on Executive Presence & Communication to help women and minorities make the leap to VP+. Now Enrolling for March!