Alex Rampell

So I don't know.

I

is in 2025, the ability to go create a software product is so easy.

I published this chart with the help of my friend, ChatGPT, of how long it took VisiCalc, which was the first spreadsheet that came out in 1979, to lose to Lotus 1.2.3, and then how long it took Lotus 1.2.3 to lose to Microsoft.

And it took about five years from VisiCalc to go from 100% market share, because they were 100% market share, because they were the only one in the first, to 50% market share.

It took about 15 years after that for Lotus, which had 70% market share in 1986 or something, to almost zero.

This would normally take a long time.

In 2025, this can take weeks.

which is bonkers, right?

Because all of these layers of past innovation have kind of like almost like a Russian nesting doll kind of concentrically grown against each other.

So because you have cloud and because you have mobile, everybody in the world has a smartphone in their pocket.

All of those smartphones are connected to like, you know, infinite computing in the cloud or near infinite computing with like a dearth of energy in the cloud.

And now I build something marginally better.

I

I can get into the hands of a billion people overnight.

And that's just so, so different.

But I think on the hostages point, if you build a system of record, right, like it's just so hard to switch.

That has not changed.

But now I can go compete.

I could build a software product in like two weeks that would have taken me two years.