software-economics
The Day the Tools Got a Wallet
For a long time the deal with software was simple. It told you things. You did them. The spreadsheet ran the numbers; you decided what to buy. The map showed the route; you turned the wheel. The line between knowing and doing stayed clean, and the machine stayed on the knowing side of it. This…
When Making Things Gets Cheap, the Money Runs to What Can’t Be Faked
Seventy-five billion dollars. That is what SpaceX raised this week, the largest public offering anyone has ever recorded. Not a valuation, not a paper number — actual capital, handed over, in exchange for a slice of a company that builds and lands rockets. It is a strange amount to absorb in a single sitting. It…
The Fight Moved to the Doorway
A space-and-AI conglomerate priced its public debut at $135 a share today, and the number is almost the least interesting thing about it. The headlines will fixate on the valuation, the rockets, the founder. But strip all that away and what’s actually being sold to the public is a position — ownership of a surface…
The Customer Stops Being Human
This week a crypto exchange did something quietly strange. Coinbase shipped a tool that lets AI agents — software, not people — trade crypto and move money on a user’s behalf. You set the rules, hand over a wallet, and step back. The program does the buying. Read the press release and it sounds like…
Five Dollars for the Future
Google quietly dropped the price of its AI Plus plan from $7.99 to $4.99 this week, and doubled the storage on the way down. Three dollars off, twice the room. It is the kind of move that looks like generosity and is actually a confession. You do not cut the price of something scarce. You…
The S-1 Is a Confession
A company that spent years being the loudest thing in technology just did the quietest possible thing. OpenAI filed for its IPO confidentially — paperwork submitted in a way the public isn’t meant to read yet. There’s a small irony in that. The organization that taught the world to expect a demo every quarter is…