Chris Dixon: Software phagocytosis Software development

Software is devouring the world, and the teams that devour the world are getting smaller. WhatsApp only dozens of engineers to subvert the global SMS business. Small teams can make such a big impact, thanks to the rapid development of software development and deployment technologies in recent decades. Notable improvements include the following:

Infrastructure: Ten years ago, deploying a business site required a lot of upfront investment. Now, you just need to spend a few minutes to configure the virtual host. Upfront investment is basically zero, operating costs are lower than the original several orders of magnitude.

Services: Startups need only a few simple APIs to avoid complex backend development, for example, stripe can solve the problem of payment, Twilio solve communication problems, firebase provide databases, Sift science deals with fraud.

Open Source: Open source occupies all aspects of software development, including operating system (Linux), Database (MYSQL), Web Server (Apache), programming language (Python,ruby), etc. These open-source tools are not only free, but also better than many paid products.

Programming languages: Developers use languages that evolve from C to Java to the now widely used Ruby and Python. Moore's law allows us to enrich our computing resources, and we can use it to make development more efficient.

Non-programmer-specific tools: These tools enable people who are not programmed to use ready-made templates to develop software, thus reducing costs and development thresholds. Such tools include Shopify (electrical quotient), WordPress (blog), weebly (Small Business website).

Generic tools for non-programmers: Before the internet became popular, tools such as HyperCard and Visual Basic made countless unprofessional people software developers. Since then, there have been few good tools in the field, but that is about to change. By allowing more people to program, these tools have led to a further acceleration in the development of the software industry.

In the future, the demand for software development will continue to be greater than the software supply. In this case, "software devouring software development" will become an exciting area, there will be a lot of valuable startups in this field is born.