Software is devouring the whole world, with the trend of the times and the fear of thinking carefully.

On August 21st, Beijing time, Marc Andreessen, the founder of Netscape and a famous investor in Silicon Valley, recently published an article entitled "Software is Swallowing the Whole World" in the Wall Street Journal, saying that today's software applications are ubiquitous and swallowing the whole world. This article analyzes the current development trend and reasons of science and technology industry, and finally concludes that "this is a great opportunity, and I know where to invest my money".

The following is the full text of this article:

This week, Hewlett-Packard (I am a director of the company's board of directors) announced that it would give up the PC business that is currently struggling and devote itself to the software business that it believes has greater growth potential. At the same time, Google announced the acquisition of mobile phone manufacturer Motorola Mobility. Both of them shocked the world of science and technology, but they were also in line with the development trend I have observed for a long time. Despite the current stock market downturn, this trend makes me optimistic about the future growth of the US and the world economy.

in short, software is eating up the whole world.

more than 1 years after the bursting of the Internet bubble in 199s, many new Internet companies such as Facebook and Twitter have emerged, and their rapidly increasing valuations in the secondary market and some even successfully conducted IPOs are causing heated discussions in Silicon Valley. The collapse of Webvan and Pets.com is still fresh in the memory of investors. Faced with today's situation, people can't help but ask: "Is the new bubble back?"

I and others have always held the opposite view. I am the co-founder and chief partner of Andreessen-Horowitz, a Silicon Valley venture capital company, which has invested in Facebook, Groupon, Skype, Twitter, Zynga, Foursquare and many other companies. I am also a LinkedIn individual investor. We believe that many rising stars of Internet companies are creating real, high-growth, high-profit and highly defensive enterprises.

At present, the capital market is not keen on technology companies, and the P/E ratio of some major listed technology companies is unprecedentedly low. For example, Apple has huge profit potential and occupies a dominant market position. In the past two weeks, its market value has surpassed ExxonMobil to become the largest company in the United States, but its P/E ratio is only 15.2, which is equivalent to the stock market. Perhaps the most telling thing is that when everyone is screaming "new bubbles", bubbles don't actually appear.

However, at present, too much debate revolves around the valuation of the best new companies in Silicon Valley, rather than the intrinsic value of these companies. In my opinion, we are in an exciting and extensive technological and economic transformation, and software companies will play a major role in the economy.

More and more large enterprises and industries will be inseparable from software, and network services will be everywhere, from movies, agriculture to national defense. Many winners will be Silicon Valley-style innovative technology companies, which have invaded and overthrew the established industry structure. In the next decade, I expect that more industries will be disintegrated by software, and the emerging Silicon Valley companies will become the main promoters of this trend.

why is this happening now?

the computer revolution 6 years ago, the invention of microprocessor 4 years ago, and the rise of the Internet 2 years ago, all these technologies finally changed various industries through software and were widely promoted around the world.

more than 2 billion people have access to broadband Internet now. Ten years ago, I was working in Netscape, which I co-founded. At that time, the global population using broadband Internet was only 5 million. In the next decade, I predict that there will be at least 5 billion smartphone users in the world, and everyone will be able to connect with each other in real time through their mobile phones, so as to achieve every moment of every day.

At the terminal, software programming tools and Internet-based services in many industries will make it easy to create new global software startups without investing in new infrastructure and training new employees. In 2, when my partner Ben Horowitz was the CEO of Loudcloud, the first cloud computing company, the monthly cost of a customer running a basic Internet application was about $15,, but now the monthly cost of running the same basic Internet application in Amazon is only about $1,5.

With the reduction of start-up costs and the huge market demand for network services, the global economy will be digitized for the first time, which was the dream of every network dreamer in the early 199s. Now, with the efforts of a generation, this dream has come true.

Perhaps one of the most dramatic examples that software is devouring traditional industries is the demise of Borders and the rise of Amazon. In 21, Borders agreed to hand over its online business to Amazon because it thought online book sales were non-strategic and insignificant.

Now, Amazon, the largest bookseller in the world, is a software company. The core strength of the company is its amazing software engine, which enables all goods to be sold online, and physical retail stores become unnecessary. In addition, when Borders was heading for bankruptcy, Amazon revised its website, pushing its Kindle e-book sales to surpass physical books for the first time. Now, even books themselves have become software.

Netflix, the largest video service website in terms of the number of users today, is a software company. How Netflix pushed Blockbuster into bankruptcy is an old story, but now other traditional entertainment providers are also facing the threat of the same period. Comcast, time warner Inc. and other companies are all adapting to the times and transforming themselves into software companies. The service concept of "TV Everywhere" put forward by Comcast and time warner Inc. releases the content from the cable and connects it with smart phones and tablets.

Today, the music companies that dominate are also software companies: Apple's iTunes, Spotify and Pandora. Traditional record companies rely more and more on providing content to those software companies to survive. The music industry's revenue from digital channels totaled 4.6 billion dollars in 21, accounting for 29% of the total revenue of the whole music industry, while in 24 it was only 2%.

The fastest growing entertainment company today is the video game developer, and it is still a software company. The market size of video game industry was only $3 billion five years ago, but now it has grown to $6 billion. The fastest growing video game company is Zynga (which is the developer of the Facebook platform game FarmVille), and Zynga develops all online games. Zynga's revenue in the first quarter increased to $235 million, double the same period last year. Rovio, the developer of the online game Angry Birds, is expected to earn more than $1 million this year (the company was close to bankruptcy when it launched the popular game Angry Birds for iPhone in late 29). At the same time, the revenue of traditional video game developers such as Electronic Arts in the United States and Nintendo in Japan is in a dilemma of stagnation and decline.

