Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.
We sat down with Vista Equity Partners’ Senior Managing Director, Co-Head of Flagship Fund, Monti Saroya.
We were live from Berlin, which becomes the “capital of private capital” in June as the private equity’s industry leaders make the annual pilgrimage to the city for one of the marquee private equity conferences, SuperReturn Berlin.
Much of the SuperReturn conference is centered on fundraising. GPs take up every available space — from hotel rooms to Tiny Space cabins that line the parking spots on Budapester Strasse outside of the InterContinental conference venue — to conduct meetings with LPs.
With Prosek Partners and former Bloomberg TV journalist Deirdre Bolton as my producer, along with her team, we took over a Tiny Space cabin to hold big conversations with some of the industry’s leading alternative asset managers.
Vista Equity Partners has been a pioneer in enterprise software investing. They have been at the forefront of every major technology platform shift, whether it was on-prem to cloud, the adoption of enterprise software, and now the agentification of the enterprise with AI.
The $103B AUM scaled specialist software investor has dedicated its efforts to building “mission critical” enterprise software companies that organizations can’t live without.
Monti has had a front row seat in building and developing both infrastructure and software that the technology industry can’t live without. He brings to bear the perspective of someone who lived through the early days of the internet from his time working at Cisco Systems and Siebel Systems. Through this lens, as well as his experience investing in enterprise software companies since joining Vista in 2008, Monti is able to make sense of where, how, and why AI will be adopted within the enterprise and what it means for both operators and investors.
This conversation with Monti was one of the most illuminating conversations I’ve had on AI recently. He pieced together so much of what is happening in AI today, covering:
The different layers of AI adoption.
Why “harness” companies can be valuable.
Where AI agents are having the most impact on a business.
Why open source is the next wave of the AI buildout.
Why Monti is so excited about the firm’s investment in SambaNova.
Do “harness” companies have a moat?
Why the moats for many AI companies might surprise you.
Why sovereign AI is the next big thing.
Bio
Monti Saroya joined Vista Equity Partners in 2008 and is Co-Head of the Vista Flagship Fund and sits on its Investment Committee.
Additionally, Monti serves as a member of Vista’s Executive Committee, the firm’s governing and decision- making body for matters affecting its overall management and strategic direction, and Vista’s Private Equity Management Committee, the firm’s decision-making body for matters affecting Vista’s overall private equity platform.
Monti is also the Co-Chief Executive Officer of VistaOne, Vista’s evergreen private equity vehicle, and serves on the Investment Committee. Monti helps lead Vista’s artificial intelligence initiatives, driving the firm’s approach to AI adoption through strategic partnerships and the deployment of AI-enabled infrastructure and capabilities across the platform and portfolio ecosystem.
He currently sits on the boards of Acumatica, Allvue Systems, Avalara, Cloud Software Group, Duck Creek, Finastra, Infoblox, Playlist, Smartsheet, Solera, among others. Monti was actively involved in the firm’s investments in Apptio, Cvent (NASDAQ: CVT), Datto (formerly NYSE: MSP), Marketo, PowerSchool (formerly NYSE: PWSC), SumTotal, The ACTIVENetwork, and Transfirst, among others.
Prior to Vista, Monti worked as a Senior Research Analyst for JMP Securities, where he provided research for buy-side clients on public on-demand (SaaS) companies. Monti previously worked as an Associate on the enterprise software/applications team. Before JMP, Monti worked at Siebel Systems in a sales capacity for the CRM On Demand division. Prior to Siebel, Monti worked for Cisco Systems in various operations roles.
Thanks Monti for sharing your wisdom, expertise, and passion about AI, enterprise software, and technology transformations.
Show Notes
00:00 Intro: Live from SuperReturn Berlin
00:21 Meet Monti Saroya
00:51 Career Origins Cisco and Siebel
01:12 Building Internet Infrastructure
02:17 Internet Lessons for AI
02:38 Adoption Moves Slower
03:34 What We Underestimate
04:09 AI Value Stack Layers
04:56 Why the App Layer Wins
05:12 From Screens to Agents
06:28 Agents Boost Productivity
06:56 Engineering Impact Today
08:55 Harnesses and Model Routing
13:49 Token Costs and SambaNova
14:49 Hosting Cost Shock
15:13 Finding Cheaper Hardware
15:23 Token Pricing Reality
16:02 Public Markets Raise Prices
16:15 Should You Build It
16:34 Open Weight Pivot
17:10 Why Open Source Wins
17:13 Linux vs Unix Lesson
17:38 China Open Model Lead
17:50 Enough Intelligence Threshold
18:19 Deployment Is The Bottleneck
18:58 Building An AI Factory
20:03 Avoiding Services Trap
20:26 Where Value Accrues Next
25:25 Sovereign AI Is Coming
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