The thesis was born among software startups, returned to the Brazilian agenda in 2026 and still needs an uncomfortable question: does it hold for every kind of work?
It means charging for the outcome delivered, not for the tool the client has to learn to operate. The thesis took shape in 2023 with Sarah Tavel and returned to the Brazilian agenda in 2026 through Exame magazine. XALQ applies it where it is hardest and most valuable: to the decision, not the task.
On August 21, 2023, Sarah Tavel published the article AI startups: sell work, not software. The argument starts from a simple observation: for 25 years, application software promised productivity, and per-seat pricing was benchmarked against the salary of whoever used the tool.
With language models, the math changes. Instead of selling a tool that improves a lawyer's productivity by around 10%, it is possible to deliver the finished work. Her example is EvenUp, which delivers demand packages in personal injury cases. Price stops being compared with software and starts being compared with the cost of outsourced labor.
She proposes a viability test: if international outsourcing providers already serve that market, automation probably applies. And she leaves a warning that is often forgotten: selling work alone is not enough. Without a defensible barrier, margin erodes.
In issue 1289 of Exame, dated July 30, 2026, Florian Hagenbuch, founder of Loft, revisits the thesis in the version attributed to Julien Bek of Sequoia Capital: the next trillion-dollar company would be a software company disguised as a service provider. The underlying idea is the same as Tavel's: nobody wants the tool, they want the outcome.
The article adds two things. The first is a distinction that matters: intelligence is the task with rules, such as reviewing a contract or debugging code; judgment is the decision that depends on experience, such as what to build and when to ignore the rule. The second is the Brazilian context: high regulatory complexity, expensive specialized labor and historically low SaaS adoption. According to the author, the metric that separates one business from the other is gross margin: selling work at 80% is fundamentally different from selling work at 30%.
Tavel's test works well for intelligence: a task with rules, volume and pattern, where an outsourcing provider already exists to be replaced. It does not work the same way for judgment. There is no off-the-shelf outsourcer for deciding what to kill on the roadmap, how much risk a services operation carries or which number a sales director can defend in front of the board.
This is the territory XALQ occupies. Decision Work is not software disguised as a service. It is a senior Business Specialist, with 30+ years of experience, amplified by applied intelligence, delivering the decision on cadence and signing by name. XALQ adopts the principle of the thesis, selling the work, without adopting the model of the startups that originated it.
What remains is the uncomfortable part, which Tavel already pointed out: without a defensible barrier, selling work becomes a commodity. Our barrier is not proprietary technology nobody can reach. It is the named team and the depth that accumulates cycle after cycle. It is a bet, and it has to be proven client by client.
How much of what your company buys in technology requires your team to learn to operate it before it generates results?
Who signs, by name, the decision that reaches the board?
If the vendor disappeared tomorrow, what would still be standing in your operation?
Sarah Tavel published the article AI startups: sell work, not software on August 21, 2023. In 2026, Exame revisited the idea, in the version attributed to Julien Bek of Sequoia Capital, according to the article by Florian Hagenbuch.
According to Exame, intelligence is the task with rules, such as reviewing a contract or debugging code. Judgment is the decision based on experience, such as what to build and when to ignore a rule. Judgment is where XALQ operates.
No. Decision Work is the work of senior Business Specialists, amplified by applied intelligence, delivered on cadence and signed by name. XALQ sells neither software nor unoperated capacity.