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Jason Lemkin

SaaS Founder, Enthusiast & VC

Jason M. Lemkin is a prominent figure in the SaaS (Software as a Service) industry, serving as the Trusted Advisor at SaaStr since August 2012. He is the CEO and co-founder of EchoSign, which was acquired by Adobe, where he also held the position of Vice President of Web Business Services. Lemkin is known for his expertise in helping B2B startups grow and scale effectively, leveraging his extensive experience in venture capital and entrepreneurship.

At SaaStr, Lemkin is involved in building a community of over 500,000 SaaS founders and executives, providing insights and resources aimed at navigating the challenges of scaling SaaS businesses. He is also an active investor, leading initial investments in various successful SaaS companies, including Algolia and Talkdesk, from a venture fund exceeding $100 million.1

Lemkin is recognized for his candid advice on growth metrics and venture capital, emphasizing the importance of substantial growth rates for startups seeking funding. His contributions to the SaaS community extend to organizing significant events like SaaStr Annual and SaaStr Europa, which attract thousands of industry professionals.1

Highlights

Today · twitter

Salesforce is the greatest B2B company of all time.

Founded in 1999. $1B in revenue by year 10. $10B by year 19. $42B by year 27. No other enterprise software company has ever built a business that large, that durable, with that much compounding.

It took Salesforce 19 years to get to $10B ARR.

It took Anthropic 4.

Here's what the revenue trajectories actually look like side by side:

Salesforce: Year 5: $100M Year 10: $1B Year 15: $4B Year 19: $10B Year 27: $42B

OpenAI: Year 8: $2B Year 9: $6B Year 10: $25B

Anthropic: Year 3: $87M Year 4: $1B Year 5: $30B

Anthropic went from $87M to $30B in about 15 months. Salesforce went from $87M to $30B in about 22 years.

Both are real businesses with real enterprise customers. Salesforce has 150,000+ customers. Anthropic now has 1,000+ spending over $1M each, a number that doubled in under two months.

This is not about one being better than the other. Salesforce built the template that made enterprise cloud software possible. Every B2B company that came after it, including the AI companies, benefited from the playbook Benioff wrote.

But the speed is different now. Usage-based AI revenue scales with compute, not headcount. Cloud marketplace distribution replaces years of building a direct sales force. And the product is horizontal from day one, not vertical.

The first $10B in B2B used to take a generation.

Now it takes a presidential term.

Salesforce is the greatest B2B company of all time.

Founded in 1999. $1B in revenue by year 10. $10
Today · twitter

Join the Best of the Best in AI + B2B at https://t.co/OUtlYov3KG 2026 May 12-14 in SF Bay!!

CTO Databricks CEO Replit COO Vercel CEO Lovable CEO Gamma CAIO Atlassian CSO Cloudflare CEO Owner SVP Anthropic CTO Abridge CEO Relevance AI EVP Agentforce CTO Glyphic

  • 100s more!
Jan 5 · Business Insider
The 'Godfather of SaaS' says he replaced most of his sales team with AI agents: 'We're done with hiring humans'
Nov 16 · Business Insider
Managers managing managers is out. Managers managing AI agents is in.

Related Questions

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Jason Lemkin
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Location

Palo Alto, California, United States