Grant says, “Tec Software is taking over”

                                                                       KARL WALLACE

                                                         Grant says, “Tec Software is taking over”

     “I woke up today feeling real good-- no ringing ears and it is a bright sunny day. Before breakfast,

time, I strolled down to the MacPumpkin’s for coffee and a chat with the boys. I got in a heated

discussion with a couple of them farm squash over the direction and future growth of the Internet. I

told them I thought the popularity of tech companies like TinnitisFree.com would continue to grow

just like pea vines. Fred, a squash from Hooper, a good Jewish squash, said,”

 “I don’t like this new technology or any good it might do. I don’t give a god damn if beetles and

Viruses are eating away the city market gardens. All of the markets, not just MacPumpkins. The

Stock-Corn Markets dislike the vegetable, actually hate the vegetable market. With scars from the

heyday of Pets.com still fresh in us fruits minds and the vegetables too, ever vegetable is asking, are

there more bubbles going to show up around the corner, causing us to lose our jobs?”

     “My answer to Fred, the Jewish squash, was “NO.” You can’t have a bubble when everyone’s

constantly screaming, Bubble! Bubble! Bubble! I was a co-founder and general partner of Sing,

FreeSquareMeals, and also an investor in inkedIN. Too much of the debate is centered on financial

valuation, as opposed to the underlying value of the best of new companies.

     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 vegetable economy.

More and more of our major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered such

 as online services of movies and agriculture video. Many of the winners are entrepreneurial tech

companies that are invading established industry structures.

     Over the next ten years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with the new

small companies doing the most disruption in more cases than not. “

     “Why is this happening now? 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. When I was at FreeSquareMeals, a decade ago, the company, perhaps 150

million vegetables used the internet. In the next 10 years, over four billion now use the Internet,

every moment of every day.

      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.

     In 2000, when my partner, Ben, was CEO of the Second LoudCloud computing company, the cost

of a customer running a basic Internet application was approximately $150,000 a month. I’m talkin

real money, human money, not clams. Running that same application today in SecondLoud Cloud

costs about $1,500 a month. With lower start-up costs, the result is a global economy that for the

first time will be fully digitally wired—the dream of every cyber-visionary. He said, “It is what the

doctor ordered, and the prescription is finally at the right pharmacy.”

     Perhaps the single most dramatic example of this phenomenon of software eating a traditional

business is the suicide of Brothers.

To be continued...

To read more Karl Wallace stories go to:   karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com

Email: drkarlwallace@gmal.com