You cannot simply replace SAP with a Postgres database and APIs — the business logic captured in SAP is far more important than where the data happens to be stored.
Sema argues that the misconception that SAP can be easily replaced ignores the critical business logic and customization embedded in the software over years. ✦ AI generated
Sema Amble · a16z Podcast · 2026-07-07 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 18:04
Misconception right now is that you can just have you know Postgress database and APIs and then bam like you can replace SAP. That's like absolutely not true. I think partly I mean Stephen I don't know if you want to elaborate on or not I'm happy to but I think it's that piece around the logic and everything else that is encaptured in SAP is way way more important than the fact that like oh this data just happens to be in this database.
verbatim transcript · starts at 18:04
17:44evaporates because the the company is defined not just by purchasing the software not even by just using it but by how that they codified the business rules into that product. I think it's a good point to double click on because I think a misconception right now is that SAP okay well you can just have you know Postgress database and APIs and then bam like you can replace API replace SAP and that's like
18:14absolutely not true. I think partly I mean Stephen I don't know if you want to elaborate on or not I'm happy to but I think it's that piece around the logic and everything else that is h like that is encaptured in SAP is way way more important than the fact that like oh this data just happens to be in this database >> there's a reason why also SAP like takes
18:33you know multiple years to implement and get it's not because like oh you know yes the system integrators are slow and part of it but it's it's customized to the way that business actually operates. Um, and I think that's like an important part about why you can't just obscure away the software completely from and and turn it into a data database plus APIs. Yeah, >> this it's just so important because this
18:57is one of the things where like startups look at enterprise software and they think about it in terms of startup scale and so they take something like mundane like expense reporting and like okay well we have 40 people and like you know one person could figure out expense reports for 40 people like you you could hire a human and that and be done with it. that like literally you come back
19:19from a trip, you dump the receipts in a bucket and one human rifles through them and the expense reporting problem goes away. Or you say, "Oh, forget the human. We'll just all take pictures of our receipts and OCR it and categorize it and the whole thing will go away." And and that's fine until you have a h 100,000 people in 20 countries with different national laws and policies
19:41about business expense and all of those and then you overlay corporate policies and and the whole thing just and then your business is just codified that way and it and you can't replace it. You back in the um in the late 1990s who now is sort of the godfather of enterprise software Larry Ellison at Oracle. back then they were only a database company and entering the world of Netswuite and
20:04ERP and all this but he went on a rant he a multi-year rant about how enterprise software was so stupid because everybody customized it and he had this saying that just said businesses should just stick with the 80% solution and they should just use whatever works like 80% of the time and most enterprise people were like well a you're just talking your book because your software only does 80% of what I