Aswath Damodaran

It strikes me that they're just going to come under pricing pressure.

And if you think of 10% or 20% of their expenses are related to people who have a CS degree from Carnegie Mellon actually building the product with software, what's to say that they won't be able to reduce that expense internally, pass on the savings to their clients while protecting their margins?

Because as someone who's sat on boards of software companies—and software has been the gift that keeps on giving—

We're going to grow our revenues 11%, and we're going to grow our employment 8%, and our EBITDA 12% to 15%.

That's generally the story of software for the last 30 years.

My thesis is there are so many fatty deposits that can be easily taken out of these software companies, and they can pass those savings on.

Well, it might be a hit to their top line.

Like you said, I think their margins and their cash flows, it just strikes me, the last time we spoke to you,

We had a difficult time zeroing in on what felt like a buying opportunity.

And our thesis has been that if you were to buy a basket of these software companies that have shed half a trillion to a trillion dollars, it feels like the first buy signal in a while.

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