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Open original source ↗This is a general comment about software companies:
If you look across the software industry, you see record levels of RPO - these are future revenues that are tied to a performance obligation before you can recognize it and before a customer has to pay you.
The problem with RPO is that AI can more easily attack and devour it - the more RPO you have and the more you are expected to work to earn it, the more incentive and time you’ve created for a low end AI disruptor to do that work for a customer.
The point is that any valuation model that incorporates any discounted value of RPO may be on the high side and overestimating.
The safest assumption would be to value a software company by valuing their RPO at 0. This may seem ultra conservative but may be the right margin of safety unless you have a precise sense of the AI capabilities of the foundation model companies and their ecosystem.
Quoted context
These are the quoted author’s words.
$MSFT CFO: "Commercial remaining performance obligations...increased to $625B, up 110% Y/Y, with a weighted average duration of ~2.5 years. Roughly 25% will be recognized in revenue in the next 12 months, up 39% Y/Y. The remaining portion recognized beyond the next 12 months increased 156% Y/Y. ~45% of our commercial RPO balance is from OpenAI. The significant remaining balance grew 28% Y/Y and reflects ongoing broad customer demand across the portfolio."
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