Startup Hacks · 9 September 2026 · Operating Insight

On moats and barriers to entry

Alex Iskold

Data moats and switching costs remain durable competitive advantages in the AI era—especially in enterprise systems of record—despite claims that moats are dead. The barrier to entry has dropped for horizontal tooling, but domain-specific software with embedded workflows and complex data dependencies remains defensible.

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Topics: Enterprise Software · AI (Horizontal)

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