Area man Marcus Chen, 34, a senior engineer at a mid-sized fintech company, has reportedly replaced his employer's $50,000-per-year enterprise software contract with mass-produced shitcode he built while waiting for his Chipotle burrito to cool down to an edible temperature, sources confirmed this week.
"I genuinely did not set out to destroy a $4 trillion industry," Chen told reporters, speaking from his standing desk where he is currently destroying a $4 trillion industry. "I just really didn't want to attend that vendor call. They always want to 'sync on our roadmap alignment' for like ninety minutes."
Chen's hastily-constructed internal toolβdescribed by colleagues as "definitely not production-ready" and "oh god, is that a nested for-loop?"βhas nonetheless outperformed the enterprise solution it replaced on every metric except "number of account executives asking about Q4 budget cycles."
I genuinely did not set out to destroy a $4 trillion industry. I just really didn't want to attend that vendor call.
β Marcus Chen, accidental industry destroyerThe Maintenance Question No One Asked
"But who will maintain these internal tools?" asked a panel of visibly sweating SaaS executives at the annual Enterprise Software Summit, apparently forgetting that their industry charges $80,000 per year for software that has not been updated since Obama's first term.
Industry analysts have noted that the entire SaaS sector now appears to have been an elaborate 25-year bet that customers would never Google "how hard is this actually." That bet, sources confirm, has not paid off.
PivotPanicβ’ helps you explain to investors why "AI-native" was always your strategy.
The AI Agent Advantage
Enterprise analysts have praised AI agents for their unique value proposition: they never quit, never unionize, and never post a LinkedIn carousel about how getting fired was "actually the best thing that ever happened to me." They also do not require headcount approval, kombucha fridges, or "mental health days" that are actually just Tuesdays.
Meanwhile, SaaS executives across Silicon Valley have reported experiencing what psychologists are calling "collective ego death" upon learning that per-seat licensing is not a law of thermodynamics but rather, in the words of one anonymous source, "some shit we made up in 2007."
π By The Numbers
The Rise Of The Shadow CEO
Perhaps no figure better exemplifies the shifting power dynamics than DevOps engineer Bradley Kominski, 29, who has reportedly become the shadow CEO of three Fortune 500 companies after their respective boards realized he is the only person who knows how to restart the 47 internal tools that replaced Salesforce, Workday, and Janet from Accounting.
"I don't know what Janet did," admitted one board member, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Accounting things, I assume. We automated her in 2019 and now Bradley is the only one who knows the cron job schedule."
Kominski did not respond to requests for comment, as he was busy approving his own unlimited PTO policy.
"Network effects, but for admin friction."
The Investor Reckoning
At a recent board meeting that witnesses described as "tense" and "featuring a lot of staring at phones," veteran VC partner Harrison Whitmore III asked what sources confirmed was a question that has never been uttered in 15 years of board meetings.
"Wait," Whitmore reportedly said, looking up from his phone for the first time since 2019. "What if customers simply⦠didn't?"
The questionβwidely considered unanswerable by modern portfolio theoryβsent shockwaves through the enterprise software sector. Multiple founders were seen updating their LinkedIn profiles to "Open to Opportunities" before the meeting adjourned.
Financial analysts have since revised their valuations for the sector, with several firms now pricing Series C rounds at "one bored senior engineer with Claude access and a mild grudge against your pricing page."
If your product is just a SQL wrapper with a billing system, you now have 10,000 competitors. And they're all the same guy. And he's mad about that invoice you sent last quarter.
β Industry analyst report, December 2025The Only Moat Left
Not all executives are despairing. Slack leadership released a statement expressing cautious optimism, noting that their product's moat remains "people are too lazy to tell 400 vendors their new chat app URL."
"We ran the numbers," a Slack spokesperson confirmed. "Switching costs are real when the switching cost is 'sending an email to Brenda in procurement.'"
The company's stock rose 3% on the news before falling 47% when someone realized that updating a Slack webhook URL takes approximately four seconds.
β οΈ Corrections & Clarifications
An earlier version of this article stated that Janet from Accounting was "replaced." Janet's family has clarified that she was "automated," which is different for tax purposes. We regret the error.
π¬ Reader Comments
1,847 Commentsif statementsand a PostgreSQL database we're charging $80k/year for.I'm now a Founder/CEO/Thought Leader/Disruptor at a stealth startup that's definitely not just my laptop at a WeWork.
#OpenToWork #Hustle #Blessed #ActuallyTheBestThing
She always said "you can't automate institutional knowledge" and then they did. They literally did. With 47 tools.
anyway approved my own comment. also approved unlimited PTO for myself. meeting adjourned.
We have paid $2.4 million over 6 years for what appears to be a
SELECT * FROM users WHERE active = trueI need to lie down.
This is fine. Everything is fine. Per-seat licensing is definitely not "some shit we made up in 2007."
π₯ππ₯
we invested $200M in a company whose entire product is, and I am not exaggerating, a SQL wrapper with a billing system. We called it "enterprise-grade." We put it in the deck. Multiple times.
The founder is updating his LinkedIn to "Open to Opportunities" as I type this.
I am going to become a farmer.