Since 2014, There Have Been Nine Downturns With the Latest Akin to 2014 and 2016
periods. Since 2014, the software sector has experienced nine downturns of meaningful magnitude. Today's compression, while significant, falls within the historical range of whether cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services would displace traditional software vendors. What followed was a decade-long expansion. Ultimately, enterprises didn't abandon their software, they consumed more of it. Cloud infrastructure made software faster to deploy, easier to scale and more deeply embedded in business operations. The pie grew larger for everyone.! We see a similar dynamic at work today. The concerns shaping the current narrative - Al- native disruption, changing revenue models and uncertainty around enterprise adoption - are software companies are private.2 Public equity indices therefore capture only a fraction of the sector's activity. and we believe the companies driving the most significant Agentic Al innovation 1Morgan Stanley Research report "Software Gut Check - AlIS Software" as of 02/08/2026.Includes IGV US Equity data from 12/31/2009 - 02/13/2026. 3 Morgan Stanley Research report "Software Gut Check - AlIS Software" as of 02/08/2026.