Pixar, the best new film production company in decades, is a software company. Disney acquired this software company in order to maintain its position in the animated film market.

Of course, photography has been swallowed up by software for a long time. It is impossible to buy a mobile phone in the market without a software-driven camera, and photos can be automatically uploaded to the Internet for permanent storage and can be enjoyed worldwide. Companies like Shutterfly, Snapfish and Flickr have invaded Kodak's territory.

The biggest direct selling platform today is the software company Google. Now, Groupon, LivingSocial, Foursquare and other companies have joined this platform, and these companies are using software to devour the retail industry. In 21, Groupon's revenue exceeded $7 million, and the company was established only two years ago.

The fastest growing telecom company today is Skype, a software company just acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. CenturyLink, the third largest telecommunications company in the United States, has a market value of US$ 2 billion and 15 million users as of June 3, but its revenue is shrinking by 7% every year. Excluding the revenue generated by the acquired company Qwest, CenturyLink's revenue shrank by more than 11%. At the same time, at&; T and Verizon, by transforming themselves into software companies and cooperating with Apple and other smartphone manufacturers, kept themselves alive.

LinkedIn is the fastest growing recruitment company today. For the first time, employees can maintain their resumes on LinkedIn, which enables recruiters to conduct real-time search. This service gives LinkedIn the opportunity to earn income in the recruitment market of $4 billion.

software is also devouring the value chain of many industries that are widely regarded as mainly existing in the physical world. In today's cars, software operates the engine, controls the safety function, brings entertainment to passengers, guides the driver to the destination, and connects every car with mobile devices, satellites and GPS networks. Mainly because of the use of a large number of software, car fans can repair their cars has become history, mainly through the use of software. The development trend of hybrid and electric vehicles will accelerate the transfer to software, in which electric vehicles are completely controlled by computers. Software-driven driverless cars have been developed by Google and some important car companies.

At present, Wal-Mart, the leading physical store retailer, has improved its logistics and distribution capabilities and enhanced its competitiveness by using software. The same is true of FedEx, an international express delivery group, whose trucks, planes and distribution centers constitute what is considered to be the best software network. Today and in the future, the success or failure of airlines will depend on their ability to correctly price air tickets, optimize routes and profits with software.

Oil and gas companies are early innovators in supercomputer, data visualization and analysis industries, which are crucial to today's oil and gas exploration achievements. Agriculture is also increasingly driven by software, including satellite analysis of soil, which involves software algorithms for seed selection per mu.

the financial services industry has obviously been changed by software in the past 3 years. Almost every financial transaction, from someone buying a cup of coffee to someone trading a $1 trillion credit default swap, is done through software. Many leading innovators in the financial services industry are software companies, such as Square, which enables anyone to accept credit card payments with their mobile phones. Such companies include Paypal, whose revenue reached $1 billion in the second quarter of this year, an increase of 31% over the same period last year.

in my opinion, the health care and education industries will then make a fundamental change to software. My venture capital company is supporting some good start-ups in these two huge and important industries. We believe that these two industries, which are historically resistant to change, are ready to be subverted by great software-centered entrepreneurs.

even the Ministry of national defense of a country is increasingly using software. Modern combat soldiers have been incorporated into the software network, thus obtaining information, communication, logistics and weapons guidance. Software-driven drones can carry out air attacks, avoiding the danger of human driving. Intelligence agencies use software to collect large-scale data, discover and track possible terrorist secrets.

companies in every industry must be prepared for the coming of the software revolution, even those industries that have a software foundation today. The outstanding software companies such as Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Microsoft are increasingly threatened by new software products such as Salesforce.com and Android due to related problems.

in some industries, especially those with deep physical world components like oil and gas, the software revolution will be an important opportunity for existing companies. However, in many industries, new software concepts will lead to the rise of Silicon Valley-style start-up companies, which will aggressively invade existing industries. In the next decade, the competition between existing companies and software-driven start-ups will become fierce. Joseph Schumpeter, a famous economist who put forward the theory of "creative destruction", will be proud of it.

However, people who have watched the changes in their pensions in the past few weeks may be skeptical, especially about the view that it will have a positive effect on the American economy. It is no accident that many large-scale technology companies, including Google, Amazon and eBay, are American enterprises. Excellent research universities, adventurous corporate culture, abundant innovative capital and reliable business and contract law make us unprecedented and unparalleled in the world.

however, we face several major challenges.

firstly, every new company in the start-up stage is facing huge economic headwinds, which makes the challenges it faces far greater than those in the early 199s. The good news of starting a company at this time is that success will be extremely powerful and adaptable. When the economy finally stabilizes, the growth of excellent new companies will be faster.

Secondly, many people in the United States and around the world lack the education and skills necessary to join the new companies emerging from the software revolution. This is a disaster. Every company I have worked for is absolutely short of talents. Competent software engineers, managers, marketers and salespeople can always find the high positions and high salaries they want in Silicon Valley even when the unemployment rate in the United States is high. This problem is even worse than it looks, because many workers in some industries have gone astray in the software revolution and may never turn back. Only education can solve this problem, and we still have a long way to go.

finally, the new company needs to prove its value. They must build a strong culture, make their customers happy and build their own competition.