The Metrics Brothers

After 122 episodes covering SaaS metrics, GTM analytics, and the evolving world of AI-native software, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike announce that The Metrics Brothers podcast is going on hiatus. In this abbreviated special episode, Ray and Dave reflect on what made the show work, what made it hard, and why now is the right time to take a pause. They share their top-performing episodes...

Salesforce made waves in February 2026 by introducing the Agentic Work Unit, or AWU, as a new way to measure and potentially price AI agent activity. The Metrics Brothers, Ray "Growth" Rike and Dave "CAC" Kellogg dig into whether the AWU is a legitimate step toward outcome-based pricing, a vendor-specific adoption metric, or just another awkward intermediate measure in the long, messy history of s...

What happens when a $6.4 billion PE buyout becomes a cautionary tale for every SaaS operator, investor, and board member? In this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike break down Private Credit : what it is, how it works, and why it is showing up everywhere from venture rounds to leveraged buyouts. Then they walk through the Medallia deal step by step to show exactly how the model brea...

Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike dig into the Redpoint Ventures 2026 Software and AI Market Update - a 69-page report built on proprietary CIO survey data from 141 respondents, plus public market data from Qatalyst, Pitchbook, Goldman Sachs, RBC, and McKinsey. Big report with even bigger implications. Ray and Dave unpack the data that matter most for B2B SaaS and AI-native software operato...

Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike tell the full story of how Intercom, a $400M ARR company that stalled at 4% growth, executed one of the most dramatic AI-first transformations in B2B SaaS. From writing off tens of millions in ARR to building a proprietary vertical AI model, this episode breaks down what it actually took to reinvent a mature SaaS business from the ground up. Topics Covered...

Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike discuss the ICONIQ 2026 State of GTM Report, a 32-page benchmark study based on a January 2026 survey of 155+ B2B SaaS executives across CROs, CEOs, and RevOps leaders. The pair digs into what the data says about how high-growth companies go to market differently, how usage-based pricing is reshaping sales compensation, and where AI in the GTM stack is actu...

Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" break down one of the oldest productivity metrics in business and explain why, in the age of AI-native software, it has never mattered more. This episode covers the full arc from Frederick Taylor's factory floors to Cursor's $3.3M per employee, with the rigorous definitional discipline the Metrics Brothers are known for. What We Cover: The metric's 100-year hist...

One word can reveal a lot about someone's analytical depth, and on this episode of The Metrics Brothers, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike break down one of the most commonly misused pair of terms in metrics analysis: segments and cohorts. Dave shares what sparked this topic, a Norwest benchmark report that used the word "cohort" when it clearly meant "segment," and explains why the mix-up...

The Metrics Brothers, Dave Kellogg and Ray Rike open with their introductory bit, which this week included Statler and Waldorf, the grumpy old men in the balcony from the Muppets, before diving into a thorough review of the Norwest B2B Sales and Marketing Benchmark Report, a102-page study published in November 2025, that included 177 participants (77 Norwest portfolio, 100 third-party VC/PE-backed...

For more than a decade, the Rule of 40 has been the gold standard for measuring SaaS performance: Growth Rate + Profit Margin ≥ 40 But in today’s environment of higher interest rates, multiple compression, private equity leverage, and AI-driven cost pressures , that benchmark may no longer be enough. In this episode of the Metrics Brothers , Ray “Growth” Rike and Dave “CAC” Kellogg explore why man...

In this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike go point-counterpoint on two high-profile articles making waves across Wall Street and Silicon Valley: Citrini's provocative February 2025 report,  The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis , and Citadel's rebuttal,  The 2026 Global Intelligence Crisis . Dave and Ray unpack whether AI is truly triggering an unprecedented economic collap...

In this episode, the Metrics Brothers, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike dive deep into the ICONIQ State of AI: Bi-Annual Snapshot Report . Published in January 2026, this 44-page report summarizes insights from ~300 software executives on the front lines of building and scaling AI products. Ray and Dave explore a market transition from experimental model races to the challenge of building...

In this extended episode, the Metrics Brothers tackle the "elephant in the room" - the SaaSpocalypse . With nearly $1 trillion in market value wiped out recently, Ray and Dave go beyond the stock market headlines to analyze the structural shifts hitting the industry. The duo breaks down the three primary drivers of the current market "carnage", including the AI Fear of Being Obsolete (FOBO), Regre...

