I may have missed this, but I didn't get that the article talked about every company's core business now being software.
I understood his argument to be that software developers are becoming increasingly valuable, and outsized returns will go to firms that understand this and learn how to treat software developers well to leverage what they're able to do to any industry.
...but I didn't get that the article talked about every company's core business now being software.
Here is a quote from the article where he lays out the Andreessen Hypothesis[1], and links to David Kirpatrick's article that restates that hypothesis into a format more readily grasped by business readers[2].
Which brings us to David Kirpatrick’s now famous line that every company is now a software company.
We are only just beginning to understand how software is now the core function of every company, no matter what it makes or what service it actually provides.
I have some reservations about these kinds of sweeping proclamations (which if I posted would turn into a tl;dr for most people), as they miss a lot of the nuance of the situation on the ground. That might be deliberate, as part of consulting at these guys' level is to get clients hooked on the sizzle of a catchy idea, then sell them the steak of the nuances you've worked out.
[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190348090457651... Not that Andreessen was the first to realize this of course, but he just happened to catch the news cycle with his verbalization of this observation at the right time to break into a more mainstream meme, that many in the industry already either tacitly or explicitly acknowledge.
I understood his argument to be that software developers are becoming increasingly valuable, and outsized returns will go to firms that understand this and learn how to treat software developers well to leverage what they're able to do to any industry.