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Don’t Build Software
An unorthodox but whole-hearted message to all C-level people everywhere.
Software is eating the world. — Marc Andreessen, “Why Software Is Eating the World” (2011)
In business, survival is neither guaranteed, nor mandatory.
Does your organizational strategy clearly include the production of novel software and realizing value through it? No? Don’t build software.
Is your market de facto software? No? Don’t build software.
Do you have a current strategy that kind of implies the production of new software? Refine it, and slant towards not building software. If you can avoid it, then don’t build software.
Did a consultancy firm say you should be making software? Fuck them. Don’t build software.
Is your payroll full of consultants (not even your own employees) making software? Fire them right now. Don’t build software.
Do you have a lot of people in your organization who know how to write software? Unless you also have the strategy to support software as a first-grade part of your business, go ahead and fire them. Don’t build software. And don’t worry about them, as there are still lots of businesses that are building software and making money from it, unlike yours.
Are you struggling with transforming your IT (or similar) departments for better alignment and agility in terms of digital/software production? Don’t be a sorry and impoverished victim of Conway’s Law—abort the transformation program, as you won’t be building any more software.
Do you ever feel like maybe, just maybe, the folks lower down in the hierarchy, in middle management and Business, never really got the hang of software and how it fundamentally differs from traditional industry and manufacturing? Don’t worry anymore, there is no more software being built in your organization.
Software as liability
The answer for software (in terms of quantity) is not more, it is less. All code (and hence, software) is a liability. Every system, line of code, implementation, and unknown detail, is like one more of those pesky child regents in Game of Thrones that are just waiting to murder you in…
