2022-2023 for many was the “Great SaaS Burnout”.
First IPOs stopped in December 2021. Then stock prices fell fast in early 2022, followed by growth rates plummeting later in the year. Layoffs swept tech companies big and small, often for the very first time ever. Founders felt the crushing weight of building in a suddenly much tougher environment. The GTM playbooks stopped working as well, and sometimes, at all. Everything was just so much harder than 2H’20-2021.
That exhaustion felt brutal at the time. You saw it all over LinkedIn. Folks quitting to be fractional execs, manage real estate, take a break, and more. But here’s the thing: it was a slow, grinding, perhaps demoralizing burnout. But mostly, things were the same. The same products, the same motions, the same game. Just a harder version of it. Difficulty level turned up, but the same game.
What we’re experiencing now in the AI Age is completely different. We’re all working far, far harder than we ever did during those post-boom years – and we’re absolutely deep into it. The capabilities of AI coding, AI agents, AI support, etc. are intoxicating. We’re all living in ChatGPT now in a way we couldn’t even imagine in 2023. The way we work has already radically changed — and it’s accelerating. The competitive advantages feel limitless.
And that’s exactly why the real burnout is still coming. And what can do you — if you want to keep up? It is what it is. You have to keep up. Or step aside.
The Intensity Gravity Well We Can’t Escape
Here’s what’s happening across B2B companies everywhere, and why it’s so different from “traditional” burnout:
Traditional 2022-2023 Burnout:
- Demoralization from shrinking opportunities
- Grinding through repetitive, slow work that got harder with smaller teams
- Fighting for scarce resources
- Feeling like you’re falling behind despite working hard
AI Age Intensity (Today):
- Euphoria — and stress — from unprecedented capabilities
- Managing AI agents that can write code, create content, analyze data faster than entire teams
- Abundance of opportunities but impossible to pursue them all
- Working harder than ever because the results are so incredible
At SaaStr, we’re orchestrating 10+ AI agents with our tiny team. Our output has tripled with half the team size. We can analyze customer data, review speaker content, automate workflows, sell tickets, qualify sponsors, and bring in new partners at a pace that would have required 10+ people just two years ago.
That’s … cool. But also, there is no going back.
“This is the most stressed I’ve ever been. And that’s actually a good sign.” — Aaron Levie, CEO Box
We Have No Choice – The Competition Is Moving Too Fast
This isn’t primarily about being addicted to AI capabilities. It’s about survival in an industry moving at unprecedented speed.
Look at what happened with Cognition and Windsurf: Three weeks after acquiring Windsurf, Cognition laid off 30 employees and offered buyouts to the remaining 200 staff. Those who choose to stay are required to spend six days at the office and clock more than 80-hour weeks.
Cognition CEO Scott Wu’s email was brutally honest: “We don’t believe in work-life balance—building the future of software engineering is a mission we all care so deeply about that we couldn’t possibly separate the two.”
This is the new reality across AI companies. The pace isn’t optional. It’s not about being intoxicated by AI productivity (though that’s part of it). It’s about the fact that if you don’t move at this speed, you get acquired, stripped for parts, or become irrelevant.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke just told his 8,000+ employees they must prove jobs “cannot get what they want done using AI” before asking for more headcount.
The company has dramatically increased productivity while cutting staff from 11,600 in 2022 to 8,100 in 2024 – yet their GMV hit $300 billion, up 24% year-over-year.
Even more striking: Palantir CEO Alex Karp announced his plan to grow revenue 10x while reducing headcount from 4,100 to 3,600 people.
When your AI agent can:
- Write and test code in 15 minutes that used to take days
- Generate marketing campaigns faster than you can review them
- Analyze customer behavior patterns in real-time
- Create product prototypes while you sleep
Your competitors are using the same tools at the same speed. Slow down for even a week, and you’re behind. Take a traditional approach to work-life balance, and you’re Windsurf – getting picked apart by companies willing to embrace the 996 reality.
The Pace Revolution: It’s Not Just The SF Bay Cracked Statups, And It’s Not Just Hours Worked
This isn’t just about working more hours. It’s about operating at a cognitive and decision-making speed that’s required to stay competitive in an AI-driven market.
Pre-AI: You could take weeks to evaluate a competitive move. Months to plan a product response. Quarters to shift strategy.
AI Age: Your competitor ships three features while you’re planning one. Their AI agents are finding market opportunities faster than your team can discuss them. Their product development cycle is faster than your decision-making cycle.
The pace isn’t relentless because it’s fun – it’s relentless because it’s the new competitive baseline.
At SaaStr, I watch our team process more strategic decisions in a week than we used to make in a month. Not because we’re addicted to the speed, but because our AI-enhanced competitors are forcing that decision velocity. The market won’t wait for human-paced thinking anymore.
