Welcome to my newsletter!

If you're applying to CSM roles right now, the bar shifted last quarter, and nobody told you.

The "trusted advisor" CSM is becoming the "AI-orchestrated revenue manager." That's not a buzzword. It's how hiring managers I talk to are rewriting their JDs.

Here's what's actually changing:

• Old CS role: build the relationship, run the QBR, save the renewal
• New CS role: own NRR, interpret AI signals, design plays, and tell an ROI story a CFO will believe

That's a real bar raise. It's why entry-level CS seats are getting harder to land. Generic "I'm passionate about customers" cover letters are getting filtered out before a human reads them.

But here's the part nobody is saying out loud.

The career-pivoters who break in RIGHT NOW have a generational advantage.

Because you're entering the role AI-native. You don't have 10 years of "we've always done it this way" muscle memory to unlearn. You're learning the new motion as the only motion.

The CSMs getting hired in 2026 aren't the ones with the longest CS resumes. They're the ones who can show up with three things:

• One specific account they'd protect, with a real ROI story
• One AI play they'd run, with the prompt and signal logic
• One commercial number they'd own (NRR, GRR, expansion)

That's it. That's the new interview.

I sit on both sides of this. I've built and scaled CS teams at hyper-growth startups for over a decade, and I coach career-changers into those exact roles every week.

The pattern is the same: the people who land offers study the role as it is in 2026, not as it was in 2022.

If you're still applying online and waiting, you're competing for the old version of the job. The new version needs a different pitch, a different conversation, and a different story.

Know someone still applying online to CSM roles and hearing nothing back? Forward this to them. The job they're applying for in 2026 isn't the job they're imagining.

The window to break in is open right now. Don't wait until it's harder.

P.S. Five years from now, the career-pivoters who broke in this year will realize they got into the role at the moment it was being rewritten. That's how generational career advantages get built. Quietly, while everyone else is still preparing for the old version.

Know someone still applying online to CSM roles and hearing nothing back? Forward this to them. The job they're applying for in 2026 isn't the job they're imagining.

What I'm listening to

​Mo Gawdat spent 12 years at Google, wrote Scary Smart, and now predicts 12–15 years of disruption before things get better. In this episode, he breaks down the 7 forces already reshaping jobs and power, and why 23–30% of new grad hiring has collapsed, and what that means for YOU!