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• A version of this story originally appeared in the BI Tech Memo newsletter.
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If AI really is coming for the software industry, which companies have the best chance of making it through?

This has been on my mind again this week after the gruesome acquisition of Airtable. This former SaaS startup darling was valued at more than $11 billion during the pandemic tech boom in 2021. It sells a tool for organizing work and related information. On Tuesday, it was acquired for $1.3 billion.

Later in the week, HubSpot, a major SaaS vendor, plunged after disappointing guidance. But Atlassian surged after much better results.

The SaaS sector has been pummeled this year by investors worrying whether some of these companies will even survive. So, how do you spot survivors in the wreckage?

Barclays strategists tried to answer that question by looking backward instead of forward. They studied five major technology shakeups from the past: the rise of digital advertising, streaming, smartphones, online shopping, and shale gas. They looked at what separated the companies that survived from the ones that didn’t.

The answer wasn’t what you might expect.

The winners weren’t necessarily the fastest-growing companies or the ones that spent the most money. Instead, the survivors tended to share four traits: healthy profit margins, strong cash generation, low debt, and high employee productivity. Those qualities gave management more room to adapt when their industry suddenly changed.

It’s a useful reminder as the SaaSpocalypse debate gathers pace. Much of the conversation around AI has focused on who has the smartest models or the flashiest product demos. Barclays argues those may not be the defining factors. When an entire industry is under pressure, financial strength and operational discipline may matter more than rapid growth. Companies with healthy profits can absorb shocks. Those carrying less debt have more flexibility to change direction. Efficient businesses simply have more options.

Using those characteristics, Barclays created a “Resilient Software” basket. AppLovin, Freshworks, and InterDigital ranked highest across the broader software universe. Looking only at software companies that Barclays already rates positively, Datadog, Veeva Systems, and Zscaler came out on top, followed by Microsoft, Intuit, PTC, Autodesk, Salesforce, Palo Alto Networks, and ServiceNow.

No screen can predict who will win the AI era. But this framework offers a refreshing way to think about the software industry. The companies most likely to survive may not be the ones racing fastest. They may simply be the ones with the strongest balance sheets and the most room to maneuver as AI rewrites the rules.

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com.

• I finished my postdoctoral training in New York City, where I worked with families and kids.
• After moving to Wichita, I saw just how thriving families can look so different in different places.
• A healthy dynamic doesn’t look the same for every family, and I’ve taken this lesson into my work.

The drive-thru line at Chick-fil-A stretched around the block, packed with oversized SUVs at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. Engines idled.

No one honked. No one seemed in a hurry. It was one of my first glimpses of life in Wichita, and it felt like a different world.

I had just finished my postdoctoral training in New York City, where I had worked with children and families in a wide range of settings. I was confident I understood family systems. I had the degrees, the supervised clinical hours, and the professional language to explain how families function under pressure.

Then I had my first son, and my husband’s job brought us to Wichita.

Here, I found a dramatically different rhythm

Geography dictates many things, from food to recreational activities.

Despite a plethora of farms, fresh produce felt scarce in many areas. Flat vistas, no ocean in sight, and real tornado threats. Yes, Dorothy, I was really in Kansas.

Community looked different in this Midwestern city, too. Sunday mornings were quiet: no lawn mowers, no delivery trucks — not because nothing was “happening,” but because people were at church, had personal commitments, and reason to pause in a way I had never seen on the East Coast.

In New York City, Sunday mornings meant brunch reservations and open inboxes ahead of the workweek.

What struck me most was the way people spoke, and the naturally unrushed pace of speech. There was no impulse to fill the silence. No one really said, “We should get lunch sometime,” with no intention of doing it.

If someone said they would call you, they called you. If they said they would show up, they showed up.

On the East and West Coasts, where I had lived as a child, I had grown fluent in a kind of conversational currency where words were placeholders for intentions that may or may not exist.

In Wichita, people meant what they said and said what they meant. I remember thinking, quietly and repeatedly, that this was a beautiful thing.

Professionally, Wichita taught me a lot

As a clinician trained to assess family systems, I did not experience my new life as merely observation. I experienced it as data.

I had spent years learning to recognize healthy functioning against a fairly narrow, unspoken standard, one shaped almost entirely by the fast, achievement-oriented environment I trained in.

Watching an entirely different rhythm operate successfully, with its own coherence, its own values, its own quiet integrity, was not something my training had prepared me to see up close.

The lesson was not that one rhythm is correct and the other is not. The lesson was that families do not follow a single template for pace, values, or connection.

A family can be thriving while looking almost nothing like the families I had been trained to recognize as thriving.

