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AI changed how code gets written. The friction stayed.
Developers report the same high levels of friction that have shaped software delivery for years, and only 28% feel noticeably less of it since AI.
Atlassian's State of Developer Experience Report 2026 surveyed 1,500+ software practitioners to find where that friction comes from.
On November 9, an expert panel discusses what to do about it.
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Here’s what charging more looks like next to charging less:
Nvidia sells things in very high demand, that you can’t get anywhere else - so it charges astronomical prices.
Walmart sells things in very high demand, that you can get everywhere - so it charges “everyday low prices”.
Walmart has 2.1M employees.
Nvidia has 42,000.
Walmart is the 2nd largest company in the world, by revenue (after Amazon).
It sells 3x what Nvidia does.
But - Nvidia keeps 18x the profit per $100:
→ Walmart keeps $3.07 of every $100.
→ Nvidia keeps $55.60.
Walmart made $22B profit on $713B of sales.
Nvidia made $120B on $216B of sales.
Exercise for you: take your profit, divide it by revenue, multiply by $100.
Where would you land on this chart?
QUICK POLL
Could your customers buy what you sell from someone else?
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RABBIT HOLE
High-signal resources to learn more
Every industry's margin, in one spreadsheet - Aswath Damodaran's January 2026 dataset, so you can tell whether 3% is bad or just normal.
Why Nvidia gives its products away - our breakdown of Nvidia's gifting strategy, and what you can learn from it.
Can Big Tech keep these margins? - Visual Capitalist on how $785B of hyperscaler capex this year could start to squeeze the top of this ranking.
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Data source for today's Screenshot: Fortune Global 500 (2026)
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See you tomorrow for edition #6, the last one this week.
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