For the past two decades, if you wanted to build a technology company, you needed engineers. Great ones. Lots of them. Expensive ones.
Engineering was the moat. It was the reason Google could do what Google does. The reason startups raised millions before shipping a single line of code. The reason "we need to hire more engineers" was the answer to almost every problem.
That era is ending.
Growing up in the 90s, the mall was the center of the universe. It wasn't just where you bought sneakers; it was where you hung out, went to the movies, and felt the pulse of the world. Then, almost overnight, the "Retail Apocalypse" happened. Amazon didn't just offer more books; it offered a fundamentally different way to consume.
Lately, I've been getting that same eerie feeling about the software industry. If you look closely, the parallels are everywhere.
SaaS is becoming the new mall. And AI is our Amazon.