It is easy, especially coming out of a field trained heavily in one regional context, to mistake familiarity for health. A fast-paced, achievement-oriented family is not inherently dysfunctional. Neither is a slower, more relationship-centered one, built around Costco runs and Sunday mornings and saying exactly what you mean.

What matters clinically is whether a family’s own rhythm is actually working for them, not whether it resembles the one I happened to experience myself growing up and in my training.

These lessons stayed with me long after I left Kansas

Today, I’m based in Pennsylvania, though my work takes me into homes across the country.

Every family brings its own history, community, geography, values, and way of moving through the world. Those influences don’t exist outside the family system. They are woven into it.

Now, whenever I conduct an intake for a clinical evaluation or a school-admissions strategy session, one of the first questions I ask parents is, “Where are you from?” I want to know not only where they live now, but also about the roots that shaped them long before their child was born.

My training taught me how to recognize patterns. Wichita taught me to ask where those patterns came from before deciding whether they needed to change.

Every place we live leaves its imprint on a family. The communities we call or have called home shape our expectations, beliefs, and even the way we communicate with each other.

Understanding a family means understanding and accepting those roots, not as a point of comparison, but as a foundation to a healthy dynamic.

• We skipped the expensive play-place birthday party and hosted our son’s fifth birthday at home instead.
• We let him invite everyone he wanted, and nearly 100 people RSVP’d.
• Rain turned our unfinished backyard into a giant mud pit, but we leaned into the chaos.

“Hey, great party!” a parent laughed while wiping mud off their daughter’s happy face. My own grin stretched wide as I thanked them for coming and made my way upstairs, dodging kids in animal costumes sprinting down.

I made my way to the platform and poked my head into each room until I found my son, the birthday boy. He jumped on our bed in a pillow fight with his friends dressed in a Spider-Man costume, his laughter roaring throughout the whole upper level of our modestly sized home. “You good, bud?” I shouted with a thumbs up. “Mama!!” he shouted back. “I’m having the BEST DAY EVER!!”

We questioned the expensive birthday party formula

We had previously conformed to the birthday party routines we kept witnessing all around us — trampoline parks, gymnastics studios, indoor playrooms. We’d sign up for their conveyor-belt-like process of planning a birthday party. You’re limited to give-or-take 15 kids total. You get one hour of play, then one hour for pizza, drinks, dessert, and gifts. You get a coupon to come back another time. And then they cycle you out for the next party. All for hundreds of dollars.

We started to rethink our son’s birthday party when it came time to choose which kids made “the cut” for the invite. How do you teach a 5-year-old to rank their friends with a hierarchy of importance?

“What if we just had the party here?” I asked my husband one night, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. We knew the risk of a house party in early March in St. Louis. If the weather were great, it would be easy. But if the weather did not work out in our favor, our home was not ideal. We have a two-story, three-bedroom home, but our rooms are by no means large.

We sawed back and forth for a while until I reminded my husband of the motto that has carried us through our crazier ideas, like living in a van or moving completely off-grid in a state we barely knew years prior: “We’ll figure it out.”

We leaned into the mess instead of fighting it

We told our son he could invite any friends he wanted to his party. What we didn’t realize is that he translated that to mean he could invite EVERY friend to his party. We were staring at 70, 80, 90+ RSVPs, and the count kept growing each day.

Not only that, but the weather was calling for rain. We had an unfinished strip of our backyard that we were turning into a play area, but it wouldn’t be ready in time for the party. So we had a large strip of dirt that became a massive mud pit. “I don’t think we can pull this off.” My husband stressed to me. “I think we’re going to have to schedule an indoor venue at the last minute. I don’t see how we can make this work.”

After living remotely off-grid and moving to a walkable city, I was leaning into intentional community. I wanted to prove we could host a large party in our home, even if it was a little chaotic. We updated the invite and sent all of our RSVPs a message. “Mud is on the forecast! Bring rainboots, a towel, a change of clothes, and a flexible attitude!”

We threw every pillow, cushion, and blanket we could find into our bedroom. We made one room an art room with construction paper, magazines, glue sticks, markers, and more. We set up stations in the playroom and highlighted a rack filled with hanging costumes.

The party became a celebration of community

The party was in full swing. A mountain of shoes sat by our front door. My husband carried old yoga mats up from the basement to form a walkway from the back door to our bathroom. Kids dug in the mud pit with hoes and shovels while adults hosed them off before they went inside. People in the gated off living room played with the younger kids while talking about concerts. Parents leaned against our counters in the kitchen, conversing about the best camping spots. Upstairs, one parent was assisting with putting on and removing costumes while a group of parents stood on our landing, popping their heads into each room to see if anyone needed anything.

