More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services - from movies to agriculture to national defense.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the increasing reliance on software and online services across various industries.
Marc Andreessen's quote emphasizes the transformative impact of software on industries and businesses in our modern economy. It underscores how essential digital infrastructure has become, driving innovation and efficiency across sectors such as entertainment, agriculture, and even national security, illustrating the pervasive role of technology in shaping contemporary society.
In practice
This quote would be great to use during a technology conference to emphasize the importance of software in today's economy.
People are so bad at driving cars that computers don't have to be that good to be much better. Any time you stand in line at the D.M.V. and look around, you're like, Oh, my God, I wish all these people were replaced by computer drivers.
It's really rare for people to have a successful start-up in this industry without a breakthrough product. I'll take it a step further. It has to be a radical product. It has to be something where, when people look at it, at first they say, 'I don't get it, I don't understand it. I think it's too weird, I think it's too unusual.'
Entrepreneurs say in an economic boom it's actually hard to build a company because everybody's too excited and there is too much money funding too many marginal companies.
I love what the Valley does. I love company building. I love startups. I love technology companies. I love new technology. I love this process of invention. Being able to participate in that as a founder and a product creator, or as an investor or a board member, I just find that hugely satisfying.
China is very entrepreneurial but has no rule of law. Europe has rule of law but isn't entrepreneurial. Combine rule of law, entrepreneurialism and a generally pro-business policy, and you have Apple.
An awful lot of successful technology companies ended up being in a slightly different market than they started out in.
Nintendo is a company of Kyoto craftsmen, and what we don't want to do is, if we know we can make something better, we don't want to leave that behind.
Here I am, ninety years old and ready for the cooling board, using a brand new Macintosh computer, and there you sit, twenty-two and gorgeous, fresh as a new peach, yet scrawling on a yellow legal pad like an old maid in a Victorian romance.
From now on, the technology companies that succeed will be those that have developed skills at listening and a sophisticated understanding of their customers' industries.
Because primarily of the power of the Internet, people of modest means can band together and amass vast sums of money that can change the world for some public good if they all agree.
... the Kindle is a "roach motel" device: its license terms and DRM ensure that books can check in, but they can't check out.
Holding back technology to reserve business models is like allowing blacksmiths to veto the internal combustion engine in order to protect their horseshoes.
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