This week in GTM: the poster child of 2021 SaaS sold at the clearance rack, a 24-year-old played the Sunday of his life with his season on the line, and a man in Missouri committed the most preventable crime in golf. Let's get into it.
🏌️ THE DRIVE: Airtable Just Sold at the Clearance Rack
Bending Spoons is buying Airtable for $1.285 billion in cash — about $2.25B once you count the cash in Airtable's own bank account — for a company valued at $11.7B in December 2021. That's 2.7x ARR for a business doing $480M, growing 20%+, with 80% of the Fortune 100 on the customer list. Airtable raised $1.4B to get here. It is selling for less than that.
The WSJ called it a "kick in the gut" for software unicorns. We call it what it is: the garage sale of the SaaSpocalypse. Your 2021 valuation is like your handicap from the year you played every day — a fun story, not a number.
"A once hot startup; now an unfortunate victim of the SaaS bust. It raised $1.4B only to be sold for $1.285B EV, just clearing its preference stack." — @deedydas
This week's Hole-in-One Award goes to Bending Spoons, which IPO'd on July 1 and immediately bought a former darling at roughly 80% off. Somebody's playing chess while the rest of SaaS plays checkers.
⛳ THE FAIRWAY: Michael Brennan Needed a Win. So He Won.
Start with the math: Brennan came into the Wyndham Championship at No. 105 in the FedExCup. To keep his season alive, he needed a three-way tie for second — or better. So the 24-year-old went out Sunday and made five straight birdies on holes 4 through 8, shot 64, and won the whole thing by three. Second career title. First trip to the playoffs. This was his sixth straight week playing, and now there's a seventh.
The heartbreak belongs to Beau Hossler, who needed to win to advance, finished solo second, and watched his season end anyway. That's the difference between a pipeline that needs a miracle and a rep who simply decides to close the deal.
"I didn't want to go home and sit on my couch when I'm playing good golf." — Michael Brennan, and every AE staring down August 31
🏴 THE GREEN: LIV Found a Term Sheet. Not a Deal.
LIV Golf announced it has signed a term sheet with a "lead investor" — reported as BC Partners — to "carry and fund" the league into 2027, with the Saudis heading for the exits. The catch: the money only shows up if enough A-listers commit past 2026, and Bryson DeChambeau's contract expires after this season. Bryson led a 90-minute closed-door player meeting on Tuesday, says he's "100 percent" sure of LIV's future, and also told the New York Post he'd like to play the PGA Tour again. Tour CEO Brian Rolapp's response: "There's no merger, no conversations."
Meanwhile, the season-ending Team Championship in Michigan was pulled from Fox's broadcast schedule, the build-out never started, and LIV's own TV host announced its death on air. Joaquin Niemann did win his ninth LIV title at Bedminster, which nobody noticed because the league was busy doing runway math in public.
This week's Sandtrap Award: the Michigan Team Championship — cancelled before it existed. Founders, you know this feeling. A term sheet with conditions is a maybe wearing a suit.
🎙️ FROM THE CLUBHOUSE: Only 6% of GTM Leaders Think AI Takes Your Job
Apollo's 2026 AI in Sales & Go-to-Market survey (328 revenue pros) dropped Tuesday, and the headline writes itself: 97% of teams use AI, 58% saw measurable benefits within 60 days — and only 6% of leaders think AI will ultimately replace anyone on the team.
The real gap isn't adoption, it's optimization. Just 17% say their AI is "fully operational and measured," and 74% are juggling two to five GTM platforms at once. Translation: AI is the caddie, not the swing. It'll hand you the yardage — 84% use it for prospecting and research — but nobody's letting it hit the shot. If your AI rollout is "we bought the licenses," you're in the 67% still spraying balls on the range.
🚂 THE CADDIE'S CORNER: The Fakest Ace in Missouri History
A former college golfer named Zach Holland was playing a member event at WingHaven Country Club when he told his group he'd skip ahead and meet them on the fourth green. When they arrived — miracle — his ball was in the hole. Hole-in-one. Except security footage showed him driving past the green before the round and, well, placing it there himself. He confessed, resigned his membership, and his explanation video cleared a million views.
"You do something as dumb as I did, there are consequences for that." — Zach Holland, with the understatement of the golf season
He's basically the rep who logs a demo that never happened — except the golf course has cameras.
🍺 19TH HOLE INSIGHT
Jackson Koivun, 21, held onto the 70th and final playoff spot on Sunday — qualifying for the postseason in five professional starts, matching a Tiger Woods record. The FedExCup Playoffs teed off Thursday in Memphis: 70 players become 50, then 30, then one guy holding a very large check.
Every pipeline has a No. 70 — the deal that barely sneaks in and ends up carrying the quarter. The regular season is just qualifying. The playoffs are where the money is. See you at East Lake.
Got a story tip, SaaS scoop, or a golf take that belongs in the next issue? Drop it at gtmgolfclub.com — we'll take it from the rough and put it on the green.
