Top Investor: AI Killed Most Moats. These 4 Still Work | Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2 Capital

Top Investor: AI Killed Most Moats. These 4 Still Work | Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2 Capital

May 3, 2026 · 1h 2m

About this episode

Liz Christo discusses the impact of AI on venture expectations and traditional B2B SaaS strategies.

Stage 2 Capital General Partner Liz Christo joins the show to discuss the disconnect between venture expectations and reality in the software market. The conversation covers the hidden costs of the new build versus buy debate, the structural changes happening within modern sales organizations, and whether traditional B2B SaaS go-to-market strategies and moats still matter when AI coding tools make software replication cheaper than ever. Key Takeaways: -The shift toward building internal AI tools instead of buying SaaS products overlooks long-term technical debt, as Liz Christo points out that "there's like a huge amount of cost buried behind the scenes that we're not really talking about today because it's still like sexy and fun." -Founders are artificially inflating their Total Addressable Market to meet new venture capital baseline expectations, with Liz Christo noting that "pitch decks read like really ridiculous right now where everybody wants to tell the story of like a $10 billion outcome because that's the new milestone that got set." -Revenue Operations is becoming the most direct path to the Chief Revenue Officer seat in AI-first organizations, which Sam Jacobs explains…

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