Software Now Trades at a Discount to the S&P 500 for the First Time Ever — Including the Dot-Com Crash

SaaStr·high signal

Software's forward P/E has fallen below the broad S&P 500 for the first time in history — a level not reached even during the dot-com bust — as markets reprice seat-based growth assumptions against agent-driven seat compression. Thoma Bravo's Orlando Bravo, with 20+ years buying software businesses, publicly called some AI-disrupted software valuation declines 'very warranted' this month. This reads as structural repricing of the seat model, not a sentiment dip.