[kfk]

And yet when you look at it, the biggest opportunities to create immense value added are on the hardware side of things: self driving cars, pharma (aging, cancer, etc.), robotics, batteries, power generation, interstellar expeditions, bringing billions of people out of poverty, etc.

I don't want to be dismissive, but the software industry might very well go through and M&A and commodification phase once it matures. It looks like oil now because those companies are big monopolies, will it last? I don't know, I wouldn't put all my assets in software, that's a bad idea in general anyway,

[pjc50]

self driving cars, pharma (aging, cancer, etc.), robotics, ... , power generation, interstellar expeditions

All of those involve very large software elements, and benefit from software innovation.

It's quite plausible that the existing winners are at the top of their ramp, so buying in today at high p/e might not be a good bet. But all the unicorn investing is betting on new software companies coming along and reaching ascendency.

[kfk]

Excluding maybe self driving cars (maybe), I doubt that the core capability needed to drive the innovation in the above is software. I mean, that's like saying metal is everywhere in those industries. Of course it is, but it's also a commodity because it's easy enough to be produced by many competitors. I don't see software as so complex that few companies can keep the monopoly.

[pjc50]

I didn't downvote you, but I disagree strongly. Software is both the most complex and skilled-labour-intensive thing that humanity has produced, and something that needs to be individually commissioned for any kind of real business edge. And it's supply constrained; that's why we're paid better than most of the non-finance economy.

You can't just go down and pump another few thousand barrels of raw software into your Strategic Software Reserve.

[kfk]

It's really not, it's now because few things are relatively new, it wont be like this forever. Building a rocket, a plane, a car factory, it's way more complex.

[hathym]

None of the above can run without software

[prostoalex]

Sure, but the debate is about software as critical value generator versus software as a cost center.

It's like starting with observation that no business nowadays can run without email, and therefore building an email client and a server for business is the way to make it big in the software industry.