Software Is the New Oil • Hacker News Board

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#21

Post by kfk » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #11

kfk wrote: post #8

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. I…

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 reachi…

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.

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#22

Post by tacos » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

And posts like this are why I hold shares of Berkshire Hathaway instead of Tumblr.

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#23

Post by eddd » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

sharemywin wrote: post #10

eddd wrote: post #5

Difference between oil and software is that you can easily quantify oil (1 barrel) whereas it is tremendously hard to quantify the value of software product.

most companies pay by the click.

Well, curl -X POST http:/click.it/pay_me sounds easier than fueling a car.

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#24

Post by dlsx » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:39 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #19

I'm not convinced by this blog post that "software" is the new oil. To me, it's the top talent of "software PROGRAMMERS" that's the "oil". Let's pretend that Google Inc opensourced their entire software stack. Now, anyone can just spend money on hardware and datacenters and "replicate" what Google does in a certain sense. But did you really duplicate their abilities? Would intelligent and visionary investors fund suc…

Lol, Google can do what it did with Isreali programmers, you think the brightest minds are in college?

Wake up man, please. College is an institution where creativity goes to die. Google's best employees never went to college. I'm talking about the people who make a difference.

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#25

Post by dlsx » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:41 PM UTC

tacos wrote: post #22

And posts like this are why I hold shares of Berkshire Hathaway instead of Tumblr.

Take your pills gramps.

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#26

Post by sharky93 » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:43 PM UTC

I feel 'data' or rather big data is the new oil. There are big monopolies which control a lot of it and are trying to make sense out of it, the likes of Amazon, Google, Palantir et. al. and similarly there are companies like ExxonMobil in the energy sphere. We could in fact extend this analogy to smaller players in the renewable energy zone which are trying to make better qualitative use of their resources and similarly you will find small startups trying to make qualitative sense out of whatever lesser data they have but with niche applications.

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#27

Post by rm_-rf_slash » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:48 PM UTC

sharky93 wrote: post #26

I feel 'data' or rather big data is the new oil. There are big monopolies which control a lot of it and are trying to make sense out of it, the likes of Amazon, Google, Palantir et. al. and similarly there are companies like ExxonMobil in the energy sphere. We could in fact extend this analogy to smaller players in the renewable energy zone which are trying to make better qualitative use of their resources and simila…

The difference between data and oil is that you aren't going to drive to the oilfields one morning and find that it's all been hacked and stolen. Data is collected. Oil is sold.

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#28

Post by mathgeek » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

"Facebook could have $20bn of cash in the next year and could be producing $20bn of cash a year soon."

Came here hoping to find a "Facebook could..." line when talking about revenue. Was not disappointed. :)

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#29

Post by hathym » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:54 PM UTC

kfk wrote: post #8

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. I…

None of the above can run without software

Re: Software Is the New Oil

#30

Post by myth_buster » Tue, Oct 27, 2015, 1:56 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #12

jofer wrote: post #3

If software is the new oil, be prepared for a wild ride. The oil industry is notorious for decade-scale cycles of over-hiring and then layoffs and under-hiring, rinse-lather-repeat. Regardless, it's a good analogy, but be careful how far you take it. There's a _very_ important difference between the energy and other major industries. It's a difference that the software industry shares, but in the opposite extreme: Th…

"If software is the new oil, be prepared for a wild ride. The oil industry is notorious for decade-scale cycles of over-hiring and then layoffs and under-hiring, rinse-lather-repeat." We've already been through one. We may be on the high side of another right now. I think the mechanisms are sufficiently different from the oil world that comparisons aren't too helpful, though; the presence of some form of negative fee…

  I'm not sure that we're in a "bubble" in the 1999 sense 
  that people worry about,

I think the scale may be different but we definitely are in an artificially stimulated economy. The effects will only be seen post Fed's interest rate hike. And the way they are shying away from doing so makes me feel that the market is not ready to stomach that.

The access to cheap money has brought in a lot of players into the market who otherwise would have been sidelined. I think it's not only evident in the startup/unicorn sector but quite so in the building/construction sector as well. I see all around me skyscrapers & apartment complexes being built in an unprecedented rate and people buying half a million dollar+ houses where quarter of a million was too high (as you can see I'm not in Cal).