Over the last 20 years, we've built two $100M+ companies and made hundreds of mistakes along the way. Everything we do runs on our GTM Operating System frameworks. We even wrote a book called MOVE — which became a WSJ best-selling book on go-to-market, quoted by Geoffrey Moore (author of the iconic Crossing the Chasm).
Our mission: help 100,000 businesses run on GTM OS to build profitable companies. We're at about 3,000 now so we have a long way to go.
We also run the GTMarketplace — connecting CEOs with 100+ certified fractional CMOs, CROs, and ops leaders all over the world who know the GTM Operating System.
With that intro, let's get moving!
Let's dig in.
70% of Gartner's Value Was Destroyed in Two Years
Let me share a stat that should literally make you wonder what business you're in.
70% of Gartner's value has been destroyed in the last two years. Roughly $30 billion — with a B — wiped out.
This is not a dip. This is not a correction. It is a verdict. And it is screaming one thing: knowledge work, the way we've known it, is over.
My good friend Christopher Lockhead, who writes a lot about category creation, has been saying this for a while. For 40 years, Gartner built an empire around selling research reports, magic quadrants, and advice on what tech to buy.
And guess what? It worked. We bought it.
I Personally Spent $100,000 to Play This Game
When I built my last company, we spent over $100,000 with Gartner and Forrester to be in the magic quadrant and the wave.
Thousands of hours of work. Packaging, branding, all of it. Just so we could be in the quadrant, because enterprises would only buy if you were apparently in the magic quadrant.
That's how you justified the price. It was almost like saying: "Hey, don't fire me, because we're in the magic quadrant" — even if the product doesn't work.
That game is completely done. It's over.
WATCH: Why 70% of Gartner's Value Just Vanished — and What It Means for Your Business
Before You Laugh at Gartner, Look in the Mirror
Here's the part that should make you stop scrolling.
If you're laughing at Gartner right now, look in the mirror. Is the game you and I have been playing for the last 10 or 20 years also over? The playbooks. Forcing people to buy a certain way. Making them do certain things to get there.
AI can do what Gartner does — what you do — in seconds. In many cases, for free.
Need advice on what CRM to buy?
What ERP to run?
Which security checks to run?
Who your real competitors are?
What the process should be?
That was the job of a service industry, or of Gartner, that people paid $100,000 a year for. Now you and I just ask AI.
And here's the massively crazy truth: every person, every company whose value comes from packaging yesterday's insight is completely toast.
If you're saying "but I have this pedigree, I have this business model, I've done this for 20 years" — it doesn't matter. Your product is no longer your moat.
The Only Question That Matters Now: What's Your Moat?
This is the biggest question you have to ask. What business are you in? What's your moat? Why would people keep buying from you?
If you can be replaced by a $20 subscription, how are you going to survive that?
The winners of the post-AI world are not the knowledge businesses that repackage what already existed yesterday. The winners are the ones building:
New distribution — new ways of reaching people that didn't exist before
A different solution to the same problem — solving it in a new way for a very specific niche
Something so distinct and so well-executed that people say "you have a brand we want to be part of"
So here's the litmus test:
If your moat is a brand, you're okay.
If your moat is a community, you're okay.
If your moat is something you do so interestingly for a specific niche, you're okay.
But if your moat is your product, your features, or your services — that can literally be gone tomorrow.
Bet on the Future, Not the Past
Before we laugh at Gartner and all the other businesses whose value has dropped by billions in two years — in some cases in six months, down to nothing — remember this:
You cannot bet on the past.
What you have to do is bet on the future by creating something of real value. Something AI can't replicate with a prompt.
Your product is no longer your moat.
Our blunt advice to CEOs and GTM Leaders:
Your moat is the only thing that can help you survive the AI tsunami. Choose wisely.
Stop protecting yesterday's insight. Start building the thing that can't be copied.
If you want to pressure-test your own moat against the eight questions of the GTM Operating System, go to runongtmos.com/move and download the GTM dashboard. Over 3,000 companies have used it.
love,
sangram
p.s. 100,000+ GTM leaders read our content every day. If you want more strategies like this, follow along at runongtmos.com — and let's get moving.