In this episode of the Metrics Brothers podcast, Ray Rike and Dave Kellogg tackle one of the most critical yet misunderstood metrics in the U.S. economy: Labor Productivity . Amidst the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence, the "Metrics Brothers" break down how productivity is officially measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and why historical technology booms, from SaaS to Cloud, haven't al...

Brand is one of the most powerful assets a company can build and one of the hardest to measure. In this episode of The Metrics Brothers , Dave “CAC” Kellogg, and Ray "Growth" Rike take on one of marketing’s most persistent challenges: how to measure brand in a world obsessed with direct attribution and near-term ROI. The conversation starts with what a brand really is, originating from literal mar...

The State of Generative AI in the Enterprise 2025 In this episode of The Metrics Brothers , Ray Rike and Dave Kellogg break down the 2025 State of Generative AI in the Enterprise report from Menlo Ventures and explain what the data really says about where enterprise AI adoption is accelerating and where the market is consolidating. The headline takeaway: AI software is scaling faster than any soft...

The claim that “95% of AI projects fail” has become one of the most repeated talking points in enterprise AI. But where did it come from, and does it actually hold up? In this episode, Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike take a detailed, data-driven look at the MIT NANDA report, titled The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025 . They break down how the "95% fail rate" statistic went vira...

Brand vs Demand: Why B2B Marketing Is Stuck in a Measurement Trap In this episode of The Metrics Brothers , Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike tackle one of the most persistent and controversial questions in B2B marketing: Brand vs. Demand . The discussion is grounded in new data from the 2026 B2B Brand vs Demand Benchmark Report . While most marketing teams say they believe brand and demand...

In this episode of The Metrics Brothers , Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike break down the 2025 Tidemark Vertical & SMB SaaS Benchmark Report. Drawing from data across 200+ companies, the report explores control points, multi-product expansion, fintech monetization, and AI adoption, but not all conclusions hold up under scrutiny as they are sometimes take on the tone of a narrative summ...

In this episode of The Metrics Brothers , Ray Rike and Dave Kellogg unpack Benedict Evans’ latest landmark presentation, AI Eats the World , and explore why this moment may rival or even surpass the original “software is eating the world” era. Drawing parallels to Marc Andreessen’s 2011 thesis, they examine how AI is no longer just another platform shift, but a force capable of reshaping labor, ca...

In this episode of The Metrics Brothers , hosts Ray “Growth” Rike and Dave “CAC” Kellogg provide a critical deep dive into the 2025 SaaS Benchmark Report published by High Alpha. Known for their analytical, and sometimes "crusty" approach, the metrics brothers dissect the data behind 800+ SaaS companies to separate real market trends from report commentary. Key Highlights & Benchmarks The brot...

In this episode of The Metrics Brothers , Ray “Growth” Rike and Dave “CAC” Kellogg take on one of the biggest challenges facing modern SaaS and AI-Native companies: how to measure NRR and expansion when pricing isn’t fixed anymore. With the rise of usage-based, user-based-but-variable, and outcome-based pricing , the traditional world of ARR - long the backbone of SaaS metrics has been turned on i...

In this episode, "The Metrics Brothers," Growth (Ray Rike) and CAC (Dave Kellogg) , dive into a critical challenge for modern SaaS and AI-Native companies: accurately calculating Net Revenue Retention (NRR) in environments that utilize variable pricing models (usage-based, outcome-based, etc.). They begin by defining NRR, emphasizing its importance as a key metric and its high correlation with Ent...

For their 100th episode, Ray "Growth" Rike and Dave "CAC" Kellogg get philosophical, inspired by the notion that many hold, which is "nothing works" in B2B GTM anymore - especially in regards to pipeline development. They dive into the 2025 State of B2B GTM Report by Kyle Poyar and Maja Voijc to challenge this idea and find out what GTM leaders are actually prioritizing. In this episode, The Metri...

In this episode of The Metrics Brothers , Ray “Growth” Rike and Dave “CAC” Kellogg break down one of the emerging metrics in the Agentic AI era: Containment Rate - the percentage of tasks an AI agent completes (resolves) end-to-end without human intervention. They explore multiple aspects of the Containment Rate Metric including: How containment rate differs from classic chatbot metric - deflectio...