Summary
Cloud companies should be seen as “safe” investments. They aren’t subject trade wars and they help companies cut costs in times of recessions. Perhaps this will be the last recession where people sell-off tech companies (Long Term Winners).
Net retention rates are a good measure to understand a recurring cloud business. In a questionable macro economy, you might expect them to go down. As investment dries up at the series A and series B stage, startups will fail and die, and they are often the customers of these cloud companies (Cloud Defence).
She looks for “micro-trends” - areas which stands to growth and then companies in those that stand to benefit. Is net retention a useful measure? Yes, because it tells you how effective a business is in growing from its existing customer base. Investors should pay attention to developer moves - they are bottom up decision-makers at companies who drive product adoption (e.g. Twilio). (How To Invest in Tech).