Why Software Is Eating The World
By MARC ANDREESSEN
The Wall Street Journal: EssayAUGUST 20, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460.html

Opinions

"We believe that many of the prominent new Internet companies are building real, high-growth, high-margin, highly defensible businesses ."

"My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy."

"Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software."

"Six decades into the computer revolution, four decades since the invention of the microprocessor, and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale."

"On the back end, software programming tools and Internet-based services make it easy to launch new global software-powered start-ups in many industries—without the need to invest in new infrastructure and train new employees"

Examples:

• "the world's largest bookseller, Amazon, is a software company—its core capability is its amazing software engine for selling virtually everything online,"
• "Today's largest video service by number of subscribers is a software company:"
• "Today's dominant music companies are software companies, too: Apple's iTunes, Spotify and Pandora."
• "Today's largest direct marketing platform is a software company—Google"
• "LinkedIn is today's fastest growing recruiting company."

Challenges:

"Companies in every industry need to assume that a software revolution is coming.

"Over the next 10 years, the battles between incumbents and software- powered insurgents will be epic. Joseph Schumpeter, the economist who coined the term "creative destruction," would be proud."

"Qualified software engineers, managers, marketers and salespeople in Silicon Valley can rack up dozens of high-paying, high-upside job offers any time they want, while national unemployment and underemployment is sky high."