Software Terminal Value - You want it one way, but it's the other way

Much ink has been spilt on the software implosion. I have just one point to make on the historical blessing markets granted to software versus the recent terminal value concerns.

In the words of Marlowe Stanfield:

You want it to be one way - get credit for retention metrics, customer LTV/CAC and pricing power to drive top-line into perpetuity and to not care about profitability discipline since they “can make it work” when needed. You only get this treatment when you have secular tailwinds at your back

But it’s the other way - when you lose secular tailwinds and a competitive threat emerges that threatens your top-line perpetuity growth formula, you don’t get credit for that, and what’s more, your profitability discipline becomes a bigger issue. In this case, there are concerns about the shape of the software financial model in the future - the complete opposite treatment of how software was treated historically