I admired how everyone had stepped up to keep the kids safe, our home tidy, and the laughter flowing.

It was time for cake. I squeezed my way through each room of the house, my hands cupping around my mouth, hollering “CAKE IN 5 MINUTES!!” Kids squealed and took the cue to wrap up their activity and head to the front room. I looked around while my husband placed candles on the cake and nearly started to cry. The bodies filled our room, shoulder to shoulder, on the floor, up the stairs, around the table. Everyone seemed relaxed, smiling, and present. My son looked around and jumped up and down, his smile devouring the rest of his face.

We didn’t need to throw money toward a franchise to give our son the best day. We didn’t need an epic house or perfect weather. We just needed open communication, good attitudes, and a bit of letting go of typical expectations.

• In his waning years as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO, Warren Buffett was hoarding cash.
• The company had close to $400 billion on hand before Buffett retired earlier this year.
• Now, the new CEO, Greg Abel, is starting to spend it.

Berkshire Hathaway’s exceptionally deep pockets are getting shallower under its new CEO, Greg Abel.

In its latest earnings report on Saturday, the company said it ended June with $365.5 billion in cash and Treasury bills, a noticeable dip from the $397.4 billion recorded at the end of March.

The company’s net income, meanwhile, reached $25.6 billion, more than double the $12.3 billion recorded the same time last year.

The company said the cash went toward repurchasing its own shares and buying stocks. The last time Berkshire Hathaway bought more stocks than it sold was in 2022. The Coca-Cola Company, American Express, Bank of America, Alphabet, and Apple are among its largest holdings.

The firm also completed its acquisition of Taylor Morrison Home Corporation on July 24, but did not provide a valuation in the report.

Berkshire Hathaway’s decision to dip into its massive cash pile marks a new chapter for the firm, which had been hoarding cash in the years leading up to former CEO Warren Buffett’s retirement last December.

Abel officially took the helm in January. In a February letter to shareholders, Abel said Berkshire Hathaway uses shareholders’ capital on opportunities where the reward matches the risk.

“When we expand existing operations, acquire new operating businesses, invest in equity securities, and repurchase Berkshire stock, we evaluate each opportunity based on its potential to grow Berkshire’s intrinsic value per share over a time horizon measured in perpetuity,” he said.

Abel said Berkshire Hathaway is proud of its “nimble culture,” which lets it consider and make thoughtful investments.

“Many times in Berkshire’s history, some observers have suggested that our substantial cash position signals a retreat from investing. It does not. We continue to evaluate many opportunities and will remain patient and disciplined in pursuing the right ones for the benefit of our owners,” Abel wrote.

• Teaching a kid to ride a bike is hard, especially when that kid is your own.
• After some failed lessons, I outsourced this important parenting rite of passage.
• I spent a bunch of money on bike lessons, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I’m going to admit something here that’s probably going to get a lot of parents up in arms: I paid a guy $300 to teach my two kids to ride a bike.

I know that $150 for a bike lesson is exorbitant, and it was one of the reasons I hesitated to do it (or talk about it publicly). But when I reframed it in my mind as an extremely finite cost for a job I could not do myself, for what will hopefully be a lifetime of family bike rides — I decided I could live with it.

And I have zero regrets.

We tried to teach our kids ourselves and totally failed

My kids are 6 and 8. We live in a New York City apartment, so I can’t just send them outside to futz around on their bicycles and figure it out on their own. My husband and I have schlepped the bikes to a local blacktop a handful of times over the past few summers, and very quickly turned into two very sweaty, grumpy adults with two very sweaty, grumpy kids — kids who still needed training wheels.

Before you ask, yes: we tried the balance bike. We tried training wheels, and one training wheel slightly lifted, and also a bike trainer handle that was supposed to let us run gracefully behind the bike rather than lurching alongside the tiny rider while holding his waist.

None of it clicked. Our vision of helmeted children riding proudly into the sunset after a few spins together was fading with each failed session. It was clear we needed a different approach.

Sometimes, as a parent, you have to know your limits

So I went back to my text messages to dig up the name of the local “bike whisperer,” a 20-something BMXer and bicycle mechanic whom parents turn to when it’s time to suck up their pride and outsource this sacred parenting rite of passage.

It worked like a charm. Our instructor showed up at the local school basketball court with his BMX bike and a bag of chalk. He impressed my kids with a few bike tricks and charmed them by writing their names in chalk—calligraphy for my daughter and Minecraft-style block letters for my son. Then he employed a series of steps that involved removing their pedals, getting them to find their balance, and holding up their bikes by the handlebars while they pedaled furiously into the air.

