In 2006, BILL CEO and Founder René Lacerte set out to define a category around financial operations for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Needless to say, he succeeded.

At SaaStr’s AI Summit during the SaaStr Annual, René chatted with SaaStr CEO and founder Jason Lemkin about how BILL has reached nearly half a million customers and $1.3B in revenue.

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So some Cloud and SaaS stocks are on fire, even now.  And then … there is Palantir.  The fire of the fire.

It’s up +162% in the past year, and is now worth $95 Billion (!) at $2.7 Billion ARR.

That’s a jaw-dropping 35x ARR.  Goodness.

Why is Palantir the highest valued public SaaS and Cloud stock?

• $2.7 Billion in ARR
• Growing 27%, and importantly — re-accelerating.
• 22% free-cash margins, and now GAAP profitable
• Customer count up 41% year-over-year

It’s the bright, AI-driven future folks are excited about.

Let’s dig in.

This edition of the SaaStr Daily is sponsored in part by Sage

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A true partner:

• Is as committed as you.
• You can count on, every day.
• Is ideally strong at something core you aren’t, or at least, can own something important so you don’t have to.
• Carries the weight when things are tough.

In the end, someone where your founder's equity is worth far more, even with the dilution, than without her.

When you don’t see the commitment, when you can’t count on him/her, when you don’t get the ownership you need … it’s not going to work.

No matter how strong he or she may be on paper, or may have been at another company.

99% of the time — don’t play games. Just reach out.

I’ve now been the lead investor in 5 unicorns that reached out to me.

If you’re super hot, and have 10+ VCs already circling around, sure play some games. Maybe. Put together a data room, run a tight process, with a firm expiration date.

But that’s not 99% of us, especially not in the early days. And especially not these days.

Reach out, follow up, be thoughtful but aggressive. That’s what the best CEOs do.

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