The Early Signals (What I’m Seeing Right Now)
The signs aren’t traditional burnout symptoms. They’re something entirely new:
Excitement Fatigue:
- Teams that appreciate their AI tools but feel overwhelmed by the relentless competitive pressure
- Decision paralysis from needing to evaluate and implement AI advances faster than ever
- Mental exhaustion from maintaining hyperspeed decision-making
Competitive Pressure Overload:
- Feeling like every AI breakthrough by competitors requires immediate response
- Anxiety about missing the AI innovation cycle and becoming irrelevant
- Stress from managing AI capabilities while watching competitors potentially pull ahead
Human-Machine Pace Mismatch:
- Difficulty maintaining work intensity that matches AI output capabilities
- Cognitive strain from processing AI-generated work at competitive speeds
- Physical fatigue from the mental concentration required for AI agent orchestration
The excitement is real, but it’s overshadowed by the existential pressure. This is intensity driven by survival, not addiction.
The Gold Rush Reality – Survival Mode, Not Choice
Here’s the truth: This intensity isn’t intoxicating as much as it’s mandatory.
We’re in the middle of an AI arms race where the stakes are existential. The companies that figure out AI agent orchestration first aren’t just building competitive advantages – they’re building survival mechanisms.
Look across the AI landscape:
- Daily product releases are becoming the baseline
- Six-day work weeks and 80+ hour schedules are “table stakes” at top AI firms
- Companies are acquiring competitors just to strip their IP and eliminate teams that can’t keep up
- The gap between AI-native companies and traditional ones is widening every week
The alternative to this pace for many B2B vendors isn’t work-life balance – it’s irrelevance.
Yes, the capabilities are incredible. Yes, seeing what our AI agents can do is genuinely exciting. But that excitement is secondary to the stark reality that this pace has become the minimum viable intensity for staying in the game.
At SaaStr, we’re not working 996 schedules because we love the adrenaline rush (though we do). We’re working them because our AI-powered competitors are shipping faster than we can even evaluate their releases.
The 18-24 Month Cliff
I predict we’ll see the real AI burnout wave hit somewhere between 18-24 months from now. Here’s why:
- Phase 1 (Now – 6 months): Honeymoon period. AI productivity gains mask the increasing workload.
- Phase 2 (6-12 months): Adaptation fatigue. Teams start struggling to maintain AI-enhanced pace.
- Phase 3 (12-18 months): Breaking point. First wave of AI burnout casualties emerge.
- Phase 4 (18-36 months): Industry reckoning. Mass exodus from AI-intensive roles.
What This Means for B2B Leaders
If you’re a founder or operator, you’re probably feeling this tension too. Your team is more productive than ever. They’re excited about the possibilities. They’re volunteering for 80-hour weeks because the results are so compelling.
And you’re starting to worry about sustainability.
Here’s what I think the winning companies will figure out:
- Sustainable Superhuman Performance: Not slowing down, but finding rhythms that humans can maintain while operating AI agents at scale.
- Excitement Management: Channeling the addictive nature of AI productivity into long-term competitive advantage rather than short-term burnout.
- Human-AI Rhythm Design: Building workflows that match human cognitive patterns rather than forcing humans to match AI output patterns.
The companies that crack this code won’t just avoid the coming intensity crash – they’ll be the ones still accelerating while everyone else hits the wall.
The Uncomfortable Questions We Need to Ask
The AI Age intensity isn’t going away. The competitive pressure isn’t decreasing. The capabilities are only getting more impressive.
So where does this lead us?
- Can humans sustainably operate at AI-enhanced speeds for many years, not just months?
- Will we develop new forms of cognitive stamina we’ve never needed before?
- What happens to the companies that master AI intensity versus those that burn out their teams trying?
- Are we creating a new class of “AI-native” workers who thrive at this pace?
- Will many if not most of tech just … opt out? If so, where will they go?
The most important question: How do we harness the incredible excitement and capability of AI agents while building organizations that humans can sustainably operate within?
I don’t have the answers yet. But I know the companies that figure this out first will have an unassailable advantage.
The Bottom Line
The AI Age isn’t just changing how we work – it’s changing how we think about work itself.
We’re not dealing with traditional burnout from doing too much boring stuff. We’re dealing with intensity overload from doing too much incredibly exciting stuff.
The productivity gains are real. The competitive advantages are massive. The excitement is genuine.
And the human challenge is unlike anything we’ve faced before.
The SaaS leaders who figure out how to sustain superhuman performance without breaking their teams will be the ones building the legendary companies of the next decade.
The rest of us are going to learn some very expensive lessons about human limits in the age of AI abundance.