By the end of their 45-minute lessons, each one was comfortably riding loops around the blacktop and grinning like they had conquered Mt. Everest.

Our bike instructor took the emotional weight out of the situation

This method did not involve running alongside the kids while holding their waists and promising loudly to “not let go!!”

More critically, it took the emotional weight out of the situation. My kids had been airing their frustration on my husband and me, and we on them. But this new teacher was cool and impartial, and brought a new perspective to the challenge.

Plus, learning to ride a bike is hard. Just knowing how to ride does not necessarily equip a parent to teach it to a tiny, easily frustrated human being. Once I acknowledged this and got out of their way, my kids were primed to learn from a pro.

I’m a full-time working parent, and it’s important to me to be involved in my kids’ development and education. There are lots of things I care deeply about teaching my kids myself. For some parents, that absolutely involves teaching their kid to ride a two-wheeler. In fact, some of them might even die on that hill.

For me, the bike lesson was a good reminder that even the most involved parents have their limits, and sometimes it’s better to outsource to an expert.

• We moved our 350-square-foot tiny home from our secluded community in California to Bend, Oregon.
• After packing up our house, we hired someone to drive it to the new piece of land we rented.
• Nothing broke, and we’re enjoying Bend but are excited to move our home again when we’re ready.

My partner and I had always dreamed of having our own small space on wheels so we could live simply and have a flexible lifestyle.

So, in 2019, we began building our very own tiny home on a 32-foot trailer. After many months (and YouTube tutorials), it was complete.

For a while, we lived in it while parked on his parents’ property in New Jersey. By 2021, we’d decided to move our 350-square-foot build across the country to California, where we’d found a great tiny-home community in a national forest about an hour outside San Diego.

Although I’d been nervous about moving our home for the first time, it worked out — and our new community was wonderful. We loved taking advantage of our easy access to beautiful trails and mountain views and befriended our neighbors, too.

However, after years of secluded mountain living, we wanted a change of scenery and to be closer to a grocery store — the nearest one was more than 20 miles away, about a 35-minute drive.

We also wanted to be near more activities and be able to casually take pottery classes nearby or join a local soccer league.

So, we set our sights on Bend, Oregon. We had friends in the area and loved the idea of living in the Pacific Northwest, in a city with better access to what we wanted.

We spent a few months preparing for the move

After researching reliable moving companies, we estimated it would cost at least $3,000 to relocate our house. So, for months leading up to our move, we put as much money as possible into our savings account.

We also began looking for land in Bend that we could rent to place our house on. Eventually, we found a spot online by connecting with homeowners in the area who were interested in hosting us.

With land in place, we hired someone to drive our home to Oregon while my partner and I drove down separately with our dog.

Next, we needed to pack. On the bright side, no moving truck is needed when you’re moving your actual home. Instead, we filled our house.

We packed everything from our shelves and cabinets into boxes, using clothes to wrap plates, pans, and other breakables. Then those boxes were stacked and packed tightly in our living room.

To be extra cautious, we also secured our fridge and washer/dryer to the walls with bungee cords.

Moving day wasn’t perfect, but it went smoothly enough

On the day of the move, we dealt with minor car troubles and our first driver canceling, though another was sent in their place.

By then, we’d already decided to start our long drive, with our dog in tow.

Luckily, our friends in the community were able to meet the new driver and facilitate the move. The biggest relief came when they sent us videos of our house being hooked up and safely towed away.

Although the beginning of the moving day didn’t go as smoothly as intended, the rest of it did.

Sixteen hours of driving later, we met the driver and our house at the new property.

Once we arrived, we weren’t done. We leveled the trailer and added bottle jacks to help stabilize and support its weight. Next, we connected our plumbing and electricity.

Then we began the unpacking process. We started with our outdoor furniture, turf, and bikes — all of which we’d transported in the house.

Somehow, none of our belongings or furniture broke.

Although we won’t stay here forever, it’s great for now

The first few nights at a new spot are always my favorite. There’s nothing like looking up at the stars in a new view, but through the same familiar window.

When we first got to Oregon, we even saw the northern lights. New experiences like that are what make all the move preparation, anxiety, and change worth it.

So far, our new spot has been great, and the people we rent it from are incredible. It’s been convenient living just 10 minutes from a grocery store and 15 minutes from the center of town.

We have our own yard and a larger area for our dog to play — and we even ended up rescuing another pup. We’ve also built a small shed to use as an office, art studio, and gaming area.

We’re enjoying living here for now, but we would move our home again when we’re ready for a change. With a house on wheels, it’s nice to always have the option.