Outgrowing Software

Benedict Evans argues that software has already «eaten the world». Software comes and changes markets, but in the end it is people in book, music etc. industry that have to resolve futures challenges - not computer scientists. The same therefore goes for medicine and digital health.

Ten years ago Marc Andreessen wrote an article in the WSJ called ‘Software is eating the world’, arguing that there was a fundamental shift in the role that software plays in the economy. In the past, IBM, Oracle or Microsoft sold technology to other companies, as a tool. They sold computers and software to GE, P&G and Citibank. Now there’s a generation of companies that both create software and use it themselves to enter another industry, and often to change it.