It’s now pretty obvious that AI is transforming the way the world works. It feels like a massive movement, and because so much capital continues to get allocated to AI, and so many smart people are dedicating their efforts to making use of it, it’s clear that the transformation is already underway. We can debate whether or not there’s a bubble, but that’s kind of immaterial to the topic I wanted to discuss today (besides, when everyone is jumping on the same opportunity, it’s always going to lead to a bubble, whether we’re talking about mortgages, bitcoin, or AI).

The topic I want to touch on instead is how AI has been reshaping the expectations around company growth (spoiler alert: it changed them completely). In this piece, I’ll discuss how AI is changing the trajectory of startup growth, and then I’ll talk about our industry and why I think that, for better or for worse, the vast majority of the cybersecurity startups won’t grow as fast as the new AI companies. I’ve initially wanted to say that “the rate of growth of cyber startups will never match the rate of growth of the new AI companies,” but then someone will always find an example that makes the point seem wrong, even if it applies to 99.99% of the market, so I would rather maintain some credibility and frame that differently.

This issue is brought to you by… Intruder.

30M Domains Later, Here’s What We Found Hiding In Shadow IT

How much Shadow IT can you uncover with only public data? We ran the experiment and the answer was: too much. From backups holding live credentials to admin panels with no authentication, these exposures stay invisible to you but wide open to attackers. Read the research to see what we found and how Intruder helps you find it first.

The new $100M ARR growth curve for AI startups

Several months ago, Bessemer published The State of AI 2025 report (if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend giving it a read). In this report, they discuss the trends in the AI world and put forward some predictions about the coming years. It’s a good read overall, but what stood out to me is the idea that before AI, top companies would on average need ~7 years to reach $100M ARR. In the post-AI world, the amount of time has been ...