By Saeed Khan
A couple of months back, Mark Andreesen had an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “How Software is Eating the World“. If you haven’t read it, you should. There’s nothing earth shattering in it, particularly if you work in technology, but Andreesen gives a lot of good context and examples for his argument.
In short he says, if you look around, software is becoming ubiquitous in everything we do. Music, books, entertainment, photography, marketing/advertising, telecom, retail, financial services, health care, education etc. etc. are all being reshaped and reinvented via software. And this change is happening around the world, with new companies and startups emerging to take on and displace established giants.
Andreesen lists 3 challenges that face these companies:
- These new companies face strong economic headwinds. The economies of countries world wide are weak right now. But, companies born in this climate that can find success are going to be strong and well position to grow faster once the economy rebounds.
- Many people who are NOT literate in high tech – engineers, marketers, managers etc. — are likely to be marginalized in the future. While Silicon Valley is booming, much of the rest of the United States is unemployed or underemployed. Education is the only way to address this problem.
- These new companies must prove themselves. “They need to build strong cultures, delight their customers, establish their own competitive advantage and justify their rising valuations. No one should expect building a new high-growth, software powered company in an established industry to be easy. It’s brutally difficult.”
I’ve quoted Andreesen directly for the 3rd point because what he describes there, particularly in the first sentence relates directly to the focus on Product Management. And of course, add this to the words of Bill Campbell, and the future looks bright for us….if we can get our act together and lead the way!
Saeed
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